New ride, new location, and new blooms (Cercis canadensis).

Howdy y’all!

A lot has changed since I submitted my last blog in December. I am a second time Botany Intern for the U. S. Forest Service. Last year I was based out of the LBJ National Grasslands at Decatur, TX. I am now working out of the Caddo National Grasslands Work Center “office” located near Honey Grove, TX. This location is a much more rural and remote area than before and needs lots of work done botanically. I am looking forward to the season to really kick into gear as the weather gets warmer. Hopefully I will be able to share some neat pictures and information here within the next month.

Until then,

Keagan

Office entrance at the Caddo National Grasslands at Honey Grove, Texas.

So much on my mind!

First off, Hello from Ridgecrest, CA!!! A beautiful piece of dirt and rocks that creosote and some other amazingly adapted plants call home.

I dont even know where to begin explaining the strange journey it’s been out west. As a native Midwesterner, moving to the desert was a huge shift. I drove from Lawrence, KS. As I slowly inched across the highway the land went from a lush spring green to a increasingly more arid landscape. As I crossed through western Kansas into southeastern CO, I began to question my journey. Seeing the Midwest form of a “desert” and fearing how much worse it would be once I finally got here. As someone that has spent his entire life in the Midwest, it was quite a dramatic turn of events.

Once I was here, I didn’t believe it. I still have trouble remembering where I am when I walk outside. The Sierras in the distance. The brownness.

“The desert is a long and brown land” – A quote from a natural history book I’m reading about the area. This is truly a fascinating place. I am in the Indian Wells Valley that is on the east side of the southern extent of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. To the south are the El Paso mountains, which are littered with Creosote and Lysium shrubs. The flowers are amazing. So many new species and genus. However it’s been fairly frustrating that a key hasn’t been written in the past decade (or at least none of the books anyone has given me are recent) and many of the genus have been renamed. The joy of taxonomy!

Our project seems interesting. There weren’t that many collections from the previous year and this year seems to be a big year for flowers. I wish the internship would have started a month ago, as the learning curve seems steep and the diversity is surprisingly high.

This weekend we are planning to go to Death Valley and Darwin Falls. Apparently there is water out there.  Although when one looks at the landscape, I find it hard to believe.

This is a photo over looking Rigecrest.

This beautiful looking shrub I believe is Lycium andersonii

The infamous California Poppy Eschscholzia californica

More to come soon!

Robbie Ray Wood

Last year’s intern team began experimenting with transplanting saltgrass rhizomes. The rhizomes are harvested from Adrian’s allotment and moved to Swan Lake. Our mentor, Dean, asked us to expand the grow site to help determine the best location for saltgrass survival. We had an eventful day at Adrian’s allotment where we used a pick hammer to locate and extract the rhizomes. While working, we stumbled upon a decomposing horse carcass. Dean informed us that the carcass has been decomposing for a few years.  We spent a day and a half planting at Swan Lake. The first day, we were able to eat lunch in the presence of a Bald eagle. The second day was less eventful, but it was enjoyable to work in the warm sun.

Horse Carcass at Adrian’s Allotment

Railroad at Adrian’s Allotment

Planting rhizomes at Swan Lake.

Lunch with Bald Eagle

Seeding OHV roads at Hot Springs Mountain

Storm Cloud over neighborhood at Hot Springs Mountain.

Monique Gil

Carson City, Nevada

SFFO Carson City BLM

A lot of last week was spent preparing to take over greenhouse management from Alex (Forest Service Biotech). I was reading the greenhouse notebook, books on nursery management and pest disease, and various other articles. I met with Mary, a Forest Service Biotech who had formerly managed the greenhouse, and Alex who managed the greenhouse up until last week. I learned how to sterilize old soil, mix new soil, treat a couple of common pests, and the daily and monthly routine for completing greenhouse tasks. As I’ve been spending more time in the greenhouse, I’m noticing more, especially the pests.

