“What are they looking at? They’re botanists! They should be looking at the ground!”

The botanists in question were standing on the summit of Mt. Jefferson, where we would be conducting an alpine vegetation survey for the Idaho Peaks Project. We had already seen a great amount of diversity on the four mile approach to our survey site; we passed Phacelia sericea, a relative of one of our target species (Phacelia hastata), Frasera speciosa, and a thriving population of Erythronium grandiflorum, which Alex and I were very excited to see.

One forb stood out from the rest during our hike to the alpine zone: Castilleja puberula. This species of Indian paintbrush is not only beautiful, but it is a rare species endemic to alpine zones along the Continental Divide and had previously only been sighted in Colorado and Montana.

This plant is especially interesting because of its relationship with surrounding individuals. Plants in the Castilleja genus are root hemi-parasites, meaning that they obtain water and mineral nutrients from a host plant using a specialized root called a haustorium. This structure connects the Castilleja to its host like a kind of suction cup and produce digestive enzymes to siphon away essential nutrients and water from the host. This evolutionary strategy has proven very effective: research done on eleven different species has shown that plants growing parasitically reach greater heights, show greater branching, and flower earlier in the year than non-parasitizing plants of the same species. But the benefits of this parasitism is not restricted to the Castilleja alone. When Castilleja target the dominant plant in an area, reducing its fitness, it opens up an opportunity for more plant species to move in, increasing the biodiversity of the whole area. The relationship between Castilleja and its host plant impacts the whole ecosystem.

As we move higher in elevation and closer to the timberline, we meet another noteworthy plant: Pinus albicaulis, or Whitebark Pine. Like Castilleja puberula, Whitebark Pine is one half of a fascinating symbiotic relationship.

Unlike most conifers, Whitebark Pine has indehiscent cones, so even when the seeds are ripe, the cones do not open to disperse the seeds. Why would a tree evolve to its seed stuck in a cone, completely inaccessible for reproduction?

Clark’s Nutcracker is the answer to this ecological mystery. It uses its shark beak to break open the hard scales of the pinecones and stores up to 150 of Whitebark Pine’s nutrient dense seeds in a sublingual pouch. The birds will then create seed caches of three to five seeds, typically in disturbed or open areas like a recent burn, burying them a few inches deep in the soil. Each year, an individual Clark’s Nutcracker can cache up to 100,000 seeds and rely on their amazing memory for finding their caches again later in the year- they will return to approximately 60% of their seed banks! The caches that are not returned to, and that survive predation by groundhogs and other scavengers, will germinate and grow into saplings in the years following their being planted.

Whitebark Pine populations rely on Clark’s Nutcrackers as the only animal to disperse their seed. As WBP faces increasing pressure from threats like blister rust and beetle infestation, their relationship with Clark’s Nutcracker is more important than ever. As a keystone species, they are crucial members of Idaho’s ecosystems, providing nutrition for countless species of wildlife as well as soil stabilization and runoff regulation. Conserving both species is essential for the protection of western ecosystems from irreversible changes.

Our journey up Mt. Jefferson gave us an invaluable look into the diverse and beautiful plant communities present in southeastern Idaho and the wildlife species that they rely on and serve. Working with several experienced botanists to complete an intensive botanical alpine survey and help fill gaps in our understanding of alpine plant communities and Idaho’s rare plants was an immensely rewarding opportunity and, although I didn’t think it was possible, I came out of the experience with an even greater love for the wildflowers we are working to conserve every day.

-az

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.

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.

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.

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. 🙂

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!