Local Roots: April

Lots has changed in the years the Berryville Library has been in our current building. We expect lots will change in the years the library will be housed in the new building we are hoping to break ground on soon. That’s why we think it is so important as we move towards this bigger, better future to remember our roots. To that end, we have created the Berryville Library Legacy Project, which lets donors highlight a piece of local history of their choice by selecting photographs to be displayed on the end of a shelving unit at the new library. We also remain committed to helping create a sense of place through our collection, so we are going to highlight our Arkansas section this year.  Each month, we’ll look at some of the different books and resources in that collection that feature unique parts of the history and culture of Berryville, Carroll County, the Ozarks, and Arkansas. There’s lots to explore about this place we call home! For April, we’re looking at local plants.

Spring has, well, sprung here in Arkansas and what better way to celebrate than to spend some time admiring the beautiful blossoms it brings?

Whether you want to learn more about the trees and plants you see or you just want to appreciate Arkansas’s natural beauty from the comfort of your home, we have a lot of wonderful resources on our local plant life.

Tim Ernst’s captures the beauty of this time of year in his stunning photography book, Arkansas Spring: Dogwoods, Waterfalls, and Wildflowers. It features over 100 pictures, plus accompanying text from Ernst that covers everything from tips on how to take better pictures to funny anecdotes about his time traveling the state.

An Arkansas Florilegium: The Atlas of Botanist Edwin Smith Illustrated by Naturalist Kent Bonar is a stunning book with a fascinating history in its own right. It reproduces an early classic text on local Arkansas plant life authored by noted botanist Edwin Smith but combined with thousands of detailed illustrations that state park employee Kent Bonar made in his own personal copy. It’s part art and part science.

If you particularly love the wildflowers, you can learn more about them in Carl G. Hunter’s comprehensive Wildflowers of Arkansas, which features hundreds of pictures and identifying information about 600 different species of flowers. It also covers plant families and structure and the state’s regions. You can further specialize with Carl R. Slaughter’s Wild Orchids of Arkansas.

But it’s not all flowers on our shelves. We also have Ford L. Baldwin’s informative Weeds of Arkansas: Lawns, Turf, Roadsides, Recreation Areas: A Guide to Identification and Dwight Munson Moore’s Trees of Arkansas, as well as Bob Liebert’s Common Medicinal Herbs of the Ozarks: History, Folklore and Uses booklet. Only in Arkansas: A Study of the Endemic Plants and Animals of the State, which we profiled last month, also features a look at the local plant life, in addition to local wildlife.

P.S. The Friends of the Berryville Library are excited to be presenting a book signing with local author Jane Elzey this Saturday, April 27, at Poncho Goldstein’s on Berryville’s square from 2 to 4 pm. Jane, one of the participants in our first author talk last year, is celebrating the release of Killer Croquet on the Emerald Isle, the fourth book in her Cardboard Cottage Mystery series. Please stop by to say hi and support Jane!

Are you a frequenter of our Arkansas section? Did you even know we had an Arkansas section? What’s your favorite resource on local plant life? What’s your favorite Arkansas plant? Tell us in the comments! As always, please follow this link to our online library catalog for more information on any of our items or to place them on hold.