In July, I learned a new meaning of heat. I read an article that stated that July in 2023 was the hottest month in recorded history, and that was absolutely the case here in Moab, Utah. Nevertheless, it was an exciting month full of new knowledge, birthdays (me and Mattie both celebrated July birthdays!), and new seeds to collect.
We wrapped up collecting our first target species, Hedysarum boreale, with a collection of over 300,000 seeds! We are now collecting our second target species, Heterotheca villosa, common name: hairy false goldenaster. This member of the asteraceae family produces small, yellow flowers with a center disk that produces a dark seed with fluffy, white hairs coming out from it that make it a lot of fun to collect. Since the seeds are much smaller and lighter than the last seeds we collected, it was fun to see how many more seeds we could fit in each paper bag for this species! It is quite satisfying to pinch the little puffballs of seed and see how many you can get per pinch.
Fluffly seeds of Heterotheca villosa
Vibrant yellow flowers of Heterotheca villosa
Puffballs of seeds ready to collect
Aside from our successes in seed collection, we also got to spend time with the hydrology team here working on a big fencing project at Medicine Lake in the La Sal Mountains. The fence that we helped to build will protect a wetland that has been harmed by hummocking by cattle. This project had so many different aspects that I got to be involved with and I learned so much! We built approximately half of the fence with barbed wire, T posts, and wooden stays and the other half was log worm fence reinforced with rebar.
Log worm fence working hard to keep cattle out! A very gratifying site to behold
Two seed girls and two hydrology girls after a long day of log worm
My favorite aspect of this project was building beaver dam analogs, or BDAs. Essentially, a BDA is used to function in the same way that a beaver dam would, except that it is manmade. We constructed our BDAs using small aspen logs that get pounded vertically into the water channel, and many willow branches that get weaved in between each aspen log, much like weaving a basket. The goal of the BDAs in this project is to raise the water table in the wetland. We already noticed the water rising and spreading to different areas of the wetland from one day to the next which was super satisfying and made all the hard work worthwhile.
My first Beaver Dam Analog.
July has been incredible and filled with so many new experiences, and I can’t wait to see what August in Moab has in store for me. 🙂
The Malpais Lava Flow with a view of (from left to right) Lone, Baxter, and Carrizo Mountains in the background. Sotol, Opuntia sp., cholla, beargrass (Nolina microcarpa), one-seed juniper, and Yucca sp. are abundant.
One place I’ve had the chance to visit several times this summer is the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Valley of Fires Recreation Area. The Valley of Fires is just a 40-minute drive from Ruidoso near Carrizozo. Here, you can explore the Malpais Lava Flow. The name “Malpais” refers to the rough terrain, or “bad country”, that was a significant barrier to hooved animals and wagons. Now, a paved educational path makes it easy to walk on the craggy rocks. Not as hot as lava (but still pretty hot) is the black basalt that absorbs the heat from the desert sun. The Malpais Lava Flow is one of the longest young lava flows in the United States and is an example of a tube-fed “pahoehoe” (ropy lava) system. Researchers constrained its formation to ~5,200 years ago using cosmogenic radionuclide dating techniques. Little Black Peak–a ~100 feet tall cinder cone–is thought to be the source where an eruption likely initiated from a fissure vent, eventually progressing into a single vent that produced the cinder cone. Despite the hostile environment, many plant species typical of the Chihuahuan Desert can be found here. Animals include a number of snake and lizard species, bats, and mule deer. Many bird species also inhabit the lava flow, including roadrunners, quail, burrowing owls, and cactus wrens.