Right now I am working to treat 200 manzanitas for scale. Scale is a common insect pest on many trees and shrubs. Scale insects form a waxy, protective coating and remain in one place on a plant for most of their lives. When they first hatch they crawl away from the mother to find a new spot and then lose their legs. Only males will emerge in a winged form later on to mate with immobile females. The scale feed on the plant and damage includes water stress. Our manzanita are heavily infested and the leaves are quite yellow and brittle. The treatment for scale is simply to scrape the little buggers off the plant. Since they don’t have legs they can’t come back. This I am patiently doing using an old toothbrush.

Scale on Manzanita.

Other pests we deal with in the greenhouse include aphids, gnats, and powdery mildew. There is also a mysterious problem with some of our terragon, which have small, round, black spots over the leaves. These terragon plants are quite old and have filled their pots to the bottoms with roots – apparently from what I have read this can decrease the ability of a plant to defend itself. I have also seen one more unknown pest, which, like scale, appears to be immobile on Rabbitbrush, but is brown in color. If anyone knows what these might be, please comment!

Aphids on Sandberg Bluegrass.

Captured gnats.

Mysterious Terragon affliction.

Unknown, immobile pest on Rabbitbrush.

I have continued to go in the field for restoration site monitoring, HMP monitoring, and to plant with the Americorps crews. This week I learned to build T-post fence, which is A LOT OF FUN. I learned how to plan a fence, brace the ends using Wedge-Loc or wire, use a fencing tool, pound the posts, and string the wire under the tutelage of Hannah (Southern California Mountains Foundation Employee). I can’t wait to build another!

Completed fence.

Post pounding to brace a corner.

Otherwise, the weather is getting very nice here. Since daylight savings we have light much longer in the evening, and I have been using the extra light to run along the perimeter of Big Bear Lake. We had (probably) our last snow this past Friday, and I was fortunate to be able to enjoy the rain, snow, and winds first hand as I walked home from the grocery store. By morning we had a nice coating, but it quickly melted. As always, I am working on my plant ID, reading, going to yoga classes, and recently started a knitting project.

Very cool fungi in the greenhouse.

Cheers!
Marta
San Bernardino National Forest
Fawnskin, CA

I rode north from Santa Cruz in my trusty red Subaru (which is very happy to be back in California after two months of riding around the southern states), windows down in the cold and damp air — so known and yet so new. A few frantic days of house-hunting and floor-sleeping yielded a wonderful small hut for my latest chapter — a CLM internship in Arcata, California working as a botanist for the Bureau of Land Management for the next 7 months. I am already in my second week; reeling as we do from the sidelong speed of living life. I must admit, it has been the most fully “adult” week of my sub-adult life! Happily transitioning into a new chapter, new place, new pretenses for my between undergraduate and graduate school life.

Many habitats have greeted me thus far, further intensifying my pleasure in residing and working in the heart of diversity in the California Floristic Province (that’s right, Northern California has the highest regional diversity in the state!). The dense, resplendent Redwood forest, is quite different than the Redwood forest I came to know near the southern extent of its range in Santa Cruz, CA (where I graduated in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in December). In the north, the charismatic Sequoia sempervirens mixes with several species from the Cascades, including snowflake-foliaged Grand Fir (Abies grandis) and the lustrous grey flake-barked Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis). Groves of Yellow Skunk-Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus) cover the low wet forest ravines with long, broad leaves and a warm animal musk. Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) flowering and shedding ruby petals in the babbling draws! Wakerobin (Trillium ovatum ssp. ovatum) blooming white in every shady nook and cranny!

To make things even more overwhelming, spring is springing — not the bloom and bust sort of spring many Californians are used to, but a slowly unfolding sort of spring driven by warm oceans, a warming world and locally, a higher latitude than I have ever lived at! (Pacific Wren and Ruby-crowned Kinglets have already begun singing in my ears and outside my window at home.)

