From the Editor

If my math is correct, as I write this piece we are preparing to print the 19th volume of the Native Plants Journal. This relatively new journal has been extremely successful in creating an effective avenue for distributing practical information associated with native plant disciplines. In an effort to meet the needs of on-the-ground practitioners, the journal was designed with some unique characteristics. The journal encourages submission of articles for not only reporting scientifically sound research but also for describing available plant materials and for providing useful ideas and techniques to manage and utilize native plant resources. Articles are printed in color employing numerous photographs and supplemental graphics. This makes the journal practical, attractive, and stimulating to read.

Publishing articles with a wide range of objectives and topics can be challenging. Correspondingly, authoring an article for the journal can be confusing and more complex than necessary because of the potentially broad range of feasible presentation formats. Some changes are in the works to facilitate the development of articles for the journal. The Editorial staff of your Native Plants Journal is working on a plan to revise the submission protocols and formatting instructions to assist authors with their publication agendas. We are attempting to re-categorize articles based on information and objective and to define clear publication instructions for each category of article. Our current thoughts are to place articles into one of six classes: Refereed Research, Topic Review, General Technical, Propagation Protocol, Germplasm Release, and First Report (breaking concept or protocol). Native Plants Journal has historically published all of these types of articles; however, instructions for preparing each of these distinct types have been insufficient or lacking. Our hope is to remedy this situation, thereby making the preparation process simpler and the resulting articles cleaner and more consistent.

Our ultimate goal is to better serve you, the creators and users of native plants information. In doing so, we hope to further the NPJ objectives of creating dialogue among researchers and field personnel and of keeping information timely and easy to obtain. We welcome your input into this process.

Stephen Love

Editor-in-Chief