Field work is a doorway to unique experiences you’ll never be able to recreate.
May through October in Northern Rockiest all four seasons present themselves. It snows in the mountains in May, the flowers bloom in June and July, the fires burn hot in August, the colors change in September, then the snow returns in October. Working in the Flathead National Forest for the last six months I got to witness all these seasonal transition and an incredible variety of experiences throughout them.
I’ll never forget
wondering the forest in search of rare orchids
seeing whole wet meadows full carnivorous sundew plants
trudging through the the brush in search of creeks that harbor endangered species
holding bumble bees in my bare hands
identifying tiny moonworts hidden under ferns
scouring the road sides for our rare native flowering plants
and the pure beauty of Montana’s northern forest the will inspire me for years to come
Scientific illustration of a few rare plants of Porcupine Fen, Epipactis gigantea, Drosera rotundifolia and Sphagnum angustiflolium. Made for the botany crew of Flathead National Forest.
Before this internship, I spent the last three years working as an artist and scientific illustrator. Working outside almost everyday and seeing so many different ecosystems and rare plants I’ve never seen before has really inspired me.
Not only will I be using the photos I took as inspiration this winter, I was able to use my skills as an artist to enhance some herbarium vouchers for the Flathead National Forest Herbarium through painting the flower heads and bracts of certain species that wilted a lot after being collected.
Herbarium vouchers of Eurybia conspicua (showy aster) (right) for Flathead National Forest Herbarium with illustrations I made of the flower heads and bracts (left). Symphytrichum laeve, Agastache utricifolia and Monarda fistulosa Herbarium vouchers for Flathead National Forest Herbarium.
Creating herbarium vouchers felt like an art project in itself, it was a very relaxing and fun aspect of botany that I enjoyed doing at the end of the season.
Among many things, field work is a doorway to unique experiences you’ll never be able to recreate. The snow in the mountains on a sunny day. The moose splashing through the creek that makes your heart stop. Hiking a dozen miles gaining 2000ft of elevation just to find that plant you were looking eaten by herbivores at the top. Every summer, every mountain, every valley, every crew is a completely different.
I am extremely grateful for Chicago Botanic Garden and the crew that I had the opportunity to be a part. This was my first season back in the field since 2020 and it was so amazing to have the skills and knowledge I learned so many years ago be brought back to the surface. The encouragement from for the team at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Flathead National Forest Botany crew has given me the confidence, motivation and connections I needed to pursue the next steps in my education and go to graduate school. I will be taking the knowledge I learned from this internship with me into my graduate project. Including but not limited to specimen collection, herbarium voucher creation, site data collection, data management and reporting.
The ending of a field season is always bittersweet. I am grateful that I live in Montana and don’t have to leave these Mountains behind, but I will miss this internship and will carry it with me into my next adventures as I hope to many more seasons of rare experiences.
Flathead National Forest Botany Crew (from left to right) Chris, Sierra, Grace, Bailey, Erynn, Ryan
Much like August, September has been full of seed collecting. While we had a lovely diversity of species in August and into early September, collecting plants from different families and habitat type, mid to late September has been a different story with the species proving to be a little more difficult. Looking similarly and growing in the same habitats.
The species we spent most of our time on in September were Symphyotrichum laeve (smooth blue aster) Erigeron speciosus (showy fleabane) and Eurybia conspicua (showy aster).
Luckily, with our training and experience in plant identification from earlier this summer, we have gotten pretty good at spotting the small differences between plants. E. speciosus is a “fleabane” and not an “aster” because it as a different type of bract. S. laeve and E. conspicua have tall, tube like scaly bracts of multiple layers. While E. speciosus has a flat bract with only one layer. E. speciosus also had more ray flowers, meaning that it has a greater number of thinner purple petals and they look more crowded. Both features setting this species apart from the other two.
Wider petals of Symphyotrichum laeve (left) and the thinner more numerous petals of Erigeron speciosus (right). Both providing pollen for native bumble bees 🙂
The flowers and bracts of S. laeve and E. conspicua are near identical. However, luckily they have one big difference. S. laeve is known as smooth blue aster because it is the only purple aster with completely smooth, hairless leaves and stems. Where as E. conspicua has larger rough sand paper-like hairy leaves and stem.
