Another month has gone by here in Plumas National Forest. As the season goes on by and we approach the end of summer, I find myself in awe at how much we’ve accomplished. We’ve fallen into a steady routine by now, with most of our time consisting of checking on plant phenology, collecting mature seeds, and occasionally processing seeds to ensure good storage. That last part is key, we learned: ensuring our collections are stored properly. Following a chaotic end to our week, we showed up one Monday morning to be greeted by hundreds of flies that had taken over our office. There was a moment of confusion before we realized what had happened over the weekend– the rustling paper bags reminded us. The large Wyethia collection we were quite proud of from the week before was not properly looked at before bringing it inside. We definitely didn’t sort through the seed heads, given that we arrived back at the office around 10 pm after getting our truck stuck in the mud. Being too fried from the eventful day and also too used to loose seed collections, the thought of breaking up the seed heads to prevent moisture and loosen up whatever was inside didn’t occur to us that night.

Our plans for the day were pushed back a bit so we could make time to address the issue before it got worse and affected the rest of our collections. This meant we had to take our many bags of Wyethia mollis seeds outside and sort through them, cracking open individual seed heads and sorting out the seeds, removing any infected parts. This process was tedious and frustrating; sharp splinters pierced our skin as we crushed open the seed heads, dusty particles of plant material emitted an unpleasant odor into the air, and plenty of larvae wiggled around us. It felt like we had been defeated. Just a few days before, we had felt so accomplished, having stumbled upon a massive population. This was easily one of the largest collections we made all summer. Now we had a setback, with a ton of seeds to look through during peak collection time.

But thankfully, not all seeds gave us so much trouble. One of the best parts of this month has been seeing all the variety of collections we have, and the unique experiences each species brings as we collect. There’s little variation in what we do everyday, at the surface level. Each day is the same, yet each day is unique: different plants offer different habitats, collection methods, textures, scents. Having collected from most of our target species by now, I’ve half-consciously created a ranking in my head of the most satisfying plants to collect from. A few of the highlights are:

1. Veratrum californicum (Cornlily): This water-loving lily is often found in serene wet meadows, growing about 4-5 feet tall at times, creating an almost corn-maze-like effect. The seed pods took forever to reach maturity, but once they did, they easily made the top of the list for most satisfying collection. Thin, papery pods the size of grapes could be easily crushed, making a lovely crinkling sound and releasing several white, papery seeds. And if the seeds were really far into maturity, you could even grab a whole stalk, tilt it over into your bag, and gently shake it, releasing hundreds of seeds effortlessly.

2. Asclepias cordifolia (Purple Milkweed): Milkweeds are so fun to collect. Upon reaching maturity, the dried pods crack open to reveal some of the softest material I’ve ever felt. Each seed is accompanied by a large puff of milkweed “silk”, an incredibly lightweight pappus that aids in wind dispersal. This is a plant that makes me look forward to tedious seed cleaning!

3. Lupinus arbutus (Lupine): Lupines can really be hit or miss. Our first encounter with Lupine collection was extremely unpleasant: while opening a pod, we had about an 80% chance some gross little larvae would pop out at us. But as we sampled new populations and learned that not all Lupines had this issue, at least not quite as severely as the first one, Lupine collection became one of my favorites. We came across a particularly good population of Lupinus arbutus that had virtually no bugs inside–yay! And then we finally got to experience the joy of having a perfectly mature seed pod pop open right in your hand as you reach to collect, separating all the seeds instantly and offering a nice crunchy feeling.

4. Monardella odoratissima (Monardella): Everyone in the building knows when we’ve collected Monardella– the strong minty scent spreads all throughout the hallway, becoming a nice natural air freshener. A few weeks ago it helped to mask the stench of old milk left in the communal fridge, quickly making it an office favorite. It definitely gets a few points for that alone. But the tactile qualities are nice as well. As the seed head dries, you simply walk up to one and crumple it, the seeds gently flaking off into the bag.

5. Elymus elymoides (Squirreltail): Elymus elymoides gets points just for the name. But also, it’s a funky looking native grass that has brushy seeds that you easily strip off in one sweep.

I could go on and on but I’ll stop there with my top five. And of course, my least favorite should be pretty obvious. (Wyethia mollis…)

In addition to seed collection, here’s some photos of some other fun stuff I saw this month:

Check back in next month for more updates!

July went by in a flash. Time flies when your brain is preoccupied with worries about nearby wildfires. The month greeted us with a week of 105 degree days, making fourth of July plans slip away and canceling our pre-scheduled scouting trip to the Feather River District, due to a rapidly spreading fire that sprang up near Oroville, where the temperatures reached 114 degrees. 

Along with the heat arrived the sudden surge of work we had to do as seeds were quickly reaching maturation. We abruptly picked up the pace and had no choice but to begin collections in addition to being vigilant with scouting and mapping and correctly identifying pesky lupines before they all go to seed (Sam and I basically memorized the entire key to the Lupinus genus from how much we had to repeat the process). Inevitably we were going to miss the collection window for a few of our populations, but we tried our best to set our priorities based on each species’ phenology. 

