In early June, I began working as part of the Seeds of Success (SOS) East program stationed at the North Carolina Botanical Garden.  The first few weeks were full of training, herbarium research, organizing gear, searching for potential collection sites, making contacts, and applying for permits.  These are all essential tasks of course, but after a few weeks of mostly indoors work, the crew was more than a little antsy to get into the field.

Within the past week, our permits to collect seed have begun to roll in.  This was fantastic news for us, because it meant we got to load up and ship out to the North Carolina Outer Banks on Tuesday morning!  Our first foray was into the Buxton Woods Coastal Reserve, right next to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  The Outer Banks is a chain of barrier islands; thin strips of sand separating the mainland coast and Pamlico Sound from the Atlantic Ocean.  The islands measure about 3 miles at their very widest points, making it convenient to investigate both the sound side and the ocean side coasts.   The Outer Banks is naturally the first part of the North Carolina coast to absorb the effects of hurricanes coming in off the Atlantic.   SOS focuses on species that will colonize and stabilize coastal areas, particularly after hurricane damage, so these islands are a great place to find what we are looking for.  We have a list of about 160 species targeted for collection.

As soon as we got out and began looking around at Buxton Woods, I was grateful for all the time we have spent in the herbarium and in the keys researching some of our species that may get confused.  Having moved to the Southeast fairly recently from the Pacific Northwest, I’ve been confronted with dozens and dozens of unfamiliar taxa.  While I can say that my knowledge of the Southeastern flora has grown by leaps and bounds over the past month, I still have so much to learn!  Even so, our study of the species list really paid off.  Before last month, I couldn’t have told you anything about Schoenoplectus americanus, which is a type of brackish-marsh dwelling sedge also known as chairmaker’s bulrush.  At this point, however, I think I will forever recognize Schoenoplectus and the closely-related Bolboschoenus species when I come across them in their watery habitats.  S. americanus was one of the first collections we made at Buxton Woods, along with seeds from Juncus roemerianus (black needle rush).  I quickly learned to be cautious where you step, not only because of the water mocassins (!), but because the deep marshy mud will suck the boots right off your feet!

Ground level view of Schoenoplectus americanus and Eleocharis fallax, two of the species my crew collected seeds from this week.

Getting those first seeds into the bag was deeply satisfying for me.  We were finally doing what we came here to do!  The rest of the week was spent exploring the Coastal Reserve system on the Outer Banks, which includes the Currituck Banks and Kitty Hawk Woods Coastal Reserves, in addition to Buxton Woods.  We also made collections at the Pine Island Audubon Santuary, where we were fortunate enough to stay at a bunk house on the property.  We made about 6 collections for SOS, and did quite a bit of scouting to see which sites contained our species of interest, and where these species were in terms of phenology.  I kept a running list of which species we found at each site, which is helping me to learn the plants better and will be useful when we plan to return to each site. Many of the plants we looked at were either still in the vegetative stage, or had just begun to flower.  We will revisit each site at intervals through the season to capture the full spectrum of seed maturity times.

My crew hard at work pressing specimens and recording data on Pine Island Audubon Sanctuary

Rhexia mariana, or Maryland Meadow-beauty. This is a species we will revisit at Pine Island in the next month to see when the seeds are mature.

The view out from the dunes at Currituck Banks Coastal Reserve.

We will return to the North Carolina coast next week to continue our collections and reconnaissance.  The crew is moving into the full swing of field season, and it feels good.  I’ll be saving up our stories until next time.

Til then, cheers!  And watch out for snakes.

Emily

A couple weeks ago, I was asked to introduce the Pine Hill Preserve to a group of high school students. The task of introducing the preserve and its mission in a compelling way felt like a challenge. The landscape of the preserve is dry, thorny, steep, and shrubby. It lacks most of the features that usually attract people to the outdoors – and in fact, it wasn’t really protected for the purpose of recreation in the first place. Instead, the primary mission of the preserve is to protect several species of rare plants.

Around the same time, we found out that a new species – Carex xerophila, named in 2014 – may constitute a new rare plant for the preserve. Before this sedge was recognized as a unique species, it had been lumped in with Carex brainerdii and Carex rossii in the Pine Hill Preserve area.

Inflorescence from the newly described Carex xerophila

As I considered the possible addition of this new rare plant and my upcoming task of presenting the preserve, I got to thinking about the philosophy behind rare plant conservation. Is it truly important to prevent species from going extinct? If so, why?

There are a few go-to responses to the question of why to protect rare plants. One is that if a species goes extinct, there are likely to be unforeseen consequences for the entire habitat. In complicated ecosystems where pollinators, primary producers, predators, and prey are tightly intertwined, it is nearly impossible for us to predict what will happen when a species disappears.