A towering sotol inflorescenceTree cholla (Cylindropuntia imbricata) blooms
I still don’t know as much detail as I’d like about regional geologic history–especially about the formation of the Sacramento Mountains. I keep eyeing a copy of “The Geology of Southern New Mexico’s Parks, Monuments, and Public Lands” in the Ranger District’s gift shop. Maybe I’ll bring it home soon! In the meantime, I resort to the local public library to find resources on geology and rockhounding. I was able to get a Library card using an addressed letter from a friend (thanks, Julia!). While small, the Ruidoso Public Library has a decent hobby section. I found a Falcon Guide on the “140 best” rockhounding sites in New Mexico. “Eureka!”–or so I thought. I would spend the next four weekends venturing to a new location only to be disappointed over and over again. It appears that many publicized locations are over-collected. In the case of Ancho Gulch, people placed mineral claims since the guide was published in 2021! So my best bet was either to own private property (or be friends with someone who does) or persevere. I don’t plan on buying land anytime soon, so the latter was really the only option.
A dilapidated schoolhouse from the ghost town of Jicarilla located near Ancho Gulch. Silver and fleck gold can supposedly be found in the gulch, though a mineral claim had been posted there prohibiting any disturbance or prospecting in the area.
That plan worked for two localities: an old copper mine in the Gallinas Mountains and exposures of the Seven Rivers Formation along the Pecos River. Tailings from the copper mine weather into chrysocolla, malachite, and azurite. The “mine” is adjacent to an old fluorite mine, though I came up empty there with the exception of a sulking Southwestern fence lizard (Sceloporus cowlesi, right). Finding the copper minerals was relatively easy–their vibrant green provides a stark contrast against the sandy red soil. They erode out of the roadcut along the Forest Service Road, so minimal digging was required.
A stunning piece of chrysocolla from the copper mine tailings
Pecos diamonds can be found just east of the banks of the Pecos River at the second locality. A more fitting name would be “Pecos double-terminated quartz crystals”, but that’s a mouthful and not as cool-sounding as “diamond”. They vary in color, shape, and size. Some have an elongated, prismatic form, while others are pseudotrigonal prisms or even pseudocubic. The diamonds are exclusively found in weathered outcrops of the Seven Rivers Formation (part of the Artesia Group), which is a saline or shelf facies that was deposited during the Permian. Shelf facies are rocks deposited at or near the continental shelf in warm, shallow, salty waters.
Searching for exposures of the Seven Rivers Formation on Bureau of Land Management land. This stratigraphic unit is composed of evaporitic minerals, red beds (sandy-silty rock colored red from iron oxides), and dolostone. An abundance of the evaporitic mineral gypsum results in fascinating edaphic (soil-based) endemism across many different genera.Tiquilia hispidissima (Boraginaceae) growing on a gypsum exposure near the banks of the Pecos River.
Here, you can see the variation in the diamonds that I found. The two most common colors were cloudy-white and semi-translucent gray, while the dominant form is prismatic. I decided to store them in a small, coiled, Ponderosa pine needle bowl I made from locally-sourced pine needles.
I wanted to make something place-based that I could take with me after this position so I could have something meaningful to remember it by. Nothing has left as much of an impression on me as the Ponderosa pine. Between its vanilla-scented reddish bark (one even smelled like orange-creamsicle!) and long needles, I have been obsessed with it since moving to New Mexico. I did some research on indigenous basket weaving and learned about the coiled longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) needle baskets of the Seminole and Choctaw nations. The Mescalero Apache also make coiled baskets, though yucca is the more commonly used material. Baskets are made using a similar technique to coiled pottery, where each coil/bundle is placed on top of the previous coil. Thinner or thicker coils can be used depending on the size of the basket, while the basket walls can be shallow or steep, resulting in a diversity of forms.
I took on this project as a way to weave a utilitarian (though still aesthetic) object that symbolizes more than just a cool basket: A basket that was woven with intention and respect for the tree that gifted the needles, gathered one fascicle at a time from the forest floor. Something that will remind me of the knowledge of indigenous communities and caretakers of this land. I could make more baskets if I wanted to gift them to friends/family. Someone even suggested I sell them! That would cross a moral boundary. I am content with just this one.
July has been a BUSY month! With seed collection beginning, backpacking trips, birthdays, and National Park visits, I feel overwhelmed with information, news, and experiences.
