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BEN # 212
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No. 212 January 13, 1999
aceska@victoria.tc.ca Victoria, B.C.
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Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2
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CHESTER PETER (CHESS) LYONS (1915-1998)
[Chess Lyons died in Hawaii on December 20, 1998 of complica-
tions from ruptured gall bladder. The following biography is an
abbreviated chapter from the book on "Plant Hunters of the
Pacific Northwest" which is being edited and prepared for publi-
cation by Arthur R. Kruckeberg. The author of Chess Lyons'
biography is Steve Cannings. Additional information was provided
by Bill Merilees, Nanaimo, B.C. Many thanks for their permission
to post these excerpts on BEN. - AC]
Chester P. Lyons is probably best known for his popular field
guides on the plants of British Columbia and Washington State.
These books have appeared in several editions since 1952 and
have been used by a wide range of outdoor people as well as
students and professionals.
"Chess" was born in 1915 near Regina, Saskatchewan and moved in
1919 to Penticton in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia
where his parents began fruit farming. He attended Penticton
schools and despite his inclination to skip out of school and
pursue his "studies" in the great outdoors, he managed to com-
plete high school without difficulty.
Chess was a high-spirited teenager, very fond of practical
jokes. Above all he was an all around outdoorsman and a keen
observer of natural history. He took every opportunity to hike
and camp-out in the hills of the local mountains. On one occa-
sion, Chess was called into the high school principal's office -
which was not too unusual - but when he saw the local game
warden, he became a little apprehensive. It turned out that a
hunter had been lost in the snow-covered hills east of town and
Chess was needed to help track him down. After an all-day search
Chess returned to report no track crossing the height-of-land. A
few weeks later the missing man was located in California. He
had hopped a freight train and made his way south across the
U.S. border.
Following high school graduation, Chess entered the University
of British Columbia in Vancouver where he studied Forest En-
gineering, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1938.
Soon after graduating from UBC, Chess joined the Forest Service
where he was engaged in surveying, reforestation and engineer-
ing. His home base was Victoria where he had resided since 1940.
In those days, Provincial Parks came under the jurisdiction of
the Forest Service and Chess soon managed to transfer to the
Park Branch where he carried out exploration and planning for
new parks. These included Manning, Tweedsmuir, Wells Grey and
Bowron Lake Parks. Near the latter park he also worked on the
restoration of the famous old gold rush town of Barkerville and
was responsible for the acquisition of many artifacts that bring
such realism to this popular heritage site.
To pursue his many projects in nature interpretation Chess took
early retirement from the government service. His book "Trees
shrubs and flowers to know in British Columbia" (and the US
version for the Washington State) became a "bible" to
"naturalists, Boy Scouts and grandmothers." It has been through
countless editions since it first appeared in 1952, and is still
in print. His skills as a plant illustrator were clearly
demonstrated in this book. A completely new and greatly expanded
edition appeared in 1995. His other "Milestone" books (Fraser
Canyon, Vancouver Island and Ogopogo Land) introduced thousands
of visitors to the local and natural history of these popular
areas.
As a film lecturer on the National Audubon Society lecture
circuit and the World Around US travel series, Chess took
British Columbia to large audiences in hundreds of North
American cities. He was also the main contributor to the popular
CBC series "Klahani - the Great Outdoors." His films brought to
public attention previously unknown areas and activities, in-
cluding hiking the West Coast Trail, the possibility of canoeing
a circuit on the Bowron Lakes and kayaking around the Broken
Islands in Barkley Sound.
Friends of Chess Lyons will gather on April 11, 1999 2:00 to
4:00 p.m. at Freeman-King Park, Victoria, to remember him.
Please feel free to attend.
Authors:
Steve Cannings, S-9, C-1, R.R. # 3, Penticton, B.C.,
Canada V2A 7K8
W.M. Merilees, 3205 Granite Park, Nanaimo, B.C.,
Canada V9T 3C8
BOTANY BC + BOT WA 1999 - MARK YOUR CALENDARS
Botanists and plant enthusiasts from British Columbia and
Washington State will meet at a joint BOTANY BC + BotWA meeting
at Cedar Beach Resort on Saltspring Island. The activities will
start on Thursday April 29 (late afternoon) and end on Sunday,
May 2, 1999. We will explore the Gulf Islands' rich spring flora
with local experts by day and have interesting talks and tom-
foolery by night. Look for details and registration forms in an
upcoming issue of BEN, and mark those days!