Another is that individual species of plants can be immensely valuable to humans in ways that aren’t always obvious. Medicinal plants are a good example – many of the compounds used in pharmaceuticals come directly from plants. So, when we drive a plant to extinction, we could be losing an effective treatment or even a cure for some human ailment.

But is it worthwhile to protect a species even if it isn’t a linchpin in its ecosystem, and even if it doesn’t hold any secrets for our well-being? I think that protecting a species from extinction could be justified as a simple demonstration of respect for life. We don’t understand very much about many species, and in some ways we don’t know very much about life itself – so perhaps we should prevent extinction simply out of deference to the unknown.

Carex xerophila at Pine Hill Preserve (low shrub on bare soil)

Hey there,

It’s Erin checking in from Lakeview, this time with a few visuals. So far, I have been working in Oregon for about two months. Lakeview surely hasn’t changed since my arrival, but my outlook on the surrounding landscape has. As for the town, I have been exploring more and have come across the little things that make Lakeview standout. Although it’s not a big city with great diversity or numerous places of local commerce, this makes room for its own quirky spots and artwork.

Here is a sign advertising Lakeview as the “tallest town in Oregon.”

I stumbled upon this quaint piece of artwork in a surely unvisited alleyway in town.

As for the surrounding landscape, I have rounded up cattle trailers full of information on local flora, fauna, and landforms that makeup the “outback.” Since my first week at the BLM we have made a total of 12 collections, including the beautiful Astragalus lentiginosus.

Astragalus lentiginosus (Freckled Milkvetch)

As well as collections, we have made plenty of optimistic vouchers. One of my favorites is the complementary colored and charming Calchortus macrocarpus.

Calchortus macrocarpus (Mariposa Lilly)

A few of my favorite species that we’ve stumbled upon are in the Polemoniaceae and Asclepiadaceae families.

Linanthus ciliatus (Wickerbrush)

Asclepias speciosa (Showy Milkweed)

Asclepias fascicularis (Narrow Leaf Milkweed)

A few notable activities since I have started: Visiting Bend, Oregon for a very informative  grass workshop under the Carex Working Group, and the vehicle rodeo put on by the BLM to test our driving skills.

Vehicle Rodeo at the Lake County Fairgrounds

Grass workshop in Bend

Although the local forbs and artwork have left me wide eyed and breezy, the tempestuous weather the past two weeks has been quite the challenge in the field- starting with temperatures above 100 degrees last week, to the thunderous rain of this week, and ending in a dust storm last night- has combined to create an awe inspiring finish to the week.

A rainbow over the Warner Mountains.

-Erin

It has been a bittersweet time this month as it will be on of my last in this part of the state. I am going to be leaving intern status to start my Permanent GS 9/11 gig in Rawlins, Wyoming.  I have been applying for permanent archaeology jobs for 5 years and never getting callbacks.  Then all the sudden I had 3 interviews at once. However leaving a place you love for a job is tough, but a career has to start somewhere! This last month I have been doing tons of fieldwork in some of the more interesting and scenic parts of the field office. This field season I have surveyed hundreds of acres of BLM surface and found very few sites, however a lack of sites is important scientific information as well. It’s going to be tough to leave a  office I have been in for four years, but I am sure many cool new mountains and archaeological sites await.

Recently while talking to friends and family everyone asks me how my new life in the city is going. I’m a pretty honest person, so I tell them how it is – I adore my internship (Hiking around to scout and collect seeds all day? Best gig ever!) and my coworkers and I are all already really close friends… But for someone who just spent most of the last four years in the nature lover’s paradise that is Vermont, the city is just about the worst. It’s loud, there are always trash bags everywhere, trying to get anywhere is insane, stores try to charge you $6 for a box of cereal, and in general it is terribly inconvenient. Thankfully I took this position knowing that I’d be travelling outside the city a lot for work and this past month the MARSB team finally got to go on some scouting and collecting trips!

For our first trip we spent three days scouting state parks and learning our collection list species on Long Island. While the traffic was still awful and most places were either fancy residential areas or a giant tourist trap, I was surprised that the conserved land on this built up island still appeared to have healthy ecosystems. Many of the beaches were even gorgeous to boot! We focused primarily on dune and beach species there, most of which I was already familiar with from growing up on the coast. Our mentor Clara also taught us about how to tell when certain seeds are ripe. Below is her sharing some very unripe beach pea seeds (Lathyrus japonicus).

