Author Archives: Nicholas Gjording

I Am Botman

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September 28th, Saturday 

A buzz in my earpiece plucks my attention away from the bride, gliding down the aisle toward her groom to the tune of “Bloom” by the Paper Kites. What is it now? I whisper in annoyance. Not now! I pick up the call and the news drops. Fire on the mountain. “They’re calling it the Elk Fire, up near Dayton, Riley Point”. It’s Kaitlyn, my co-intern, measured in her tone, but voice barely concealing a smoldering anger. I grit my teeth as the soon-to-be-wed couple meets at the altar, and the ceremony begins. “How?” I hiss into the earpiece. “Lightning strike”, Kaitlyn growls. The blasted cumulonimbi! Confound them! Lurking all summer, teasing with strikes every hot, muggy afternoon, just now making their move right as all our backs are turned… An electric rage crackles across my skin, and I hear roaring thunder at my temples as my head pounds. Not on my forest!  

“If anyone objects to the wedding of this couple, speak now or forever hold your peace!” calls out the priest at the altar.  

“Hold it!” I leap out of my pew, and the crowd gasps. Striding up the aisle towards the ceremony, I say, “Congratulations, but I’ve got to go.” I reach out to shake the hand of my cousin, the groom, as he furiously gestures for me to take a seat. I turn to address the family and friends— “The plants. Botham City. They need me!” I hear the bride mutter behind me, “um… who is he?” I turn my head halfway to face her, and a grim smile turns up the corner of my mouth. “I am Botman.” In a whirl of coat tails and unkempt end-of-field-season hair, I swoop out of the nearest window and disappear into the night, leaving behind no trace of my presence but a room full of puzzled faces. 

September 29th, Sunday 

My plane touches down in Billings, Montana. As people grab their things and disembark, I’m just wrapping up a fascinating botanical dialogue with the man in the window seat sitting next to me about the intricacies of working with one of the most esoteric dichotomous keys in “Vascular Plants of Wyoming, 3rd Edition” by Robert D. Dorn. “When you collect a specimen of Erigeron, make sure you get the roots. Once you’re out of the field, it’s anyone’s guess whether that thing is perennial, or if it’s lacking rhizomes or a well-developed woody caudex. And don’t be led astray by any lead about a wooly-villous involucre! It’s usually just sub-puberulent to strongly hirsute.” I slap him on the shoulder and chuckle as I get up to leave. “Alright, uh. Thanks man,” he mutters gratefully. My gaze lifts, and it looks like everyone is off the plane! Clear aisle, not a soul in my way. Perfect. I strut briskly down the aisle and give a curt nod to the cleaning crew as I pass. There’s a job to do. 

September 30th, Monday 

The sun rises blood red over the Botcave (the Bighorn NF Supervisory Office in Sheridan, Wyoming), and there’s excitement—and smoke—in the air. The Elk Fire is now about 6,000 acres, and everyone with a red card is gearing up to head out to the blaze. Kaitlyn’s already at the office when I burst through the doorway. “To the Botmobile!” I cry. I grab my pack, radio, and trusty hori-hori, and fly out the door. Kaitlyn rolls her eyes, but grabs the keys to our Jeep and follows me out.  

Smoke over the Bighorns
The Botmobile

Although the fire is still miles and miles to the North, the air is thick with smoke as we ascend onto the forest on US Highway 14. Being a law-abiding representative of the Forest Service, with the emblem stenciled on the side of the ’Mobile, I know I must stick to the 40-mph speed limit, winding around every switchback curving up the mountain. But man, it feels like we can’t get on the mountain fast enough. The urge to rush to the rescue of my plants makes me wish we were going 65. I say to Kaitlyn, “we’ve got to get lights and a siren on this thing. Can you make a note for our next team meeting with the Aquatics shop?” Kaitlyn sighs. In agreement. 