ST HELENA BOXWOOD - NOT EXTINCT AFTER ALL!
From: Press release, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
http://www.rbge.org.uk/news/boxwood.htm
Unseen for over 100 years, the unique St Helena Boxwood, Mellis-
sia begoniifolia (Roxb.) Hook.f. (Solanaceae), has been redis-
covered by local hiker Stedson Stroud, and taken for identifica-
tion to St Helena's Conservation Officer, Dr. Rebecca Cairns-
Wicks.
According to Dr. Quentin Cronk (RBGE), British island of St
Helena has the world's most threatened flora with over 40% of
its plants listed in the "IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants,"
including the St Helena boxwood (Mellissia begoniifolia) which
is listed as extinct.
The 862-page "IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants" is the first
world list of threatened plants. You can find it at:
http://www.wcmc.org.uk/species/plants/plant_redlist.html
Just one living St Helena Boxwood was found amongst six dead
bushes on a sea-facing slope 100 m above sea level. The plant is
suffering from an attack of mealy bugs and moth larvae and is
unlikely to survive. It is indeed fortuitous that the plant was
rediscovered just in time while it was in flower and seeding,
giving the chance for propagation material to be collected.
"So, now we wait in hope that the seeds germinate and the cut-
tings root as this is the only known plant, which could be
easily lost to drought or pests. If this happens and propagation
is unsuccessful then we will be calling St Helena boxwood ex-
tinct - this time forever," says Dr. Rebecca Cairns-Wicks, St
Helena Project Manager.
RE: OLD-GROWTH FORESTS (BEN # 211)
From: Townsley_John_J/r6pnw_okanogan@fs.fed.us
I found the estimates of "old growth" to be very interesting.
Recent work in Eastern Washington suggests that the percentage
of the landscape that was pre-settlement in an "old growth"
structure was perhaps quite different. Ann Camp who did inten-
sively sampled the 76,000 acre Swak watershed of the central
eastern Cascade Mountains, found that only a small percentage of
the landscape was in a late successional condition prior to
settlement (Camp, A.E. 1995. Predicting late-successional fire
refugia from physiography and topography. Ph.D. Dissertation.
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington). Dick Schellhaas
(in press) of the Wenatchee Forestry Sciences Lab has found
following intensive sampling of two watersheds located within
the Yakima and Entiat River Drainages that typical pre-
settlement fire return periods were on the order of 6 to 10
years. In highly dissected terrain he found no statistical
difference between the return period for north and south
aspects. He also found that since the onset of fire suppression,
fire return periods have increased in length by a factor of ten.
In Eastern Washington we have relatively few lodgepole pine
stands that survive past 120 years (the age used by MacKinnon
and Vold to define lodgepole pine old growth). In fact we
believe that prior to settlement, fire from the low lands often
came up the drainages and reset the biological clock with great
regularity.
It would be very interesting for MacKinnon and Vold to discuss
the underlying ecological reasons for such high percentages of
'old growth' forest in B.C. landscapes. Is it because the
climatic conditions seldom favor stand replacing fire? Is it
because there are few stand replacing events caused by epidemic
insect or disease? How do the topographical characteristics of
B.C. landscapes differ from the landscapes found in Eastern
Washington where research has found disturbance a frequent
visitor? Is it because they sampled existing vegetation, and not
pre-settlement vegetation, and therefore have masked the
profound influences of pre-settlement disturbance regimes?
INDEX TO AMERICAN BOTANICAL LITERATURE ON LINE
From: "Barbara M. Thiers" <bthiers@NYBG.ORG>, originally posted
on TAXACOM <taxacom@cmsa.berkeley.edu>
The New York Botanical Garden web site now includes a searchable
version of entries in the Index to American Botanical Literature
at:
http://www.nybg.org/bsci/iabl.html
The Index to American Botanical Literature has provided a serv-
ice to the American botanical community for over a century,
published initially in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club
and subsequently in Brittonia. The Index is compiled from
resources of The LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York
Botanical Garden and contains entries dealing with various
aspects of extant and fossil American plants and fungi, includ-
ing systematics (traditional and molecular) and floristics,
morphology, and ecology, as well as economic botany and general
botany (publications dealing with botanists, herbaria, etc.).
The searchable database includes all those entries published in
the Index since 1996, and thus includes botanical literature
appearing since late 1995. The database is updated on a regular
basis. Retroactive indexing of previously published entries is
envisioned.
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