The thin smooth leaves of Symphyotrichum laeve (left) and the wider, rough leaves of Eurybia conspicua (right)
While initially observing purples asters in the field, we still had to stop and check the bracts under the flower heads and feel the leaf texture, but we have gotten quicker!
Unfortunately, IDing these species when they’ve gone to seed isn’t any easier.
Eurybia conspicua with mature seed heads (left) and Symphytrichum laeve with mature seed heads (right)
Luckily with E. conspicua the rough leaves are still present when the plant is at mature seed and it is identifiable that way.
Symphytrichum laeve and Erigeron speciosus seed heads both at mature seed growing next to each other
However, the difference between S. laeve and E. speciosus becomes harder at mature seed because the bract is no longer present and the leaves are a similar size and shape. Something we were able to observe is that E. speciosus has more a perfectly circular seed head and is often a lighter color (seen clearly in the left photo above). It makes sense that the seed head appears more compact and round because E. speciosus has a higher number of flowers per flower head.
A more concrete difference between the two when the bract isn’t present is that S. laeve has leaves that clasp around the stem, while E. speciosus also does not have a petiole, but the leaves do not wrap or clasp the stem at all. This was our sure fire way of telling them apart if there were no flower head presents, but usually, due to the variability in phenology, we could usually find some plants still flowering in the shade!
Another obstacle we ran into with these purple asters is that Eurybia conspicua does not like to flower. Like most aster E. conspicua is perennial, but it was still fascinating to come across hundreds of the same plant in a population and not find a single flower.
Patch of Eurybia conspicua not flowering (left) and Erigeron speciosus flowering in a patch of non-flowering Eurybia conspicua (right)
When we did find patches that were flowering, less the a quarter of the population would be. Almost half of the populations we scouted this summer did not end up producing a single flower. Eurybia conspicua reminds me of bear grass (Xerophyllum tenax) in that way.
October 1st was our last day of seed collection and I have to say, it was bittersweet. I so enjoyed traveling all over Flathead National Forest and getting to stay in remote places like Spotted Bear Ranger Station. I am, however, excited to get into the data of everything we collected and to create herbarium specimens.
Here’s to the final month of the internship!
-Erynn Flathead National Forest
White variant of Symphytrichum laeve seen in the Swan Valley!
” There’s something especially beautiful about holding a critically endangered bumble bee in the palm of your hand whilst knowing that you’ve dedicated a whole summer of your life to collecting plant seed that will be used to create more habitat for this species “
Native pollinators on Erigeron speciosus
August has been a busy month that threw us quickly into long days of seed collecting. After spending most of the beginning half of the summer preforming vegetation surveys with the botany crew, my CLM coworker Grace and I started our solo mission of collecting and scouting as many populations of our target plant species as we could.
The first week of the month we only had one species that was seeding and ready to collect, Heuchera cylindrica (roundleaf alumroot). By the end of the month we were collecting from 6 different species adding Agastache urticifolia (giant horse mint), Chamerion angustifolium (fireweed), Erigeronspeciosus (showy fleabane), Heterotheca villosa (hairy goldenaster) and Monarda fistulosa (wild bergamot). Some of our target species were not ready to collect yet and will not be seeding for several more weeks.
It’s been fascinating to have the opportunity to closely observe the phenology of each species. Even more interesting has been the diversity of phenology within the same species, same population, or even the same plant!
A Grindelia howellii plant with one flower head and one head going to seedMonarda fistulosa seedhead (upper) with a purple flowering Symphyotrichum laeve (lower)An Agastache urticifolia inflorescence fading from bright purple to red brownHeterotheca villosa plant with flower heads in various stages between flowering and seeding
We quickly learned that phenology is not so predictable. Flower heads hang around longer than you would expect, the transition from fruit to mature seed a lot longer process. Towards the end of the month we became better at giving plants more time, instead of driving back to the same population multiple times (though it still happened).
An interesting observation I made this month is that when flowers are going to seed, the seeding begins at the based of the inflorescence and moves up, or at the center of a flower head and moves out. Some species you can observe this really well, like in Chamerion angustifolium, towards the end of the summer when it begins to seed, it will have fluffy white seed pods breaking open towards the bottom of the spike, but on the top there will still be flowers!