Nolan and I were finally able to start collecting seed here in the Umpqua (YAY). From the tiny farewell to spring (Clarkia amoena) and bluehead gilia (Gilia capitata) that required hours of crawling on hands and knees to the elongated pea ponds of slender goldenbanner (Thermopsis gracilis), we’ve collected roughly pounds of seed with much more to go!
Botany crew memebers from Tiller and Diamond Lake Ranger Districts
The Diamond Lake botany crew met up with trail and botany crews from a neighboring district to tackle non-native invasive species in a wilderness area of the Forest. Our trip was a 4 day backpacking trip to Fish Lake. While there we treated hundreds of canada thistle along with himalayan blackberry. Between the two botany crews, I think I was in the running for most miles hiked- around 22 miles (give or take). This was my first backpacking trip and overall I very much enjoyed the experience!
Pheromone packet
This month I also turned 25! I spent my birthday visiting Crater Lake National Park – potentially my favorite Oregon destination… I started with a nice sunrise hike up the Watchman Peak Trail. My love for Crater Lake stems greatly from the large of amount of White Bark Pines that I can see there. While on my sunrise hike, I saw a great number of the pines and even noticed a few pheromone packets nailed to the trees. These packets are used as a short-term treatment to protect individual pine trees from mountain pine beetle attack. These beetles naturally produce pheromones that disperse other beetles away from colonized trees. AKA the patch you see in the photo above communicates to the mountain pine beetle that this tree has no vacancy, protecting it from colonization. Happy to see the efforts being made to protect these special trees!
It feels as if it was just yesterday when we arrived in Alaska. It’s crazy to think that we have already reached our halfway point and that we will be leaving 2 months from now.
Over our time here, we have hiked more than 15 different trails throughout the Chugach National Forest while we continue scouting for priority plant species, collecting voucher specimens, and creating population polygons for flowering and fruiting species. One of our main objectives for this month was to return to previously scouted sites to check on plant phenology. While most plants are still just starting to flower some species such as Lupinus nootkatensis, Calamagrostis canadensis, and Luzula parviflora are currently fruiting and will soon begin seeding.
Taking a bearing with a compass for Aphragmus Eschscholtziana population monitoringPalmer Lakes Trail scouting and monitoring for Aphragmus Eschscholtziana (Aleutian Cress)
In preparation for seed collection, we have been conducting research on the number of seeds per fruits, and fruits per plant, to determine whether or not our population polygons are large enough to produce our goal of 30,000 seeds per collection. By the looks of it, we will definitely be able to achieve this goal for these 3 species.
July has proved to be a fruitful month for the fungi of the Chugach National forest. Mushrooms are beginning to pop out of the ground along many of the trails. I even got to see my first Amanita mushroom! From what I have heard these beautiful red mushrooms will start popping up everywhere like weeds very soon.
Really big bolete!Fly Agaric Mushroom (Amanita muscaria)Mushroom at Lower Russian Lake
At the beginning of this month I went on my first backpacking trip where we hiked about 30 miles in total. We started at Devils Creek trailhead and hiked out to Swan Lake (about 15 miles) where we stayed in a cabin overnight and then hiked out to Resurrection Pass North trailhead. It was such an amazing experience!
Start of hike at Devils Creek TrailheadA waterfall we passed on the way to Swan LakeDevils PassThe cabin we stayed atView from the cabinLupin nootkatensis and AspensWaterfall on the hike out to Resurrection Pass North trailheadSome mushrooms on the hike out to Resurrection Pass North trailheadBackpacking Trip to Swan Lake
The weather this month has been unlike anything I have ever experienced. Earlier this morning it was so foggy that I could not see more than 100ft in front of me. Then as I am driving North, I drove out of the fog and into the sunlight and I could immediately see all of the mountains. The Chugach always seems to surprise you with sunshine when you least expect it, and it’s wonderful.
July in the Tongass flew by! We started the month of with another ferry ride to Prince of Whales Island to conduct more rare plant monitoring, looking for the elusive Round Leaf Orchid (Platanthera orbiculata).