We crest the mountain range and it’s a relief to find blue skies overhead. Perhaps the Elk Fire won’t be as all-consuming as it threatens to be. We spend the day scouting for Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana: A short, flat topped variety of Big Sagebrush, which flowers late in the season and will be our last collection. It’s all scouting and PR today, no collections. We reassure each and every family of Artemisia shrubs we come across that a heroic crew of Forest Service fire fighters and employees are keeping the Elk Fire at bay. Admiring eyes shine out of each little flowering head as we stroll through the shrubland, but I know they’re the ones who truly deserve admiration—Many will remember the heroism of the brave firefighters risking life and limb, but who will remember the humble Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana who donated 20% of her seed to the cause of post-fire revegetation? 

The morning stretches into the afternoon, and we head back on Highway 14. We learn that wind has been ripping along the East slopes of the mountain, angering the Elk Fire and whipping it South, nearing the highway! The Wyoming Department of Transportation has closed the highway, and we’re turned around at Burgess Junction. Drat! The Elk Fire has shown itself to be a formidable foe. A long detour South and East brings us off the mountain on Red Grade Road, and we’re met by an admonishing call from the head of the Aquatics shop upon returning to cell service. We probably shouldn’t have gone out into the field today. “Yes sir, sorry sir”. It’s big news—In just an afternoon, the fire had grown to more than three times its size! The Elk Fire had stomped across steep slopes populated by thousands of innocent Lodgepole Pine and Spruce, gnashing its teeth as it gobbled up now 22,000 acres. Who knew a fire could grow that fast in a day? A sobering lesson now stored away in Botman’s gourd. 

October 21st,  Monday 

Nearing a month has passed since the Elk Fire began, and it’s snatched up over 96,000 acres, but is slowing to halt. The fight has been long and grueling—over 900 personnel are working the fire, hailing from many states all over the country. Miles of hand lines and dozer lines have been put in place, and fire retardant frequently cascades down from planes and helicopters. Fire fighters and red-carded Forest Service employees alike spend up to 30-hour shifts on the mountain and return as heroes.  

Darkness, mid-day
Fire retardant drop
Tree becoming a torch
Photos from the fire (courtesy of Alison Dooley)

Local communities pour out their gratitude. This morning, as we drive through the town of Buffalo to approach the south side of the mountain, signs in the windows of many businesses read “Thank you firefighters!” (“and botanists!” where I’ve had a chance to make some edits).  

We’ve been hard at work this month too. Confined to the Botcave for most of the month, keying out plants, mounting herbarium specimens, writing an end of season report, and preparing our seed to be shipped off to the Couer d’Alene native plant nursery and seed extractory—a lot of people think it’s action, action, press conferences, and more action, but the life of a botanist isn’t always as glamorous as you might imagine. 

It’s now later that day, two hours into a collection of Artemisia, hunched over the small shrubs which blanket the hills around me as far as the eye can see. I wipe the sweat from my brow and straighten up to scan the horizon for danger. A deep and powerful rumble sounds from behind… with plant-like reflexes, I whip around to face the impending threat!  

Whew! It’s only a member of the public, approaching in his old truck to speak to Kaitlyn. He must inquire about our duties here, because I hear Kaitlyn give him the run down: “we’re collecting seed, which we’ll ship off to a native plant nursery for the production of even more seed, which will come back to the forests for roadside plantings, restoration projects, and post-fire revegetation.” As far as cool catchphrases go, it doesn’t roll right off the tongue, but it’s sufficient to produce a salute and a “thank you for your service.”  It’s the answer we’ve given all summer, but as the Elk Fire raged, that phrase has rattled around in my brain, and now the necessity of our work is close at hand. Our seed may indeed make it back to the Bighorn in coming years to rescue singed and demoralized native plant communities. Not all heroes wear capes—some wear a hard hat and fire pack. I’ve heard it said also that some wield a hori-hori.  

The battle against the Elk Fire has been fought and won, but not without plant casualties. I look into my paper bag and see amidst the chaff and seed: hope. The journey for these little seeds starts here, and it may end here. It will be a long journey. But plant life, helped along by its (super)human champions, will prevail over the Elk Fire here on the Bighorn National Forest. Native plants will reclaim their soil. 