Inflorescence with mature open seed pods on the bottom and immature fruit at the topInflorescence with fruit on the bottom, flowers in the middle, and flower buds on topChamerion angustifolium
In addition to collecting lots and lots of seed, we got the amazing opportunity to get a tour of the Forest Service Nursey in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where we will deliver our seed at the end of the season. I was very grateful that we got to visit it in to the middle of growing season to see all the plants that they grow for restoration and research projects. While the nursery does grow herbaceous plants for seed planting, they mostly grow coniferous tree saplings and send them out as plugs to be planted back in the National Forest after logging or burns. I’ve never seen so many tree sapling in my life!
Larix occidentalis plugs for replanting forestsChamerion angustifolium and Symphytrichumlaeve being grown at the nursery
The highlight of the tour was getting to learn about all of the whitebark pine restoration efforts that the nursery plays a key part in. The whitebark pine, Pinus albicaulis, was added to the Endangered Species List as a “Threatened” species in 2023 due to insects, fungi, and climate change causing the species to decline rapidly. The main concern is blister rust which is caused by a fungus. However, it has been found that there are populations of Pinus albicaulis that are immune to the disease! These trees are known as Plus Trees. Researchers and FS crews alike have gone up to these populations and gathered seed and pollen so that Plus Trees could be grown at nurseries and then planted back into suitable habitat!
Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) pollen and seed (left and center) stored in a giant cooler that will be used to grow Plus Trees for years to come! And, a giant green house full of Pinus albicaulis seedlings and saplings that will be planted back in the forest when they are big enough.
The manager of the nursery said that the hardest part of growing the Pinus albicaulis is that they are built for harsh high elevation growing conditions which means they grow slowwwww. In the first year, they may only grow an inch out of the soil!
We were lucky enough to hike up to one of these Plus Tree habitats. Pinus albicaulis sure knows how to pick a beautiful spot.
Lake on the hike to high elevationsA healthy, mature Whitebark pine!Ridge views from the top
Another highlight of the month was getting to do our final pollinator survey. The whole crew journeyed to a meadow Grace and I had scouted for seed collecting and recorded over 60 bumble bees! The morning was a little chilly in the mountains so the bees were cold and sleepy and absolutely adorable.
Sleepy bees resting after their photo shoot
Preforming these bumble bee surveys means a lot to me because they remind me why all the seed I’m running around collecting is so important. During this survey in particular we believe that we found two Suckley Cuckoo Bumble Bees (Bombus suckleyi) which is a native species of concern and considered rare in the state. There’s something especially beautiful about holding a critically endangered bumble bee in the palm of your hand whilst knowing that you’ve dedicated a whole summer of your life to collecting plant seed that will be used to create more habitat for this species.
Possible Suckley Cuckoo Bumble Bee (Bombus suckleyi)
“Bees are crucial for maintaining biodiversity and, by supporting healthy plant communities, a long list of ecosystem functions”
– Of Bees and Blooms, 2023
Queen bee Bombus rufocinctus pollinating Agastache utricifolia, one of our seed collection species in the Swan Valley of the Flathead National Forest
This field season (May through October) I was hired as a Seed Collection Intern by the Chicago Botanical Garden for the U.S Forest Service. I am stationed far North in the Flathead National Forest of Montana, and as late summer approaches for most of the continental United States, the species that we will be collecting seed from have just begun to flower.
Target species (from left to right) Symphyotrichum laeve, Heuchera cylindrica and Monarda fistulosa blooming in late July in Flathead Nation Forest
While waiting for our target species to bloom (and seed) we assisted with many other projects. Mostly, we helped out on Timber Unit Vegetation Surveys. This is where botanists go into a section of the National Forest known as a Timber Unit, a section of the forest that will be logged in the next few years, and conduct a vegetation survey. This vegetation survey involves recording every plant species in the unit and GPS marking areas of water (water=high biodiversity) and flagging rare and endangered species that we come across so that the area around them doesn’t get logged and they don’t get ran over/disturbed.
