Pineywoods Native Plant Center Local Park Outing

For our Local Park Outing, we chose to visit the Pineywoods Native Plant Center (PNPC). This is a 42-acre park with interpretive trails, greenhouses, gardens, and plenty of native plants! Students were able to tour their two large greenhouses and learn about native plant varieties the PNPC has been growing. We learned that some of their seeds had been refrigerated for months and had just been planted and begun to germinate! Pronouncing Eryngium yuccifolium proved especially difficult for Miranda. Students learned that many of Texas’ iconic flower varieties, like the purple coneflower, are usually non-native versions! The native coneflower species is a bit smaller than its highly popular counterpart. We meandered until there were few plants left to go over before heading into their potting house. After that, we moseyed to their outdoor garden space and watched bumble bees buzz through small azalea bushes and growing pines.

Once the greenhouses and plant growing spaces were explored, the group began identifying native plants through the Tucker Woods, the paved trail section of the PNPC. Allen, a forestry major, put his plant identification skills to the test when questions about “what tree?” “what flower?” and “what shrub is that?” came to play. Our two dog companions had a wonderful time sniffing each tree, leaf pile, and bush on the trail as they explored with us. Miranda directed the group through each of the short trails within the Tucker Woods—she visits the PNPC quite often in her free time. A couple of students doing construction on one of the PNPC’s boardwalks joined us for our interpretive walk—hardhats and all! They were all lucky enough to win the raffle for a couple of HydroFlasks. Thank you, Construction Jacks, for joining us and for helping out the PNPC.

This was a short but highly informative workshop and students got to walk away (literally) with knowledge about the region they’re living in. We plan to return to the PNPC and continuously learn about natural resources within East Texas.