We completed our last rare plant survey in July, and August has been taken over by seed collection and vegetation monitoring.

One of my favorite seeds to collect has been Oregon grape. By the end of July the thick, leathery leaves had turned a fiery orange and the pale green clump of berries darkened to a beautiful matte blue. When collecting the berries, they make a satisfying “click” when pulled from their stalk. After awhile I’d have a paper bag slumping with the weight of all the berries.

Other berries we’ve collected have been kinnikinnick, snowberries, and black currants.

Our first priority for seed collection are species in the East Bulk seed mix. This mix is a new iteration of the Seed Transfer Zone seed mix, which was previously used for revegetation seeding. Both the East Bulk and Seed Transfer Zone seed mixes are full of “work horse species” that are ideal for colonizing disturbed land and making it more suitable for other species to grow later. For the East Bulk seed mix, seeds are collected across multiple forests and grown out at the Coeur d’Alene nursery with the goal of increasing genetic diversity of seed collections.

One thing that is somewhat frustrating about seed collecting is the amount of paperwork required for each seed collection. On our tablets we make a point or polygon on the map and fill out information about the watershed, aspect, elevation, collection purpose, and associated species. Then we fill out a FACTS form which is used to help determine funding and to be able to connect the seed collection to the point on the arcGIS map. Then we fill out a Short Form which is sent with the seeds to the nursery in Coeur d’Alene. We also fill out a tag to put directly on the bag so we can keep track of them as they pile up in the office. While it does take awhile, I see how useful it can be to have multiple ways to keep track of a bunch of information.

We have also been doing some cross training with other departments this month.

With hydrology, we went electrofishing, which is one method for surveying for fish. We were doing a general presence-absence survey to see which species were in the stream and got measurements for the biggest and smallest fish of each species we caught. Electrofishing uses metal wands that shock the fish and allow a netter to scoop them up. We learned that many creeks in the Bitterroot mountains are very low conductivity because the dissolved minerals from granite do not ionize. In medium or high conductivity water, the fish get attracted to and “frozen” in the ring of the wand. But in low conductivity, the shockers don’t work that well, so we improvised by stunning the fish with the shockers and using our nets to block parts of the stream.

We were very excited when we caught a bull trout, which are a threatened species. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, bull trout live in cold, clean, complex, and connected habitats, which includes mountain streams and Bitterroot River. The hydrologists told us that some bull trout stay in one stream their whole life, and others are migratory. But, the rising temperatures of the streams, dams and water diversions, and water usage that drains the river damages bull trout habitat. Now these fish only rarely occur in the Bitterroot river. However, the one we caught was not messing around—while in the bucket it tried to eat another fish!

Our other cross training was with archaeology, surveying cambium peeled trees. According to Meghan and Matt, the archaeologists we went out with, the trees at this site were most likely peeled by the Bitterroot Salish and Nez Perce between the 1860’s and the 1910’s, though this practice has been around for thousands of years. In the spring they would peel the outer bark from the tree and eat the inner cambium layer which is a rich source of carbohydrates. For the survey we measured tree diameter at breast height, the length, width, and depth of the scar, aspect, and tree condition. Some trees also had test scars and cut marks that we also measured.

The other main project we have been working on is vegetation monitoring. This includes decommissioned roads that have been seeded as well as landings and burn piles from logging that have been turned into pollinator islands. We use line-point intercept monitoring to evaluate vegetation growth. This involves setting up measuring tapes between two set points marked with rebar, then at each foot, dropping a “pin” which is a long thin rod. We record the canopy above the pin, the vegetation that hits the pin, and the ground cover. This data is then used to determine the success of the seeding or planting, and to keep track of erosion.

One thing I find both difficult and enjoyable about monitoring is the challenge of determining different species from limited information. Because we started monitoring in August, some plants have started to senesce and shrivel, or they are still vegetative and have not yet produced any flowers, which makes them difficult to identify.

This makes monitoring kind of like a scavanger hunt. While monitoring a pollinator island, I came across this shriveled plant. As I investigated its dried form, with its creepy, curling petal-bits, nothing came to mind. I was stumped. I marked it as an unknown and continued monitoring. Later, I came across a harebell that solved the mystery. It had both shriveled and young flowers, confirming that the weird spikey flower had in fact been the soft and delicate harebell.