The trip to Prince of Wales had a slightly sour ending because I left my phone on the hood of the truck as we left a trail head, not realizing until we stopped at our next site location 6 miles down the road. I searched for a few hours, not wanting to give up hope but realized I was grasping at straws looking through the knee-high grasses bordering the long winding road.
Less than a week went by, and I got a message from my mom, saying that someone in Thorne Bay, AK found my phone! He mailed it over to me and I got my phone back without a scratch. He found it on Sandy Beach Road, about 5 miles from the original trail head! He was able to hack my phone and get in contact with my mom since the password was 0000, which he told me to change. Feeling very appreciative for my new friend in Thorne Bay.
We have started our collections, which has been very exciting! The picture below is me pouring Oplopanax horridus (Devil’s Club) onto some newspaper to dry. The tough part about working in a rainforest is how wet everything is. It’s important that we clean our seeds, removing all the stems, bugs, and other materials from the seeds and get them spread out to dry before the moisture causes them to mold.
The salmon are starting their runs back up the creeks and streams they were born in 5 years ago. I went to this one creek on the southern end of Ketchikan almost every day last week and there is always an amazing display of wildlife. I was finally able to line up low tide with dusk and a family of hungry Black Bears (Ursus americanus).
Watching the triplet bear cups feast was amazing, but the highlight of this month was a visit from my parents and girlfriend! It was so much fun showing them where I’ve been living and working. I was so grateful to explore, hike, kayak, and boat with them. Feeling revitalized, ready to hit the field running, and collect some more seeds!
In July, our San Bernardino National Forest CLM team has continued to make more seed collections, but when I look back on the month, what really sticks out to me is all of the great restoration efforts we’ve been a part of! From monitoring and watering past restoration sites to preparing for the restoration of future sites, this month has really put into perspective the purpose of the work that we’re doing.
At the SBNF, the majority of our restoration crew is funded through our OHV restoration grant and it’s no wonder! A lot of the destruction caused to this forest is related to the popularity of OHVs and their misuse of our trails and FS roads. OHV riders often ride and stage in unauthorized areas and eventually these previously wild areas are reduced to compact dirt trails or patches. When this happens, it becomes difficult for some riders to differentiate between an authorized area and an illegal one. This in turn perpetuates the misuse of our forest.
An especially bad day to be a plant. While this may look like a fun day outdoors, these vehicles are parked in an unauthorized zone that the SBNF has been trying to manage for over a year. (This image serves as an example of OHV destruction, but is unrelated to the Big Pine Flats restoration project discussed in this blog post)
The SBNF restoration team is constantly monitoring, fencing, and slashing new areas to prevent them from getting this bad. But, it can be difficult to keep up with the work that’s needed all over our mountain and sometimes these OHV damage sites require more than just fencing and slashing. That’s when our amazing volunteers come in and help us reclaim these wild areas.
Big Pine Flats Green Thumbs Volunteer Event
Big Pine Flats, the site of our most recent Green Thumbs volunteer event, is a beautiful area within our forest with a family campground and a relatively new OHV staging area. Before the designation of this staging area, the popularity of OHV riding in Big Pine Flats led to unauthorized staging and the destruction of some previously wild areas. The SBNF team has been working to regulate the use of this area now that we have a designated staging area and this month our volunteers were able to help us finish our Big Pine Flats restoration project!
The plan for this volunteer event was to outplant 158 of our greenhouse plants, and do some weeding, watering, and seed collection/dispersal. In the days leading up to the volunteer event, we visited the site and prepared the compact dirt for the incoming plant heroes: Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus and Penstemon grinnellii.
