From the Editor

Stephen Love

doi:10.3368/npj.18.1.1

I have been a bit out of touch with my Native Plants Journal duties for the past 6 months. If this created delays in your publishing efforts, I apologize and thank you for your patience. I believe we now have everything back on track. This past August, I experienced a massive heart attack while hiking in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho. On a positive note, I was involved in something I love, collecting native plant specimens for the Stillinger Herbarium. But, this event had the down side of putting me entirely out of commission for an extended period of time. I now live with an artificial heart and am awaiting a transplant. Although far from a complete recovery, I am at least functionally back to work. I learned a lot about myself during this adventure. It was an amazingly intense experience, and I owe my life to my hiking colleagues. Ask me sometime and I will tell you the entire story. I also learned much about the editorial/technical staff we have working for the Native Plants Journal. Although it is impossible to lose an editor-in-chief without a few hiccups, the staff did an amazing job of picking up the pieces and moving the journal forward in my absence. Candace Akins, our managing editor, pushed through the publication of the Fall 2016 issue and shouldered the additional responsibilities of administering reviews for new submissions. Kas Dumroese, associate editor and past editor-in-chief, trained the staff in accomplishing interim supplemental duties and chased down prospective articles. The associate editors Diane Haase, James Muir, Joel Gramling, Deb Rogers, Daniela Shebitz, Steven Smith, Robert Cox, Heidi Kratsch, Forrest Smith, Mack Thetford, and Larry Rupp picked up additional review duties and kept articles flowing through the online system. It was amazing how well the machinery worked given the presence of one seriously broken cog. I owe these great people a debt of gratitude for their willingness to step up in crisis and for their dedication to the ideals of the Native Plants Journal. Thank you.