We also went back to some areas closer to the city on Long Island for two day trips at the end of the week. Probably the most exciting moment for me on the trip was getting to see one of these beauties (below). They’re called Grass Pink (Calogpogon tuberosus) and are an orchid which grows in bogs and other wet areas. A small colony of them were growing in a boggy swale between dunes with other (in my opinion) exciting species such as two sundews (Drosera spp.). We were intent on covering ground though, and I regret not being able to key them out, although they were probably the typical roundleaf sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) and threadleaf sundew (Drosera filiformis). I’m not sure where the guys on the team had run off to at the time, but my female coworkers, Clara, and myself had quite the laugh after what we thought was a frustrating mystery orchid we had found growing along a clearing edge. After many attempts to key the plant out Clara finally pulls it out of the back of her mind that the plant was actually a strange, showy-flowered plantain (Plantago patagonica) and we had managed to be looking at a specimen with poorly developed leaves the whole time!

Hello all!

This past month has been quite exciting and fun! What I love about this internship is that the types of work we do is always changing and we always see new places. My mentor here in Richfield estimated that we cover 8 million acres of land! It is so great that I am getting to see more of the state of Utah than I have seen in any other state I have lived! At the end of May/start of June, we began taking vouchers for our seed collections for Seeds of Success and then shortly after, we all had the workshop in Chicago. So far our crew has made about 25 collections, so currently we are really on a great pace!

Having fun during seed collection!

A lot of the collections we have made are of Needle and Thread (Hesperostipa comata), Indian Ricegrass (Achnatherum hymenoides), and Globemallow (Sphaeralcea parvifolia). But we have also made a few collections of Machaeranthera tanacetifolia, Astragalus lonchocarpus, and a few others. It is a great experience to look at all sorts of different habitats and try to find big enough stands of plants to get a sizable collection from.

Buckhorn Wash in eastern Utah

Seed collections for Astragalus lonchocarpus!

Searching western Utah for new possible seed collections

One of the other things that I have enjoyed so far is when I have the opportunity to go out into the field with other people from our office, or other nearby offices, and we look and discuss different treatments that have been done to various areas. It is really cool to see and hear about what the area looked like in the past, what it looks like now, if the treatment worked or did not work, what could have been done differently. And hearing everybody’s insight makes for a more complete answer to these different questions.

I imagine by the time of my next post our crew will have even more collections completed, and possibly more then our target of 40! Until next time!

Sam

Richfield, UT

Another project I am working on is surveying established populations of rare orchids at Catoctin National Park in Thurmont, MD.  Let me do some introductions.

Coeloglossum viride – Long Bracted Orchid (LBO)

The Long Bracted Orchid (Coeloglossum viride) was the first orchid for which I surveyed.  LBO is threatened or endangered in 8 states, including Maryland, and the population that we have here at Catoctin Mountain Park is the largest population in the state! LBO may not be the most charismatic orchid, but it certainly does have some strange habits.  This orchid has been surveyed since the early 1980s and has seen a significant amount of decline, most likely due to deer browsing.  What is interesting about LBO is that since a deer management plan has been implemented in the park, the population has been steadily increasing, but only in one specific area.  The only place that LBO has been found in the park is on the outer edge of a campground parking lot and along an adjacent horse trail.   The LBO thrives in the disturbed edge habitat that the parking-lot and horse trail provides!

Another orchid I have been working with this season is called the Purple Fringed Orchid.

Greater Purple Fringed Orchid

The Greater Purple Fringed Orchid (Platanthera grandiflora) is found in moist habitats and has a strong associated with skunk cabbage.  PFO has been surveyed since the later 1970s and has also seen a sharp decline likely due to the over population of deer in the park.  Measures have been taken to protect the orchid and the recent implementation of the deer management plan has also done good things for the populations of the Purple Fringed Orchid in Catoctin Mountain Park.

Platanthera grandiflora

I was able to get together a team of other interns and seasonal rangers to help me survey some swampy stream areas and we were able to find a total of 50 individuals!  We took GPS points and data on numbers of flowers and buds and were able to compare it to the previous years of data.  It is interesting seeing how the population ebbs and flows as the years go by.

The last orchid I ran into this summer is called the Large Round Leafed Orchid (Platanthera orbiculata).  While surveying for the Long Bracted Orchid along a horse trail I stumbled upon a strange looking orchid-like leaf with a stalk full of buds.  Back at the office I told the biologist about it and she directed me to a paper published in 2014 that documented a long-term study of the orchid populations in the area.  (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10531-014-0698-2)  After reading the paper and doing some research on the orchids listed in the paper I was able to get a good idea of which orchid I had found….

