Volunteer Spotlight, Lana and Alana Edwards
Lana and Alana Edwards are the recipients of the 2022 Volunteer Team of Two of the Year for Resource Management.
Lana Edwards and Alana Edwards are a mother and daughter team who helped found the Atala Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) in Palm Beach County in 1995.
They became involved with local butterfly counts and launched chapter counts in the same year. After seeing a documentary on butterfly gardening, Lana became intrigued. She and Alana created a garden in their backyard and got hooked.
On a trip to Highlands Hammock in 1997, Alana was amazed at the diversity and abundance of butterflies. She arranged to have her parents visit too. Once again, they were impressed by the explosion of red root, numbers of butterflies and the spotting of a great purple hairstreak.
In July 1998, they conducted the NABA Count at Highlands Hammock and have continued the counts annually. The July 2022 count marked 25 years of butterfly data at Highlands Hammock!
Over the years, other people have joined the counts, including Buck and Linda Cooper, Susan Farnsworth, Nancy Prine, Dave and Marga Cuttler, and Jean Evoy.
The count is physically demanding due to long hours in the summer heat. Alana Edwards has been front and center with public outreach and education speaking to groups from the Sierra Club to homeowner associations. Lana Edwards works behind the scenes to organize the counts, and they both work together on collecting and compiling the data.
Congratulations, Lana and Alana. We appreciate your efforts.
Learn How You Can Get Involved
is this a reference to the plant? Redroot is listed as invasive by UF/IFAS [BS1]