Kaitlyn looks to be about done with her conversation, and the engine of the man’s truck revs up to leave. We’ve gotten the seed that we need from these Artemisia, and it’s time for us to head home. I lift my head, give a final salute to my friends the sagebrush. I turn and, with a knowing smile, fire off a quick volley of finger guns at the man in the truck before I steal away towards the Botmobile. Swelling with pride, it’s moments like these that I know deep in my heart, I am Botman. 

Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana
Clad in supersuits

Opportunistic collections and other opportunities

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September, for the most part, has marked the end of the field season for us here on the Bighorn National Forest. Scorching days in August dried up much of the vegetation, and the last of the grasses and forbs have reached their natural seed dispersal stage. Plants that mature late in the season were the main focus for us this month—Penstemon strictus, Chamaenerion angustifolium, Elymus trachycaulus, Erigeron speciosus, and Liatris punctata. All of these plants are on the “target species list” given to us by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program’s seed collecting team, but there’s another list… a secret menu, if you will: the “opportunistic collection list”. We’ve been busy with our target species for most of the time, but late this September, the opportunity arose, and we pounced. Driving through Ten Sleep Canyon, and with a few hours left in the day, we spotted some Asclepias speciosus, Showy Milkweed, and Kaitlyn remembered that this species was on the opportunistic collections list. We pulled over and it was just ready to collect! Some pods had already dispersed their seed, but many were just splitting open, and we could scoop the entire bundle of seed and fluff right out. It turned out to be one of my favorite collections of the season. Great opportunity taken. 

Left to right: Milkweed, Kaitlyn in Ten Sleep Canyon, Fireweed in a very spooky burned area

The opportunistic collection list holds the last species that we’ll visit for our last field days in October—Artemisia tridentata, Big Sagebrush. I cherish every moment left on the forest as our season comes to a close, so I’m really looking forward to these collections! 

September also brought several other unique opportunities, at work and otherwise, that I’m really glad I got to experience. Two summer bucket list items got knocked off the list in a single day: We went out with the Aquatics shop to Cookstove Basin wayyy in the Northwest corner of the forest to visit a long-term monitoring site at a huge beaver pond, and we rode the ATVs! Check. And lunch break, we took a little rod with a spinner lure to the pond and I caught a Cutthroat Trout! Check. 

Tasty looking Cutthroat (did not actually eat)

I also got to make a collection that wasn’t on any of our lists, Thalictrum occidentale. These seeds I collected (with permission from the forest) for my old boss at the University of Washington for research on pollination modes and sex determination. It felt great to continue contributing to these projects even after I’ve moved on! 

Thalictrum. From left to right: Female flowers, male flowers, achenes.

I’ve also had my eye on Cloud Peak, the tallest peak on the forest, all summer. I finally pulled the trigger on it and made the climb on a beautiful weekend. I came back with two weeks of knee pain and heels completely raw, but also with lovely memories (and quads of steel).  

From left to right: Gunboat and Fortress Lakes at sunset, camp at Mistymoon Lake, Diamond Lake from Cloud Peak Summit!

And I didn’t go a moment too soon because the next week, we got our first snow! The seasons are changing, and it’s a gorgeous time to be on the Bighorn. The aspens are in full fall color, and the dusting of snow on the peaks of the Cloud Peak Wilderness is a magical sight. One more month here, but I already miss it! 

Introducing the friendly spirits of the Big Horn

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“Touching grass”— Leaving our little digital bubbles and getting in contact with the natural world around us. It’s usually part of a joke when this phrase is typed out on the internet, but what it implies about our human need for connection with the plant world is real. As someone who’s been touching grass professionally for the last two and a half months, I think I’d do well to ponder it for a while. 

I had the wonderful opportunity late this August to attend a presentation at the local “food forest” by a Northern Cheyenne elder and his son. They are both ethnobotanists and spend their time learning about and sharing the stories of the Cheyenne’s traditional way of life and relationship with the plants of the region. They spoke of a people whose lives were intertwined with native plants not only out of necessity, but also voluntarily due to affection and desire for kinship with these spirits that surrounded them.  