First time wielding the auger!Hole 1 of 158…
After digging 158 holes that week and loading up a couple of trucks with everything our volunteers might need for our planting day, we were ready for the big day! Our volunteers helped us plant the Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus and Penstemon grinnellii plants we’ve been growing in our nursery (from seeds collected by the SBNF restoration team!!) to speed up the restoration of the area and aid in species diversity. While working hard to restore this area, I was able to meet many of the lovely people volunteering that day. They each had their own individual experiences with volunteering and what the work means to them, but the running theme seemed to be a love for the outdoors and the satisfaction they get from helping us keep these areas beautiful and wild.
A precious Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus baby ready to change the world :’-)An overview of the restoration area at the end of our volunteer event
They helped us get all 158 plants into the ground and watered, then we moved on to weeding and seed collection. We collected native seeds from the plants in the surrounding area and walked around the restoration side scattering the seeds onto the ground. As we dispersed the seeds and our volunteer event came to an end, I couldn’t help but feel so happy about the work we do. We are helping to preserve the native species diversity of the area while creating events for like minded people to connect and be a part of meaningful work for the future of our forest. I’m so grateful for all of the help we had that day and can’t wait for our next volunteer event!
Two and a half months since we have started our journey at the prairie…. here is what I have learned so far.
The Prairie sun is unforgiving and is not there to protect you – Wear Sunscreen!
Nathan is 100% a botanist and thinks wildlife is second class
Dade will flip over every Asclepias syriaca leaf he sees to find Monarch caterpillars
Thick wool socks are the only acceptable pair of socks against chiggers
Harsha is amazing at poems and working with the youth conservation corp
Clear skies and sunshine on-top of Sand Ridge Prairie at Midewin
Vegetation monitoring
Wow did we learn a lot of prairie plants this month. Let me just say, the volunteers, specialists, and technicians at Midewin know all, they are the superior plant experts and you should go to them for every plant question that you have. They helped me so much with my plant identification during the vegetation monitoring process and now I feel 100% more confident on my prairie plant id skills. The more time we spent outside learning plants the more I came to appreciate the plants in the prairies.
Silphium lacinatum is the most charismatic plant on the prairie and stands taller than me most of the time.
Monarda? Oh she’s a cutie with her little purple Lorax-treelike flowers! Silphium laciniatum? Do you mean the most charismatic plant on the prairie shooting its stem over my head with yellow flowers? Eryngium yuccifolium? With a name like that (or Rattlesnake Master!) how could I not love it! Even if it stabs me through my pants every step that I take at the SE Bison Pasture. Bouteloua?! It took me forever to figure out how to spell it but look at it! Just the name makes me happy and the way that the seeds hang off of the stem only increases its charm! Needless to say learning all of these plants and more has been a very fulfilling part of July here on the Prairie.
Monarda fistulosa with her little purple Lorax-like flowers.
He speaks Parseltongue
Harry Potter would be proud of us if he saw our ssssnake charming abilities out here at Midewin. Holding, identifying, and measuring snakes out in the hot sun is a battle enough, and not having a single bite incident is even more of an accomplishment. If we don’t make it as restoration specialists we definitely have the skills to becoming a Parseltongue expert at Hogwarts. Someone go call Dumbledore!
The snakes did not really appreciate us lifting up their homes and disturbing their slumber in the mid-afternoon sun… but after a bit of struggle they eventually would cozy up to us and let us measure them before slithering away back into the dense prairie vegetation. We even got to see a Fox Snake, a priority species listed at Midewin. When we went to lift the board to look for snakes he scared me and Nathan just from the sheer size of him (he was very big), but the wildlife technician with us held him perfectly proved to us snakes are not as bad as people make them out to be. Although I think Nathan still prefers plants.
Carex…. you think you got it, then you don’t
Collecting seed was in high gear this month for Carex and Juncus species and at Midewin there are a lot of different options and they all look the same. We have spent many afternoons looking at specific seeds of a carex to figure out what species they are compared to the other carex that we found at the same site. Luckily we are starting to learn the subtle differences of the Carex and Juncus families.
Picture shared with us to help us identify the different Juncus species at Midewin.