I digress… The past week and a half have been a diverse mix of duties, reflecting the diverse management issues and responsibilities of the Arcata BLM Field Office. I attended a two-day climate change adaptation workshop (directed by EcoAdapt), have been getting oriented and trained, began my primary project for the next months, drove to the King Range to input invasive plant GPS data and judged the Humboldt County Science Fair! My primary work in the coming weeks will be monitoring the dune mat plant communities along the Humboldt coast line, of which the Humboldt Bay hosts the longest continuous stretch in the state. My work out there includes identifying all plant species, discerning cover densities and paying close attention to two federally listed dune plants — the Humboldt Bay Wallflower (Erysimum menziesii subsp. eurekense) and Beach Layia (Layia carnosa). The dune system is a truly beautiful and rare habitat type — salt spray, intense north coast wind, powerful sun, constantly shifting sand. One cannot help but stand in awe of these humble plants (particularly in a year like this, when the entire dune leaps with flowers). Paradoxically, these incredibly well-adapted plants exist within a fragile matrix — a habitat that is in many locations inhospitable to native species due to invasions of European Beach Grass (Ammophila arenaria) and Iceplant (Carpobrotus edulis and C.chilensis).

Samoa Dunes, Transect #3, a classic example of North Coast Dune Mat habitat.

Federally endangered plant #1: Erysimum menziesii subsp. eurekense. Growing characteristically close to Artemisia pycnocephala, an indicator species.

Federally endangered plant #2: Layia carnosa. Many more rosettes in the background!

Spring? The wonderful Sanicula artopoides, the Footsteps of Spring.

Close-up (Iphone photo through a hand lens) of Platystemon californicus — Cream Cups.

Claytonia exigua ssp. exigua

The incredible Dune Silver Bee (Habropoda miserabilis), perhaps the most important dune pollinator, doing what it does on Humboldt Bay Wallflower.

Anyways….back to the dunes! Thanks for reading!

Kaleb Goff

Arcata BLM Field Office

Much of my time over the past month has been devoted to the development of a document tentatively titled “Work Horse Species for the Restoration of Disturbed Lands and Pollinator Habitat.” I bet you’re at the edge of your seat! What even is a work horse species? Why combine disturbed lands and pollinators? Well…

Long before I arrived, restoration staff started on a simpler report intended to recommend which native plant species to use in revegetation efforts across the forest. The SBNF covers so much ground and so many different varieties of habitat that it’s important to set some rules. This way we ensure plants added to restoration sites are adapted to survive local conditions and contribute to healthy, resilient ecosystems. These hardy, recommended plants are dubbed “workhorse species.”

Then, in May 2015 the White House released their “National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators.” The Forest Service Region 5 (California) also generated a Pollinator Best Management Practices report. Together, these directives urge Federal land managers like the SBNF restoration team to support the health of pollinator populations in response to the massive honeybee, monarch butterfly, and other pollinator population crashes that have occurred over the past few decades. Considering these bugs are responsible for the reproduction of around 80% of the world’s flowering plants, including most of our food crops, this should concern us all.

Basically, whenever a restoration project is planned on the forest we want pollinator habitat to be a primary consideration. Fortunately, pollinator habitat enhancement and disturbed lands restoration are complementary activities! Several of the workhorse species used in restoration are already favored by pollinators. Eriogonum, Penstemon, and Encelia, for example. Our program is identifying additional species important to pollinators as sources of nectar and larvae food. Milkweed, aka Asclepias, is one, which I discussed in my last post.

Besides writing, I’ve been enjoying lots of time in the field. A few weeks ago I helped plant a rather dramatic restoration site known as the Summit Staging Area—dramatic for the view of the San Gabriel Mountains as well as the method of restoration.

This lot had been used as a “staging area” where off highway vehicle (OHV) riders could unload their quads, dirtbikes, etc. and get ready to ride the trails. Sadly, many riders decided to drive off the footprint of the staging area and onto the hillside, running over quality habitat. To prevent this continued degradation, the restoration program called for the placement of boulders around the perimeter of the lot and “chunking” of the damaged area outside. Chunking involves the creation of hills and dips over the ground making it essentially impossible for OHV riders to drive across. According to staff, the contractors chunked this site considerably more than the norm with taller hills and deeper dips.

So, we knocked those tall hills down a peg! We used the excess soil to fill the dips and create a perfect bed for the planting of native Eriogonum, Ericameria, and Malacothamnus from our greenhouse.

Outside of work, in mid-February, I took advantage of a three-day weekend to explore Death Valley. I couldn’t have accidentally picked a more super time, for the national park was experiencing a super bloom. There is only one big bloom like this every decade or so. Thanks, El Nino. I took literally hundreds of photos of the wildflowers. The desert is colorful, immense, and humbling.

