Candace Akins, our dedicated and talented managing editor, recently recommended that I look into the work of Norman C Deno as a means of securing publication content for the Native Plants Journal. Having never heard of Deno, I probed his writings. Prior to his death in 2017, he was a career-long Professor of Chemistry at Penn State University. But his unrelated contribution to the plant world is what caught my attention. Turns out Deno was an avid amateur horticulturist and plant biologist. He incorporated his expertise in chemical function into personal studies on seed germination. His work included species whose habitat spans the world. Among this broad range are many native plants with which most of us have familiarity. Deno’s unique approach to problems associated with germination led to information that has potential to resolve serious propagation problems in restoration and reclamation projects. So, I have spent the past three months going through Norman Deno’s research papers, extracting applicable data for native species from the vast amount of information he generated as he recorded investigations on more than 800 genera and 2500 species. Candace and I are in the midst of preparing a series of articles documenting Deno’s discoveries, the first of which is found in this issue of NPJ. (And Candace acknowledges sincere thanks to a fellow attendee of the Native Plants in the Landscape conference who visited the NPJ display table and emphatically urged her that NPJ needed to learn more about Norman Deno’s plant studies.) It appears that it will take five additional articles to fully document his work on native plants. But, when finished, these articles should provide a rich resource to anyone involved in propagation. We are grateful to Norman’s wife, Janet Lucas Deno, who gave us permission to access and publish his research. I trust that it will prove to be of value to many of us.
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