On the bright side, becoming more experienced in identifying these different species has prepared us immensely for the upcoming seed collection of the asteracea family because they also all look very similar to one another. So bring on the yellow flowers! We have our Flora of the Chicago Region locked and loaded and ready to be used!
Dade and Nathan using a key book to figure out identity of sedge collected at Exxon dolomite prairie.
Oh its mechanical…. someone call Dade
Midewin is a little different than other national forests around the country because they do everything in house. Meaning all of the seed that we collect is cleaned, stored, and replanted on site and is not shipped anywhere else. So along with our seed collection and plant identifying tasks we also regularly help out with the horticulture aspect as well. Lately we have been helping the horticulturist and technicians out at the River Road seed beds, planting plugs, mulching, weeding, and watering the plants to make sure they are surviving the hot prairie days. We have been using big power tools like augers and UTVs, little hand tools like shovels and rakes, and really whatever we have to get stubborn weeds from encroaching on our precious plants.
Needless to say, we get our hands DIRTY, especially Dade because he doesn’t believe in gloves. Dade is the handy man though, a little bob the builder minus the hammer. He is the augering king, bench sanding tycoon, and gate unlocking emperor all in one. Basically when we can’t handle a big physical problem…. we know who to call. And our seed beds look amazing because of it.
Weed to mulch project we did at Wauponsee trailhead.
Fieldtrips to Markham
Markham, IL is a south west suburb of Chicago no more than a 30 minute drive from downtown on a good day (no traffic). It has a pretty mixed demographic of African Americans, Latinos, and White families of lower to middle class status. Basically its is all houses and expressways. Except for this a few small patches of prairie next to I-55 and suburban houses. This is the Indian Boundary Prairie run by The Nature Conservancy.
The entire restoration team from Midewin got the opportunity to drive out to them, see their remnant and restored prairies, and talk to them about their experiences, challenges, and solutions to restoration work. It was truly amazing to get the chance to talk to people working for a non-profit and see the similar but different work and approaches they take to managing prairie ecosystems. Also their prairies are GORGEOUS! You could not even tell it was next to a highway if you turned the other way! Everyone talked about weed management practices, wildlife practices, different plants that we saw or wanted to repopulate in our respective areas, their career pathways to where they are now, even outreach programs that they are trying to implicate. Its crazy to think that this nice prairie is in the middle of a chicago suburb and not many people know about it, a specialist that grew up in the area said she did not even know it existed and the prairie has been there since the 1970s!
The ability to talk to them and learn more about their projects and tell them about ours really inspired a lot of people on the restoration team. Knowledge really is best when shared with other people so I am hoping they got as much out of meeting as I did. We are ready to take on the Prairie in August. Bring on the sun!
It’s no surprise that wildfires can have devastating impacts on people, wildlife, and the ecosystem. In high-severity wildfires, habitats are destroyed causing susceptible populations to decline. Such is the case for a rare species of wild onion, Allium gooddingii, better known as Gooding’s onion.
Allium gooddingii
Allium gooddingii is an endemic plant to New Mexico and Arizona where it generally grows under the canopy of high-elevation mixed conifer and spruce forest. In New Mexico, A. gooddingii can be found at Gilia and Lincoln National Forest. However, over 95% of A. gooddingii populations and their habitats have been heavily burned by wildfires since 2006 (Roth 2020). As a result of the wildfires, A. gooddingii is a Forest Sensitive Species and is listed as endangered species by the State of New Mexico (Roth 2020).
Allium gooddingii at Lincoln National Forest
On Lincoln National Forest, A. gooddingii can only be found at the Smokey Bear Ranger District at elevations above 10,000 feet. In recent years, large populations in the district have burned in two wildfires: the Little Bear Fire (2012) and Three Rivers Fire (2021). The Little Bear Fire burned a total of 44,330 acres in the Southern Sierra Blanca regions of LNF, including 80% of known A. gooddingii sites (Roth 2020). In addition, the Three Rivers Fire burned more than 7,000 acres of LNF, burning into the Little Bear burn scar. Both fires left the species’habitat without any canopy cover.
