Few expected the invader to come this far south. While it had run rampant in northern parts of the U.S., it had never been documented in South Carolina before. But Janie Kirkwood Marlow \u201972 saw the fig buttercup coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty yellow flower,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s very attractive, but it was taking over acres and acres and acres in the Northeast. Anything else that was supposed to live there doesn\u2019t live there anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
When patches of the flower \u2013 known to botanists as Ficaria verna, aka lesser celandine or pilewort \u2013 were discovered in 2013 along the Reedy River floodplain in Conestee Nature Preserve in Greenville County, Marlow was one of the first to sound the alarm and help launch a campaign to eradicate the invasive species. She documents the fig buttercup and thousands of other flowers found throughout the Carolinas and Georgia on NameThatPlant.net, the website she has tended for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
After majoring in art at Furman, Marlow worked for several years in printing before joining her husband, Steve, in his graphic design and marketing business. In the mid-\u201980s, the Marlows opened The Map Shop, a retail business that operated for more than 20 years on Coffee Street in Greenville as well as a branch in Charlotte, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
To keep track of The Map Shop\u2019s stock, Marlow developed an inventory management program on her Macintosh.<\/p>\n
The Map Shop closed in 2007, but Marlow\u2019s graphic design career continued as she pursued her interest in plant life. Five years earlier, for a course requirement in the South Carolina Master Gardener program, she began work on a collection of photographs of native plants but noticed a lack of relevant information online for citizen scientists like herself.<\/p>\n