Many of these sites are also grazed, so we end up trying to sort through different clumps of stubby, dried grasses. My favorite monitoring-scavenger hunt example was a mysterious, soft grass. It had long, bright green leaves that were larger than other species nearby. When I bent down to investigate, I noticed its distinctly soft leaves. It wasn’t smooth like pinegrass or fuzzy like mullein is, but very tender. But, there were no seed heads to tell me who it was. I felt the blades of different grasses around me, and none were nearly as soft as this mystery grass. I checked the clump multiple times to see if I missed any seed heads. I investigated the ligule to see if it might tell me something. Nothing. I resigned myself to marking it as an unknown.

When we finished with each transect line for that plot, we coordinated our different unknowns. This time we walked around the whole plot, searching for other clumps of the soft-leaved mystery grass. Eventually we found it. My co-intern Eliza spotted a large and drooping bunch of green. I felt it and there it was, the soft leaves! This clump did have its seed heads and with it we knew immediately that it was Orchard Grass. I had previously liked Orchard Grass because its seed head is distinct enough that I could immediately tell what it was. But I had taken its distinctness for granted and never noticed anything else about the plant. Now, I have another characteristic in my Orchard grass tool belt.

Monitoring has taught me to use a combination of small cues to tell which grass is which. I now can recognize Psuedoroegneria spicata for the blue tinge and the sharp angle at which the leaves extend from the stem, rather than just the distinct bent awns of the seed head. I now can reconize Koeleria macrantha for the “racing stripes” on the leaves rather than for its pretty, narrow panicle. Many of these characteristics are not even things I can easily articulate, but after many repeated exposures to the plant, some part of my brain is able to sort different shapes and colors of grasses that at the beginning of the summer would have all looked the same to me. While it is true that I am learning, it is also true that we have a long list of unknown grasses on our data sheets.

Overall, it has been another good month, and the cool days have me looking forward to fall!

– Cicely

These past few weeks, the nodding onions have exploded from their papery cocoon, dotting the understory with cute purple bundles. To me, these flowers seemed to come out of nowhere. During early surveys I glimpsed the little white bulb and marked down Allium cernuum in my survey form, barely sparing a thought for the plant. Then it seemed, all of a sudden, like beautiful fireworks were all around me.

I though for a moment that because they were so pretty, these plants might be the other rare onion in the Bitterroot Forest, Allium acuminatum. They were not. They were just regular old nodding onion.

As the fireworks of nodding onions began, the onion I overlooked became one of my favorite plants in the forest. I started to appreciate the bulb before the flower bloomed. When I looked closely I was able to see a neatly wrapped and protected umbel of flowers, reminding me of a caterpillar in a cocoon before it emerges in a display of beauty. I liked how the buds swelled and broke through the thin membrane surrounding them, how the buds hung in perfect little drops from the stem, how they then exploded into a ball, each bud stretching away from the others, how the petals slowly darkened from white to pink, and how green fruits swelled in the middle of each flower as the petals faded back to a wispy white. I loved that each plant seemed to go at its own speed, meaning every day I saw each step of the development in different parts of my survey, or even in a small clump of plants.

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Besides admiring the nodding onion, we have done some bee surveys, seed collection, and more rare plant surveys.

The bee surveys are a part of Xerces’ Montana Bumble Bee Atlas project. The goal of this project is to track bumble bees across all of Montana. They do this by splitting the state into a grid and having trained volunteers adopt and conduct bee surveys in a grid-cell.

To conduct the survey, we find a spot to survey and time ourselves for 45 minutes. When we spot a bumble bee we catch it in the net, place it in a vial, and then put it in a cooler so it goes to sleep. Then we take pictures of the bee and record data about the flower the bee was on, the surrounding flora, and environmental conditions. When we are done taking pictures we let the bee fly away.

Our seed collection season has also begun. This means driving around the forest and looking for populations of target species that are big enough to collect, and also timing the collection when the seeds are developed but have not dispersed.

And, we have done a lot more rare plant surveys.

Here, Li and I are getting the aspect (cardinal direction) of the slope of a rare plant population.