Little Bear burn scar on the left and Three Rivers on the right.
With the loss of canopy cover, the long-persistent of these plants is questionable. Therefore, surveys are carried out to monitor the impacts of fire on A. gooddingii populations. Luckily, I had the opportunity to join the Wildlife Crew in my district and partake in the surveys over several days. The surveys entailed heading to different scouting points within areas that were either burned by the Little Bear, Three Rivers, or not burned at all. At each point, the number of A. gooddingii individuals were counted within a 10 meter radial plot.
However, it was not an easy task getting to the different points. We had to hike down and up several steep slopes at an elevation of 11,000 feet to get to the points. Despite the challenging hikes, we completed all 16 scouting points. Later in the season, the Wildlife Crew will head back and collect seeds to be used for future restoration in LNF.
The Wildlife Crew and Peter surveying the onion species in a non burned area.
Pollinators
One of the most abundant populations I’ve seen at Three Rivers burn scar had several pollinators roaming around. I was able to capture a few.
Various pollinators captured on a single clump of A. gooddingii within the Three Rivers burn perimeter.
Literature Cited
Roth, D. 2020. Status report. Goodding’s onion (Allium gooddingii). Gila and Lincoln National Forest, NM. Unpublished report prepared by the EMNRD-Forestry Division, Santa Fe, NM for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Region 2, Albuquerque, NM. http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/SFD/ForestMgt/endangeredandrareplantreports.html
July is a month to celebrate—America’s independence, the heat of the summer before it gets too old, interns (national intern day is July 27th, according to nationaltoday.com). In the botany department at Tonasket ranger district, we celebrated finishing our ongoing survey of an inhospitable 10-ish mile stream system, Maria’s (pronounced Mariah’s) Creek. At times, I believed that the spirit of Maria was alive and well, out for mine and my coworkers’ blood. And blood she got.
Maria’s Creek is situated within a canyon, adjacent to a well-traveled USFS road. Though the road sees plenty of traffic, most of the stream seems to have been abandoned by humankind many years ago. The creek is narrow, almost as deep as it is wide in most spots. As inhospitable as it is to someone like me, it is a haven for plants, particularly the varieties with thorns and other lines of defense. Each bank of Maria’s creek is thick with Rosa woodsii, Ribes lacustre, with scattered surprise spots of Urdica dioica. Bravely, we fought our way through the waist-high roses and pushed past patches of stinging nettle to search for sensitive plants that prefer to make riparian habitats their home.
Maria didn’t want to make things too easy for us, though, and bush whacking can be tedious but not always hazardous. Her preferred method of spicing up the “trail” was through fallen trees. In certain spots, crisscrossing logs, fallen from the canyon side far above, were so dense there were no other options but to hop from trunk to branch, praying neither the rotting wood nor your shaky balance gave out. On our first day surveying the creek, David fell victim to a log that had been there a bit too long to be of much support; falling straight into the running stream below. Perhaps the rest of us should have taken that as a prediction for how the rest of the day would go.
Sweaty, bruised, and battered, the crew made it two and a half miles on our first day in the creek. Judging by the downtrodden feeling in the pit of my stomach, my spirit felt like we had made it much farther. Over the next two weeks, we took breaks to visit nicer creeks and wetlands in search of our target species, but always knew Maria was there, sadistically waiting for our return. Thirteen days after that first journey, the crew split up to finish our last few miles of Maria’s Creek surveys. That day, David and I were joined by some exceedingly bold cows, who moo’ed us towards our finish line.
Those of us not driving snoozed peacefully in the rig on our way back to the office that day, knowing we had conquered the beast, praying she doesn’t have co-conspirators elsewhere in our project area, lying in wait for unsuspecting botanists to get stuck in their trap. In my mind, July 18th will live on as a personal day of celebration. The day we said adieu to Maria’s Creek.
