Jim Duncan

The Siskiyou Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon (NPSO) nominates Jim Duncan for NPSO Fellow, in recognition of all the service he has given at both the Chapter and State levels during the past 22 years. Jim has selflessly and cheerfully shared countless hours of his time and his expertise, serving as an officer of the Siskiyou Chapter and coordinator of the 4th of July wildflower, both of which have bolstered chapter stability and continuity. His activities have also improved the visibility of NPSO in the community. In particular, his wildflower brochures and the wildflower show enable us to reach a broader public audience with our message about native plants.

Jim received an AB in zoology from Wabash College (Indiana) in 1954 and a PhD in biology, with a concentration in vertebrate embryonic development, from Stanford in 1960. He taught biology for 31 years in the California university system. His positions included Instructor and Assistant Professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside, from 1960 to 1962, and Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor at San Francisco State University from 1962 to 1991.

Retirement from San Francisco State University brought him to Ashland in the spring of 1991. He wasted no time in joining the Siskiyou Chapter of the NPSO in the fall of 1991 and has been an active member ever since. The following June (1992) he attended his first statewide Annual Meeting at the Malheur Field Station.

Jim has served in leadership positions at both the state and chapter levels, starting with a three-year term as a member-at-large of the State Board in the late 1990s. He was co-President of Siskiyou Chapter (with his wife, Elaine Plaisance) from 2000 to 2001. In 2001 and 2002 he and Elaine co-chaired the organizing committee for the 2002 Annual Meeting, hosted by the Siskiyou Chapter. The meeting showcased the recently established Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Jim assumed the duties of treasurer for the Siskiyou Chapter in the midst of the cash flow for the annual meeting (May 2002) and has held that position ever since (a total of twelve years!).

Jim’s first involvement with the Siskiyou Chapter’s annual 4th of July wildflower show in Ashland was collecting flowers in 1999. He has collected flowers for the show every year since then. At that time the show was set up on the morning of the 4th in the old wooden gazebo in Lithia Park. After the 2000 show, the chapter realized that if the show venue were moved indoors it could be set it up the night before. Jim negotiated with the Ashland Parks Department to use Pioneer Hall or the Community Center, adjacent buildings which are typically rented for public activities. The show was set up in Pioneer Hall in July 2001 and has been held indoors ever since, mainly in the Community Center. Because the show is a public service in conjunction with the 4th of July celebration in Ashland, the park administration granted use of the building without charge for a 24-hour period. Even though the wildflower show is a major draw to the event, this represents a generous donation from the Ashland Parks Department. Jim took over as organizer of the show in 2001 and has done a superb job for 13 years.

During Jim’s years in Ashland he has collected a large number of plant specimens, mainly from Jackson and Josephine counties, but a second assemblage came from southeastern Oregon. He has compiled a personal herbarium of over 3,300 specimens representing almost 1,200 Oregon taxa. This collection has been added to the database of the Oregon Flora Project Atlas. This collection has recently been donated to the herbarium of Southern Oregon University. Two areas where Jim has collected intensively are Grizzly Peak near Ashland and a corner of southwestern Harney County and southeastern Lake County.

Grizzly Peak is a prominent landmark to people living in the Ashland area because it is visible from their homes and streets. It is public land, managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with an easily accessible five-mile roundtrip trail to the top. Jim first hiked the trail in September 1993 and during the ensuing years he made 38 trips to the top. Seven of those were scheduled Siskiyou Chapter fieldtrips, with the most recent and last trip in June 2011. During the years of those many trips, Jim collected great numbers of plants for his herbarium and gradually compiled a plant list for the area surrounding the trail. In 2008 he wrote a Plants and Places article about Grizzly Peak for Kalmiopsis, which included an exhaustive plant list of more than 300 species with notes on phenology and habitat.

In the mid-1990s Jim attended a plant conference at OSU in Corvallis at which Scott Sundberg spoke with considerable passion about the then-new Oregon Flora Project. What particularly caught Jim’s attention was the proposed Atlas Project. He was inspired by Scott’s message and recognized that he could contribute to the Flora Project by “Adopting a Block.” He and Elaine chose Block 170, a square area about 25 miles to the side, which, according to the records at OSU, was the least known botanically (only two records in the herbarium). Block 170 lies in the southwest corner of Harney County and extends a few miles into southeastern Lake County. Jim and Elaine made the first trip to “their” block in June 2000, on their way home from the NPSO Annual Meeting, which that year was again at Malheur Field Station. For nine consecutive years (2000–2008) they made 3- to 4-day trips to the block, dates ranging from mid-May to early August in an attempt to catch the seasonal range of flowering. They always camped out self-contained somewhere in those wilds, and over those many trips they explored a great portion of that area of mostly sagebrush desert. Their final tally for Block 170 was an impressive 262 taxa!

In 2007 a small group of Siskiyou Chapter members decided to produce a wildflower brochure for the Grizzly Peak area in the style of the Jacksonville Woodlands Association brochure. Bob Vos took the photographs with his wife Belinda’s help in identification, and Jim worked together with them to choose and organize pictures for the brochure. He wrote the text and arranged for the necessary layout and printing. The Siskiyou Chapter sells these brochures for $1 each to raise money for the chapter. The brochure has become quite popular and in 2009 Jim helped produce a second one, for Mount Ashland and the Siskiyou Crest. Based on the popularity of the first two brochures, Jim is completing a third brochure that will be ready for the 2014 flower season, this one for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Jim has also been one of the unfailing volunteers from the Siskiyou Chapter who are maintaining the Southern Oregon University Herbarium (SOC). For three years he spent one afternoon a week working in the herbarium, verifying identifications, and annotating herbarium sheets with updated nomenclature. He’s currently taking a hiatus while the university is remodeling the Science Building, but he will undoubtedly be back working there when the dust settles.

Jim is also an avid gardener, and since about 1980 he has been growing mostly native plants. He grows them from seed collected in the field. He now harvests seeds from his own native plants, which he spreads in his garden, gives to friends, and makes seed packets that are sold at the 4th of July flower show. Although most native plants do not require watering in the dry season, Jim has created a gravity flow water system for those that do and also for his summer vegetable garden. He pumps this water out of a sump in his cellar into storage tanks in his green house, from which it can flow out through plumbing that reaches all parts of his large garden.

Lest you think that Jim’s only a plant nut, he does have other interests and activities. He is a fine woodworker, and over the last forty years he has made a large number of items that help furnish his home. He is a home winemaker, and has been making a variety of different wines since 1983 from grapes he purchases. Ten years ago he took up the violin again after not playing it since high school days, which was a long time ago. He is a member of a small string ensemble in Ashland that rehearses weekly and performs once a year for the public. He also plays duets or trios occasionally with some of his musical friends.

For all the years of support Jim has given NPSO and his many contributions to knowledge about the native flora of Oregon, we would like to honor him as a Fellow. — Marcia Wineteer, Kristi Mergenthaler, Sasha Joachims, Julie Spelletich, Pete Gonzalves, and Frank Callahan, Siskiyou Chapter.