And this is Li and me at the top of a very tall and steep hill.

This past month has been a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to our transition towards seed collection and vegetation monitoring.

Deb day. Tuesday June 18th. Fourth day on the job.

I had been hearing about Deb, this mysterious woman who had decades of Botany experience in the Bitterroot National Forest. She was going to be taking us out into the field today and schooling us on the ways of the plants. Li, a Montana Conservation Corps fellow, had arrived in Montana a few weeks before and already had a “Deb Day.” She talked highly of Deb’s teachings, specifically her tips on how to scale the steep slopes.

We piled into the truck and rumbled along towards the forest. As we turned into the cover of the trees she began to point out various birds and plants, and talked about the geological history of the Bitterroots. Winding up the West Fork, we squeezed by branches and bumped over holes and rocks. Eventually, we came to an opening at the base of a steep hill where two sensitive species grow.

Deb had been a seasonal botany technician for 17 seasons, and when she talked about plants it was clear she had invaluable botanical wisdom. She pointed out plants as we went along, showing us how we could distinguish serviceberry from spirea by the curve of the leaf veins, but also elk sedge from pinegrass by running our fingers along the leaves. I ran my hand along the elk sedge and it felt wiry and stiff, and the pinegrass was fine and smooth. Once I did this, their similar looking leaves seemed less confusing.

As we made our way up the hill we spotted some brilliant red among the green. It was one of our rare plants: Castilleja covilliana, or Coville’s Indian Paintbrush. Deb showed us how C. covilliana’s leaves are spidery and thin, compared to the thicker leaves of its more common counterpart, C. hispida. There was one individual, the one in the picture below, that looked totally covilliana-y to my new Montana-botany eyes, but there were other individuals around that I would have thought were C. hispida. Deb talked about how these plants are very plastic, meaning their features can vary a lot depending on the environment they live in. Leaves in particular are plastic, which is unfortunate considering leaves are an important distinguisher between C. covilliana and C. hispida. This all made me feel very confused.

I also learned later that Castillejas can hybridize, meaning two individuals from different species can “break the rules” and mate, forming a plant that is neither C. covilliana nor C. hispida. So not only are the leaves plastic, they might also genuinely be a mix of the two species. So I imagine the entire season I will be asking myself “are these leaves spidery enough to be C. covilliana?”

Deb then announced that we were looking for Allium parvum, or small onion. We scoured the rocky ground for the onion. I would take a few steps, then scan, take a few steps, then scan. I saw nothing. After awhile, Deb announced that she found one. We scrambled over to her, and I looked around on the ground, and saw nothing. Then she pointed to a tiny, pale wisp on the tan gravel. It was nearly the same color as the rocks around it, was less than an inch wide, and had detached from any leaves. I thought to myself that there was no way I would be able to spot this by myself.

As Li made her way over to us she spotted another onion. This one was slightly more conspicuous: still connected to the ground, connected to its leaves, and less dried out. It was a cute little thing, but still seemed hard to spot with its somewhat transparent petals and tiny stature.

After the Allium, we made our way back down the hill, ate lunch in the bed of the truck, and then headed to a second site. Again, we wound up curvy gravel roads, with steep drop-offs that made me feel a little dizzy. The next site was a hill of coarse granite pebbles. But gorgeous blue and purple flowers poked from the gravel. This was Penstemon lemhiensis, the rare penstemon. It has bigger flowers than its lookalike Penstemon albertinus, and has a white mid-vein on its leaves. This one was my favorite of the day: easily spotted, no confusing leaf evaluations, and flowers that seemed to glow in the sunlight.

I was surprised to learn that these rare/sensitive species tend to be on seemingly inhospitable slopes. I imagined the all the sensitive species being in hidden oases with crystal-clear water, not on harsh, gravel slopes. But I’ve seen them and they are there!

As we ended the day with Deb, I remembered how good it feels to be able to know and recognize the plants around me. Coming to Montana was a bit of a botanical shock, in the sense that I went from knowing a good portion of the plants in St. Louis, to knowing almost none. While I still have a lot of learning to do, it has been rewarding to feel myself getting familiar with the Montana flora.

Until next time,

Cicely