“Every plant has its own story”, they said. On the table in front of them were many plants that I have seen on the forest this summer—Artemisia frigida “Woman’s sage” and Artemisia ludoviciana “Man’s sage”, ceremonial gifts; Ratibida columnifera “Rattlesnake medicine”, which reduces the effects of rattlesnake venom when chewed into a poultice and placed on an incision near the bite; Prunus virginiana “Chokecherry”, which Cheyenne would harvest in the late summer and fall to be crushed and dried into patties that would feed hungry mouths through the long winter.  

From left to right: Man’s Sage, Woman’s Sage, Rattlesnake Medicine

Their relationship to plants doesn’t end with the products that the plants provide; It extends to the inter-plant-personal—living being to living being. The elder and his son told about grandmothers laying out hearty meals at the feet of trees for them to enjoy, about how complimenting a particular patch of poison ivy on its beautiful sheen persuaded it to hold back with its itchy attacks, and always they imparted that we, humans and plants and even the soil, are all spirits connected through community as part of creation. 

I’m cheating a little with this blog post by merely recounting what I’ve heard (but that’s what stories are for, anyway). Here’s a bit about seed collecting. 

An attendee at one of the elder’s presentations once asked permission to take home some seed, so he told the attendee “you don’t need to take any seed—all you need to do is to touch the tree”. He told us, “plants have a way of following us home. There’s a magic about them. They’ll spring up in your yard”. I’ll take his word for it—there’s been many a day when the seeds of needlegrass burrow deep into the hem of my pants and spill onto the floor when I take my boots off at home. That said, I won’t be altering the protocol when we’re out in the field. We can’t count on enough needlegrass following us home to satisfy what we need for this project. We do need to actively harvest.  

It’s a different kind of relationship that we have with plants as seed collectors this summer, but I’d say it’s still one based on respect and mutual good will. We leave plants be when the population isn’t large enough or healthy enough to withstand the stress. We collect no more than one fifth of the seed to leave plenty for the seed bank in the soil. Some members of the botany crew have even told me that they say thank you to the plants when they collect seed or take a specimen. What we’re doing, while perhaps reparative and necessary only due to our own impact on plant life through development and contribution to increasing wildfire risk, is an act of love and care for the plants and for the world community that they are vital to. And we benefit greatly from their fruits and the fruits of our labor through the maintenance of the vitality and beauty of our public lands, which are nourishing to people in many ways. 

From left to right: Chokecherry, Echinacea

“When they are upset after being punished, children run and climb up high in a tree, not to come down until suppertime. Just touching the plant calms us down and takes away the bad feelings. When the child comes down and goes home, everything is alright again.” 

Like I said before, we’ve been touching a lot of grass, and other plants for that matter. We can be in a field for hours on end, stripping seed from heads of grass, inhabiting quiet save for the sigh of wind and the chirping of crickets. For me, it’s time with brain empty. We’ve had other people from the office come collect with us, and they describe it in a nicer way: “meditative”. Either way, all this grass touching does something for us. The same way that working in the garden, or walking through the woods keeps us grounded. It’s an inter-plant-personal relationship that we’re all lucky enough to enjoy this summer. Whether I’ve got my nose in the wild mint while at work, or my toes in the lawn playing corn hole on the weekend, I’m glad to have a connection with plants. I hope they’re happy too. 

A fleabane by any other name… is not what we’re looking for

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Aspen Fleabane! Erigeron speciosus! Lost in a sea of purple Erigerons, where is the species we need? 

It’s month number two of the CLM internship for us here on the Big Horn National Forest. Things are heating up (to nearly record high temperatures in Sheridan, WY , at 105 degrees Fahrenheit!) which means things are approaching full swing up on the mountain, floristically. Several plants that are on our collection list have gone to seed. Many more are now in full bloom—including those in the genus Erigeron. 

The botanically uninitiated are faced with the “green wall” when first looking out on a leafy landscape, before learning to differentiate between the many plants that make up the community. With these fleabanes, we’re facing a new frontier—the “purple wall”. In some genera, there are only a few species in the state’s flora. In the genus Monarda, for example, there are only 2 species native to Wyoming, Monarda fistulosa (a plant on our target species list for collection!) and Monarda pectinata. This makes it pretty easy to be confident when we see our Monarda out in the field. Not so with fleabane. There are over 50 species in the Wyoming flora, and almost every single one has bright yellow disk flowers, and purplish to whitish ray flowers. 