Platanthera orbiculata – Large Round Leaf Orchid

Platanthera orbiculata

After the orchid flowered I was able to positively identify it as Platanthera orbiculata.  The exciting thing about this orchid find is that this plant was listed as extirpated not only from Catoctin Mountain Park, but the entire Catoctin Mountain region!  Needless to say I was excited.  The paper draws a correlation between orchid decline and deer over population.  Considering Catoctin Mountain Park has had their deer management plan put in place for only 5 years, it is possible that the decline of deer browse has allowed this orchid to re-emerge.  Imagine what else could pop up!

Until Next Time,

Emily

I’ve been in Dillon, Montana for several weeks now, working at the BLM field office there. My mentor, Kelly Savage, is primarily a range specialist, but is also the plant specialist of the office. Kelly has taught me a lot about everything, from range land management to edible native plants to Native American cairns. I’ve also been out with range technicians doing different vegetation and stream surveys; one day I went out with a wildlife technician, Melanie, and looked for Goshawks on a timber sale allotment. The variety has been fun and I am looking forward to collecting seed this week.

As someone who does not come from a ranching background or even from the region, I quickly learned a lot about how life and work go out here. Several words and phrases have taken on new meanings for me since moving from Portland, Oregon to Dillon.

Looking out on Sage Creek

Land- On the first day my mentor and I drove around the grazing allotment she manages and discussed just about everything. Something that struck me though was her use of the word land. “Really, everything I am doing is to improve the health of the Land. If we manage it well, the Land can continue to give and teach us for many years.” I capitalize Land because when talked about in this sense, the word loses its stale meaning of a portion of the upper crust of the earth and becomes something that is a dynamic unit. “Land” means the dirt, rock, and debris (DAUBENMEIER) that hold up the flora, fauna, fungus wrapped into an inseparable package, interdependent and specific.
Land is also tied to ownership, which, depending who you ask, can mean responsible for or control over. Even the idea of “owning” land comes with controversy and implications of capitalism, exploitation, and inequality. (Tangent: some academics have claimed that the privatization of land coincided with the spread of written language, thus a shift to right brain values. I digress.) It is strange to think that while doing a seed collection if I walk ten steps to my right I could cross the imaginary boundary into “private land,” where the plants are now loyal to only the name on the title. However, proprietorship also allows for care for the designated plot of earth. It avoids the tragedy of the commons and ties a sense of commitment to its future. My job this summer will hopefully provide the data and tools to make informed and sustainable decisions concerning the use of the Land.

Binos- Rhymes with “dinos.” I spent a day with wildlife and had to bring my binos to do Goshawk surveying. I’ve never seen a goshawk, but after listening to the call box all day I will recognize its call until the day I die.

A bull and cow

Cow/Bull- Before my first day at the BLM, cows and bulls were cattle. Now one must distinguish between cow cows, cow bulls and cow elk, bull elk. I’ve seen plenty of cattle cows and bulls, but also a handful of elk. My co-worker Berett found three elk shed this week and let me keep one! It makes me feel like a real Montanan.

Big Country in Medicine Lodge

Big Country- In contrast to Land, country cannot be owned, despite the fences designating plots and borders. When driving on Old Bannack Road towards Big Sheep Creek, the sky, hills, and plains expand before me. Big Country is not only a geographically large area, it is space you can see. The nothing between the mountains becomes something, and that something is enormous compared to anything humans could build.

A visitor at a potential collection: Northern Sweet Vetch (Hedysarum boreale)

The past month has been spent analyzing our annual vegetation data from juvenile Desert Tortoise sites, and we’ve come a long way! We have also been searching across most of Utah and some of Colorado (Colorado Plateau) for potential post-oil well vegetation monitoring sites! This new project is a departure from our previous work, and will be a nice getaway from the heat in the Mojave! This has involved a tremendous amount of filtering through GIS data and looking at satellite imagery for promising sites. The criteria involve clusters of sites, each containing: sites where Artemisia tridentata and/or Coleogyne ramosissima grow (or would, if an oil well hadn’t been established), a site from each decade from 1950-2000 (when the oil well was plugged and abandoned), and that each cluster fall within certain climatic constraints. This is no small task when faced with over a thousand potential sites! But it has been a great way to learn more about GIS and get a look at post-restoration oil well from the air!

In other news, the weather has been incredibly unpredictable, with temperatures climbing well above 110 F and incredible thunderstorms at the same time! Incredible precipitation events have led to flash floods and sights like this dry lake bed near Primm, NV, which is not-so-dry anymore!

Meanwhile the perennials are sending off seed, and the summer annuals are waiting for their moment to sprout from this monsoon weather!