I take the GRE next weekend. Too bad they care more about geometry and vocabulary than plant ID. Wish me luck!

Brandon Drucker

Mountaintop Ranger Station
San Bernardino National Forest
Fawnskin, California

A view up our site, Hot Springs Mountain

Though it’s hard to tell, this pictures shows a wide ditch that opened after a landslide. It will likely facilitate future landslides if not dealt with.

One of our main focuses this week was a restoration site just outside Carson City. The area has seen a number of erosion events in recent years that have caused serious property damage in the nearby residential area. Our goal here is to revegetate the disturbed areas with the hopes of lessening the severity of future landslides.

We seeded two different plants, rubber rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa) and fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens). Both of these plants occur commonly in the sagebrush scrub community that is typical around here. You may be wondering why we chose these plants instead of the most common plant in sagebrush scrub — which is sagebrush — and we have good reason for this choice. Both rubber rabbitbrush and fourwing saltbush are part of the early successional community; sagebrush is not. This means that rabbitbrush and saltbush are better at colonizing disturbed areas. This is especially important for our project, because we need plants that will be able to establish a root system quickly and stabilize the soil. Additionally, with any restoration project, if you’re trying to reestablish the native plant community, you increase your chances by following nature’s lead. By seeding rabbitbrush and saltbush, we are mimicking the order in which plants would recolonize the area. Hopefully, this will allow the plant community on these disturbed areas to most efficiently develop and blend into the current plant community.

A terrible picture of me using that red contraption in the bottom right corner to spread fourwing saltbush seed

A newly-seeded trail

While in the field, we were approached by a few people who lived in the area and were curious about what we were doing. The first person was interested in the plants we were seeding, stating she would need to look them up later, and was just happy to see us out there doing something to help. However, we were approached by a couple people a bit later, and when we told them what we were seeding, they seemed pretty disappointed and informed us that rabbitbrush causes a lot of people to have allergies. One person stated, “I’d understand sagebrush, but rabbitbrush is just a nuisance.” Caught off guard by this reaction, I apologized about their allergies as they walked away. In my head, I thought about the importance of using rabbitbrush over sagebrush and how the amount of rabbitbrush we’re adding would be insignificant to the amount already present. Afraid to come across as argumentative, I didn’t voice these thoughts and may have missed a chance to inform some people.
Despite the uncomfortable situation, this showed me such a succinct example of something we are told so often, that you can’t please everybody. Even with a project that seems so benign, seeding areas to help stop landslides into people’s houses, there are still ways to disappoint people. This challenge of land management is something I hope to learn to better navigate. Hopefully, if I’m approached in the future by a member of the public who doesn’t agree with the work we’re doing, I can start a friendly conversation with them, not necessarily so that they agree with me, just so they can better understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.

How and where do I begin? At the beginning I suppose.

I find myself extremely fortunate to be here in Alaska. It is a beautiful and very mild winter this year, which allows us to get a lot more time outside and to stave off the cabin fever. Of course it’s difficult to stay indoors when you don’t have to be, regardless of what the weather has in store, but the difference this year is you can get away with fewer layers and thus be able to move your limbs freely.
The sunlight is gradually returning (about 6 minutes a day), while at night the aurora borealis still, quite visibly, undulates with its neon greens across the sky which makes this time of year kind of “magical”.

I was very recently hired and amidst the blur of acronyms, paperwork, training etc. it’s difficult to pin down any one thing to talk about as far as the position goes. Two things worth mentioning are: I have met some very kind and helpful people who have each gone out of their way to welcome me. And the wildlife position I was hired for sounds very interesting! The general picture for the position focuses on Dall sheep usage of natural mineral licks and all the fun details associated with their visitations to these sites.
My next blog will definitely contain more information about the project as I increase my knowledge and exposure to well, everything I can get my hands on.
until then…….