This past month has been a busy one up in the San Bernardino National Forest as we have become involved in a kaleidoscope of projects all across the mountain. With the season heating up both literally and figuratively a large amount of the target species on our list are getting close for seed collection. Due to this, Karen and I have made it top priority to get as many of our target species pressed before they become nothing more than husks of cellulose. This has led us to spending quite a bit of time in tracking down the most suitable specimen for pressing at each monitoring site leading us into various areas ranging from thick pinyon forests to arid desert flats. As of current we have collected a decent number of specimens from a few of our target sites such as P.centranthifolius, S.columbariae, S.speciosa, E.elymoides, and L.andersonii. In addition to this, we have learned how to mount completed specimens along with creating the identification tag that correlates to each species. It has been rather exciting adding collections to the Big Bear Herbarium especially species not documented in certain areas as it will in turn, assist future teams on where and when to find a certain species. The work is labor intensive but rewarding, sometimes we spend quite some time digging species out of the ground attempting to preserve the root as best as we can. From muggy bug-ridden meadows to rocky desert flats, we can often be found hunched over in the dirt digging fervently to remove these prime specimens before they wither away.
Also, some exciting news is we have completed our seed collection for S.columbariae with a total of 44,460 seeds gathered which is above the target goal of 30,000 needed! We were able to find, along with the help of our mentor Drew a large population of this species near the Santa Ana River a few hours from Big Bear. Along with the seed we gathered from other smaller sites we were extremely excited about the accomplishment. As of right now we have some seed processing to do as well for the grasses, so we are eager to see how much we have gathered and whether site revisitation is needed after evaluation.
Image: Karen and I collecting a P.centranthifolius specimen for pressing in Holcomb Valley, CA.
Image: Karen processing S.columbariae seed using different sized mesh strainers. Gloves are necessary as the flower buds are prickly.
Image: Seed that has finished being processed and accessioned ready to be placed in the seed cooler.
Another project we have focused on is assisting in the remodel of the Lytle Creek nursery to assist it in improving Phytophera BMP protocols and growing capacity. Our responsibility in this project was to remove two large Asclepias fasicularis beds and to transplant the milkweeds into pots for future nursery uses. It was lovely conducting this project as the place was filled with monarchs and their caterpillars. When removal was taking place, we took great care in checking if any of the plants had larvae or eggs and would treat them more gingerly. We spent the day disinfecting pots and utensils while also getting dirty in the mud!
Image: Me surrounded by a sea of Asclepias fasicularis in need of removal at Lytle Creek Nursery.
Image: A monarch butterfly caterpillar looking cute as ever. This was my first time seeing one and I was very excited about it!
Another major endeavor conducted this month was the collection and transportation of 100s of pounds of mulch to prepare for a restoration project taking place in Lake Arrowhead towards the end of September. This project was a day long endeavor and was incredibly labor intensive as it took a total of 4 hours to load and unload the mulch from trailer to restoration site. The mulch harvested for this project was aged for a few years before use, leading to the development of long strings of mycelium undergrowth trapped in each pile. With such a rich and healthy pile to harvest from I am hopeful that the nursery plants planted in this earth will thrive. The location specifically of the restoration site is actually near the Northshore cabin where I currently reside, and I am excited to see the desolate patch of earth damaged by OHV use near the campground become rich in healthy native species again.
Image 3: Gathering and transporting mulch for a new MDLP restoration site at Lake Arrowhead. To the far left we have Kobe Bench a Biological Science Technician who has assisted us with seed collection and monitoring. In between Karen and I is Lily Ortega a Biological Science Technician who works in botany mapping rare plant species.
Overall, this month has been a blast and as I’ve continued working in this field it has become apparent that there is plenty of love and care put in place for the local plant communities in the San Bernardino National Forest. Everyone plays a part in the restoration and botany team in aiding in accomplishing our goals and it’s been lovely working with the diverse set of individuals found in different sectors in forestry. While the projects at times may be difficult or physically tiring the results are rewarding and I am excited to continue contributing my part in helping protect the habitats of the native flora found in this stunningly diverse forest.