One of our top priorities was Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax). Despite its deceiving name and appearance, Beargrass is not in fact a grass, but a perennial herb in the monocot Melanthiaceae family, which more closely resembles lilies. Beargrass is one of the most culturally significant plants on our list, as indigenous groups in the area have been utilizing parts of the plant for weaving and food for many years. In addition to cultural significance, Beargrass was at the top of our list for being incredibly well adapted to frequent burning, due to its hardy underground rhizomes. A rhizome, unlike roots, has nodes along it, allowing the plant to reproduce asexually instead of relying on pollination. This, however, could also be a part of the reason why we often come across a population that has not sent up flowers during the typical bloom period— instead of reliably blooming every year, Beargrass flowering time can be difficult to predict, as conditions need to be just right, and other reproduction methods are available to them. With all this in mind, it’s easy to understand our excitement once we finally came across a substantial flowering population! After plenty of dead-end scouting, Sam and I found one massive population beginning to fruit, and got to collect seed from this important species.

Following the Beargrass collection, there were many days spent making our way down gnarly mountain “roads” in hopes of finding more plants on our list before the seeds disperse. Last week this seemingly casual form of exploration, a routine in which Sam and I had become quite comfortable with, gave us a reminder that we should always be prepared for the adventurous nature of fieldwork. By ‘adventure’, of course, I mean all of the thrilling unexpected obstacles that get thrown at you as you spend more time in remote areas. The wake-up call came in the form of our first time getting our truck stuck in the mud, deep in the forest with no cell service, all while wildfires kept rescuers busy and hours away from helping. We had become too comfortable testing the limits of our truck. We had successfully passed through many sketchy-looking obstacles with it— what was one more tiny creek?

We got home, eventually, after several hours of waiting for help, walking around to try to get phone signal, and staring at the vibrant swirls of smoke in the sky. The Park fire had started a couple of days before near Chico, and was already reaching 100,000 acres around this time. All day we had been watching as the sky morphed into strange colors, with large plumes visible in the distance. The way the setting sun interacted with the smoke produced mesmerizing light distortions, illuminating the landscape in an eerie blue-green light as the sky remained dark orange.

A firefighter was eventually able to come pull us out of the mud, after dealing with yet another small fire that had popped up in the forest. We got out, and slowly made our way back home, driving carefully on winding mountain roads in the dark for an hour and a half. The whole way back we reflected on the incident, and gained a greater sense of respect and caution for the chaos that comes with peak fire season in northern California. Next time, we’ll get out and check how deep the mud is before attempting to drive through…

I’m off to a good, but very busy, start to this internship. It has been nearly a month of training, moving across the country (North Carolina to California!), settling in, and having an intense crash course on California botany. 

Having been an east coast, big city person all of my life, arriving out west was a surreal experience. After a busy week of training in Chicago, I flew from Chicago to Phoenix, then Phoenix to Reno, then had my Forest Service supervisor (Andy) pick me up in Reno and drive me the two hours to what is now the quaint little town I live in: Quincy, CA. Andy gave me all the local facts as we made our way through rural mountain roads to reach the ranger station: Quincy has a population of around 5,000 people, and is the largest town in Plumas county. Which means, despite being a very small town, there’s a fair amount of restaurants and events that happen here, because it’s where everyone in the county goes for activities. I arrived at the Forest Service housing around 10 pm, got some much needed rest, and then promptly started my first day of work two days later, that following Monday.

The first week of work mainly consisted of Andy showing me and my co-intern (Sam) around the forest, giving us a tour and also teaching us a lot about California plants. We drove all around to different areas of the forest, hopping out of the truck whenever Andy got excited about a roadside plant for us to try to guess an ID.

Later in the week we started more serious ID practice, using both the Jepson manual and a more specific local flora, to brush up on our keying skills. We walked through all kinds of habitat; rocky outcroppings on mountain tops (where we found some rare plants!), meadows, wetlands, mixed conifer forests. Some really cool species of note we saw in the first couple of weeks include: some HUGE Douglas firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Sugar pines (Pinus lambertiana, which produces the largest pine cones in the world), plenty of really cool myco-heterotrophic plants including Phantom orchids (Cephalanthera austiniae), Coral root (Corallorhiza maculata), Pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea), and more.

The myco-heterotrophic plants often have such striking colors to them because they don’t produce chlorophyll, which is what makes most plants characteristically green. Instead, these plants are essentially parasitic, taking nutrients from nearby tree roots by tapping into the mycorrhizal fungi associated with the tree.

Once we got a little acquainted with the plants here in northern California, Andy had us shadow him for a few days to help out with rare plant surveys so that we could continue to practice our ID skills and also have a lot more exposure to help remember all the plants we learned. I was the one transcribing one of our surveys, and we got over 150 different species! I am surprised at how well Sam and I are picking things up, but it still is a lot to remember, and I’m sure it’ll take some time before all the information really sinks in.

Last week, our third, we finally got our own Forest Service truck, which meant Sam and I were able to start going out on our own to begin scouting for plants on our native species list. We got to it immediately, because a few of our species are already beginning to go to seed. It’s been a lot of work trying to organize and plan everything in an efficient way, but so far we’ve developed a good system for staying organized with our data and seeds, and we’re reminding ourselves it’ll only get easier as we get more practice. 

That’s month one in summary! It’s been overwhelming at times but overall very exciting and rewarding.