T Hill

BLM – Central Yukon Field Office

Fairbanks, Alaska

Hello again from the north.
Like any good Midwesterner (current or former) I must talk about the weather at some point.
It has been, like in so many places, unseasonably warm. There is plenty of snow still on the ground and though the temps rarely rise above freezing, many Alskans are wearing short sleeve shirts while waiting for spring to officially arrive.
Training is still the primary focus of my work but at least now it is beginning to hone in on the specific needs of my position. Aviation training this week followed soon by things like bear safety and the like.
One step at a time towards the fun stuff! Until next time!
-T Hill
CYFO BLM Fairbanks, AK

Time flies when you’re an intern! Apparently.

A month has passed since I began work with the San Bernardino National Forest. The snow melted. Then it snowed again. Somewhere in between things picked up for us.

The SBNF restoration staff tackle an incredible number of responsibilities, and we’ve been busy learning how projects are carried out and prioritized on what is, apparently, one of the most heavily utilized patches of public land in the country. Every weekend the (human) population explodes in Big Bear. Thousands come from all over southern California to snowboard, ski, hike, climb, fish, and drive through the mud. While most forest users treat the area with respect, others do not, and thus restoration is necessary.

One of the most common and damaging illegal practices on the forest is the creation of unauthorized off-highway vehicle (OHV) trails. Many miles of legal “green sticker” routes already traverse the forest. I’ve driven on them. They’re beautiful. They climb stunning ridgelines and cross desert streams. The Forest Service and partnering organization the Southern California Mountains Foundation (SCMF) has worked to carefully designate and manage these routes. But, instead of sticking to them, some users drive off and pass into wilderness. Where one ATV, dirt bike, or jeep goes, others are bound to follow. Before long, there are miles and miles of crushed native plants and otherwise damaged habitat. In the desert where plant growth is incredibly slow and other pressures abound, these ecosystems could take extreme lengths of time to naturally recover. Indeed, they may never return to a previous state on their own.

The SBNF restoration program receives funding from the state of California to close off unauthorized trails and attempt revegetation. Following closure, restoration sites require years of monitoring to ensure drivers stay away and plants grow in properly. The program utilizes a small number of staff and volunteers to cover a lot of ground. It’s interesting to hear which methods of closure work depending on locations and varieties of use. For example, heavier cable fences are used to cut off high traffic routes, while T-post fences or even scattered tree branches are sufficient on smaller paths. Some unauthorized trails are allowed to passively revegetate, while others are seeded and others still planted with native plants grown in our greenhouse. Seed is always collected from plants already occurring nearby. In many cases, these methods have proven remarkably successful.

In the future, many of the plants in our restoration greenhouse will be grown with the dual purpose of promoting the health of pollinating insects! The program recently received funding for the enhancement of pollinator habitat, which is a subject I’m very much interested in and also one of the reasons I was so excited to join the team here. This work is supported by the National Pollinator Strategy–organized and endorsed by the White House! It is also supported by regional Forest Service best management practice guidelines. I’m happy to see pollinators recognized as valuable on these significant governmental levels! A few weeks back we started planting a few hundred milkweed seeds. Milkweeds, of course, are the primary food source for monarch butterfly larvae. Three local species were planted in small pots and “flats”: Asclepias californica, A. fascicularis, and A. eriocarpa. Thousands more are to be planted in the coming weeks.

Speaking of plants and pollinators, I’ve also started work on a major update of a restoration document intended to guide the revegetation of disturbed sites within the various “vegetation communities” of the SBNF. This “work horse” species document describes the forest’s many varied habitats, the expertly recommended “work horse” species to be utilized in their recovery, and the specific value of these species to pollinators. Pretty cool!

I’m very much looking forward to growing more familiar with these unique vegetation communities and pollinator ecology in general. I’m also excited to see the Asclepias seedlings grow up. One day they’ll be Asclepias adults, and I’m hopeful to see a few out-planted before the end of my internship. Finally, outside of work, I’m taking every opportunity to explore my surroundings in southern California. Visits to Joshua Tree NP, Death Valley, the Salton Sea, Los Angeles, and San Diego are on the horizon!

Note: I would like to apologize to the good people of the Inland Empire for misspelling San Bernardino three times in my previous post.  That semi-silent R threw me for a loop. Won’t happen again!

Brandon Drucker

Mountaintop Ranger District
San BernaRdino National Forest
Fawnskin, California