The many collections of Erigeron we’ve made to help ID the correct one
Many Erigeron to choose from in the key

We’ve found that quite a few of the other plant enthusiasts on iNaturalist share our confusion; we’ve showed up on the sites of several iNat observations of Aspen fleabane, and have found several different versions of plants that match the description of yellow disk, purple rays—so which is really Aspen fleabane?  

Left: Too small, Middle: An annual, Right: In an aspen grove, but hairy! (This is Erigeron subtrinervis)

In this case, a pretty cool clue for where to look can be found in the common name! We’ve found many purple fleabanes that don’t look quite right when wandering through sagebrush, along lake shores, or up on rocky outcroppings; but when we find ourselves in stands of aspen, we find that the plants start to line up closer with our description of Aspen fleabane! That being said, there are still subtle distinctions between species that we have to watch out for—Erigeron subtrinervis, or Three-veined fleabane, looks very similar to Aspen fleabane and can also be found growing in stands of aspen, but instead of a smooth stem and leaves, it will have hairy stems and leaves. It’s a minute detail, but when we send our seeds to the seed nursery and extractory in Couer d’Alene, they’ll want to see a voucher specimen that fits the bill. 

It’s tough to find what we need, but we’ve still got a moment before these tricky purple flowers go to seed. In any case, a shady, lush stand of aspens is always a great place to be, so I won’t mind the search! 

Growing Where We’re Planted

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More of a re-potting, really… Here we are in Sheridan, Wyoming! To the West, the Big Horn National Forest rises up from gentle foothills blanketed in Yellow Sweet Clover. Within the forest, the Cloud Peak Wilderness juts into the sky, Cloud Peak poking its crown higher than 13,000 feet! The air here is rarer than in the mountains familiar to me, Washington’s Cascades and Olympics. Just a few weeks ago, I plucked up my roots from my hometown of Seattle to embark on an adventure to learn the flora of the rest of the country and to provide a valuable resource for conservation projects in our National Forests: Native seeds!

It’s early in the season, especially at the higher elevations in the forest. Snow had just melted out of the montane meadows only a few weeks before we arrived in early June. This means many plants are just coming out, and the earliest blooms are now in flower. Still too early to collect seed! Right now, the Rocky Mountain Herbarium Specimen Database and iNaturalist have been our best friends as we use historic records to locate populations of plants on our collection list. Some of the best finds have been several great populations of Eriogonum umbellatum (Sulfur buckwheat) in flower that will be ready for collection in a week or two.

Eriogonum umbellatum in bud

There’s a lot to know on any one Forest, and when we’re not out scouting populations for seed collection, we’re getting a grand tour of the scope of what a Forest Service botany crew works on day in and day out.  

We’ve been out with hydrologists planning the best spots for willow plantings in a wetland restoration site with beaver dam analogs. The willows need moist spots that won’t get too waterlogged, and they’ll need to be fenced in for protection (baby willows are tasty moose munch!)

Bull moose, looking hungry for some willows

We’ve documented locations of sensitive species, keying out the sensitive Linanthus watsonii in the field, which looks a lot like its more common cousin, Phlox hoodii. We located Linanthus very near to a popular climbing spot in Ten Sleep Canyon, which gets a LOT of traffic, so botanists here need to assess what special precautions should be taken to protect this special plant. 

Along the way, there have been plenty of Foresters to meet, landmarks to learn, and of course, plants to get excited about. We’re getting the lay of the land and picking up the lingo too—if you told us there’s Monarda past Burgess up on Freeze Out, we’d know exactly what you mean (and we’d be pumped!)  

Nick, getting way too familiar with the ground
Kaitlyn, touching grass

It’s beautiful land up here, and the soil is rich for exploration. This past month, we’ve rooted and are soaking it all in. Time to bolt and blossom—soon enough, we’ll have the fruits of our labor to show for it!