For us interns (Grace and myself) this mostly served as a way for us to familiarize ourselves with the plant species and habitats of Flathead National Forest so that we could properly identify our target species we are collecting seed from and be able to scout out the habitats they are found in. Two months later we are confident in our plant and habitat identification skills, and are now able to scout of populations of our seed collection species ourselves.
Subalpine Heuchera cylindrica population and wildflower meadow containing a Monardafistulosa
Another project we helped on was the Bumble Bee Atlas project. This research project was started by The Xerces Society with the goal of gathering data needed to track and conserve bumble bees (bumblebeeatlas.org). Many bumble bee species are in decline, the exact causes have yet to be determined but it as been surmised that it is due to a combination of climate change, habitat lost, pesticides and herbicides, and lack of conservation efforts.
Bumble bees are strong, hearty and efficient pollinators that have coevolved with flowering plants. It has been estimated that 60 to 80 percent of all flowering plant species require bees for pollination and that more than a third of the food consumed by humans is pollinated by bees (Glenny, Will Et al., 2022). Due to these factors, the Forest Service and multiple other entities are collaborating to collect data in order to develop a conservation plan so that we don’t continue to loose these valuable pollinators.
The data that needed to be collected was; What species of bumble bees are on the landscape? What plant species are the pollinating? What plant species do they prefer? What disturbances are in the area if any? If we can answer these questions than we can move forward with developing a conservation plan for native bumble be species (bumblebeeatlas.org)!
We assisted with this project by conducting a few bumble bee surveys. We did this by going out to lovely montane meadows full of wildflowers and catching bumble bees! We used big bug catching nets and put them in little tubes so that we could put them on ice in order to put them to sleep and take pictures so that they could be identified to species later. Putting the bees on ice does not hurt the bees! It’s simply puts them to sleep, like the freezing cold air of an early spring night in the mountains.
Within a few minutes of removing them from the cooler, they were waking up, stretching and flying off (often before we could even get all of the photos that we needed!)
Photos of native bee species from conducting Bumble Bee Atlas surveys outside Glacier National Park in the Flathead National Forest
Little did I know that this cute week with bumble bees would go on to play a roll in the rest of my field season.
As it turns out, the plant species that we are collecting seed from this year were chosen because the have a high pollinator friendliness score. What does pollinator-friendliness mean? and how does a plant get a high ranking? Plants with high pollinator friendliness is defined by the paper Assessing Pollinator Friendliness of Plants and Designing Mixes to Restore Habitats for Bees in 2022 as follows: plants with high pollinator friendliness were plants that had the highest bee visitation rates, attracted the most bee species, supported specialist bee species, and bloomed for extended periods of time (Glenny, Will Et al., 2022). In addition, the target species that were chosen to collect seed from also had to a line with the conservation needs of Flathead National Forest specifically.
The seeds the we care collecting will be added to a seed mix that will be used for roadside restoration. The open areas created by road construction and logging are great areas for grass and wildflower filled meadows and, additionally, great habitat for bumble bees.
Bumble bees photographed pollinating native plant species: Chamaenerion angustifolium, Cirsium scariosum and Lupinus argenteus on gravel road sides
Previously, the only plant species used for these road side restoration projects were grasses. Grasses are great at recolonizing gravel areas, but, being that they are mostly wind pollinated, not so great for native pollinator species. By adding native wildflowers to these seed mixes, roadsides, gravel pits and old gated off forest service roads can become great habitats for declining native bumble bee species (Glenny, Will Et al., 2022).
So, with all this in mind, the parameters that a plant species must meet is as follows
– Must be a native species – Must have a high pollinator friendliness score – Must prefer disturbed, gravely habitat
With these parameters in mind, the species that were selected were
Monarda fistulosa (bee balm)
Grindelia howellii (Howell’s gumweed)
Heuchera cylindrica (roundlead alumroot)
Agastache urticifolia (nettle-leaf horsemint)
(1)(2)(3)(4)Target Seed Collection Species in flower
5. Erigeron speciosus (showy aster) (not pictured because it’s not in flower yet) 6. Chamaenerion angustifolium (fireweed) 7. Symphyotrichum laeve (smooth blue aster)
(6)(7)Native Bumble Bee Species on Target Seed Collection Species!
Identifying and collecting seed from native flowering plant species that thrive in disturbed and are preferred by native pollinators is a crucial for restoration project because “bees are crucial for maintaining biodiversity and, by supporting healthy plant communities, a long list of ecosystem functions including but not limited to- food and habitat for animals, soil stability, and water quality” (Of Bees and Blooms, 2023). I feel incredible grateful to be working to restore biodiversity of our native forests and working to build habitat for threated native pollinator species. The seed that we are collecting this summer and fall will be sent to the Forest Service Nursery in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho were it will be grown out, the seed collected from those plant, and then CBG interns next year will spread that seed in restoration areas.
“In indigenous ways of knowing, it is understood that each living being has a particular role to play. Every being is endowed with certain gifts, its own intelligence, its own spirit, its own story.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
Round-leaf sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) with other fen associated species bog-bean (Menyanthestrifoliate), Sphagnum sp. and a fen associated mushroom species.
When I think of carnivorous plants I imagine the jungles of South America and swamplands of Florida and Australia. When I think of Sphagnum moss I imagine the peat bogs of Northern Ireland. When I think of these species together, I do not think of Northwestern Montana.
It turns out Northwestern Montana has intermittent patches of a very specific ecosystem type known as a fen. Fens are a type of wetland where water sits or flows year round close to the ground surface which prevents the decomposition of organic material which leads to the formation of peaty poor in nutrients soil (Weixelman & Cooper 2009). While fens are found all over the world, the type of fen found in Northwestern Montana is considered a Rocky Mountain Subalpine-Montane Fen (Montana Field Guides) and due to the year round presence of water, these fens are biodiversity hotspots!
1.2.Setting Transects for Long-term Monitoring in Porcupine Fen
On Monday June 24th my crew and I drove down and forest service road to go set up a long term study in the Porcupine Fen to observe species richness and abundance over time (photos 1-2) This was my first time experiencing an ecosystem like this and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Approaching the fen we trudged through mucky sticky water and tangled shrubs until we got to a clearing, upon first glace it just looks like a grassy shrub land, but then you look a little closer…
3. Sphagnum sp.4. Drosera rotundifolia5. Epipactis gigantea6. Cypripedium parviflorum7. Liparis loeselii8. Sphagnum angustifolium9. Drosera anglicaTES (Threated and Endangered Species) and SOC (Species of Concern) observed in Porcupine Fen
… the intensity of species richness is easy to see! Not only are fens one of the only habitats in Montana where one can find Sphagnum Moss in abundance, it is the only ecosystem were you can find Montana’s incredible and unexpected native carnivorous sundew species!
Drosera rotundifolia and Drosera anglica are species of sundew, a type of flowering plant that has adapted to live peaty poor soil nutrient conditions found in fens. The adaption you ask? Capturing and digesting small invertebrates!
Drosera species accomplish this carnivorous act by showing off beautifully bright red spike-like “tentacles” on it’s leaves that have mucilage that glistens in the sun like dew drops. When an insect lands on one of these attractive leaves, they become stuck, unable to free themselves. The plant then releases proteins that will digest the insect so that the plant can absorb ammonia and other key nutrients they’re missing from the poor peat like soil quality (Flora of North America).
10.11.Drosera rotundifolia with a bug deceased on it’s sticky leaves (10.) and a photo of it’s flower that grows on a long stalk high above it’s sticky leaves so that the plant doesn’t accidently consume it’s pollinators (11.)!
Sundews are not the only species that have evolved to live in these low nutrient conditions. We observed several rare orchid species that are also only found in peaty bog like environments (photos 5-7). However, instead of consuming insects to supplement their nutrition needs, these orchids rely on their symbiotic relations with mycorrhizal fungi ( Maris et al., 2023).
Seeing such a unique environment was really inspiring. As a young scientist there’s nothing quite like exploring an ecosystem that has so much left to be discovered. The relationship between these flowing plants, the carnivorous plants, the moss, and the mycorrhizal fungi in these fen systems is extremely under researched and has me thinking a lot about future project ideas.
I am looking forward to exploring more fens and other unique Montana ecosystems that inspire me this summer, including alpine white park pine habitat! (but that’s for another blog post 🙂
