The Carrizo Plain, one of our most visited sites, is turning many pretty shades of brown right now as everything dries out.

As our season here winds down  (wow, I can hardly believe there are only a couple months left!) Rachel and I have been focusing more intensely on a few late-seeding plants. One of the plants in full bloom right now is Eriogonum fasciculatum var. polifolium, or California buckwheat. Although the USDA plants profile lists this species as “Eastern Mojave buckwheat,” it grows readily in sites within the Bakersfield Field Office boundaries. This shrub has pretty white flowers that fade to red, then brown and orange as the seeds dry. This is a fairly common plant that grows abundantly along roadsides, so we are happy to have a good number of sources. Here is a picture of Rachel collecting seed at a site near Lake Isabella, CA.

A less common plant that we colleced recently was Isomeris arborea, also called Bladder Pod. According to the seeds of success webpage, it hasn’t yet been collected.

I am the new CLM intern in Lakewood, Colorado for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at the Colorado State Office. I started with the BLM on June 11th and so far it has been amazing. After only having a month to transition from recent college graduate in Georgia to new CLM intern in Colorado, I do believe that I have settled in quite nicely here. Everyone has been more than willing to help me smoothly adjust to my new community (if that be joining a local kickball league in Denver or planning trips to search for treasures at the local thrift store). This friendly and caring spirit is something I like to call “Western Hospitality.” I am grateful to have such wonderful coworkers, mentors, neighbors, and community members. I am really looking forward to enjoying my time here.

Over the next coming months of my internship, I will be scouting and monitoring new sites for populations of flowering and fruiting plants that can be used for Seeds of Success (S.O.S). Also, surveying and GPS/GIS mapping old locations by monitoring the conditions of past identified plant populations planned for seed collection, such as Thermopsis divaricarpa (my favorite plant species at the moment). Our SOS goal will be to identify about twenty-five plant species populations for seed collection, which we hope will not be too difficult – despite the forest fires.

Spending a week at the Chicago Botanic Garden for the CLM Workshop was an educational and fun experience. I met many interns that share my same passion for wildlife. I am sure that I will stay in contact with the friends that I have made even after the program.

It’s always a great feeling to be in the field identifying various flowers. In the distance, I notice hikers and bikers who probably had to take the day off from work to enjoy their own “backyard.” Then, I suddenly remember that I did not have to take a vacation day or a personal day to be out in the foothills. I’m enjoying what so many people wish they could experience on a daily basis rather than just on the occasionally family vacation. I feel very fortunate. Being able to travel to parks and forests to observe plants for SOS and take in the opulent magnificence of Colorado’s mountains is incredible – and to think I’m getting paid to do this!

It is hard to not be in awe by these beautiful mountains and hills surrounding Lakewood. Few plants can grow in such harsh, varying conditions of extreme, dry and hot summers to bitter, cold winters. These plants must be resilient in order to survive. At Mount Galbraith (~7,200 feet elevation!), we were scouting to identify new plant populations and came upon a small herd of deer with a fawn looking very curious. Closely, I noticed how frail one of deer appeared by the apparent outlining of its ribs. Looking around at the dry, black crackling ground and the thirsty brown grasses of the foothills (in a sudden sense of panic), I started to wonder how these animals and plants will survive such a harsh and almost unforgiving environment. As quickly as this thought began, I realized if these deer can endure and even thrive within the precarious ledges and cliffs stricken with its fair share of fires; then, I am sure wildlife throughout can survive as well. After all, its nature and nature has its ways of taking care of itself…

From the colorful mountains of Colorado, happy hiking folks…

Darnisha Coverson

Thermopsis divaricarpa seeds

Thermopsis divaricarpa (spreadfruit goldenbanner) Fabaceae family

Mount Galbraith (the view while eating our lunch...priceless)

Lathyrus sp. and unknown butterfly species

It has been a busy week since arriving back in Laramie, Wyoming from the training session in Chicago, Illinois. I have been working in both the field and the lab. In the field my team and I have been making SOS collections. We are up to eleven collections so far. Our collections vary by site which makes every field day interesting. We go to the mountains in the Laramie Range and the Sierra Nevada Range in addition to the surrounding sage brush step. This past week we went up to Thunder Basin National grassland. It was hot and dry as it has been all summer long. It has been perfect condition for fires which have been burning all around the state. One of my team’s potential SOS collection sites got burned in a recent fire at Glendo State Park in Wyoming. However, it is not all field work for me. As I am stationed out of the University of Wyoming, I also get to participate in research. I have been plating seeds from last year’s SOS collections in agar for germination studies. I have to be very careful to keep all my tools sterilized in order to grow plants and not fungi. It has been exciting to see two sides of the SOS program; the seed collections and the research.

Though I graduated more than a month ago, any notions of leaving education behind me have been swept away by my first few weeks on the job here at the BLM office in Carlsbad, New Mexico. This post’s word is LEARNING.

Just last week I joined sixty of my peers, summoned from the far corners of America’s public lands, for a training workshop at the Chicago Botanic Garden. I  wondered what training there could be that would apply equally to me as to counterparts, say, on the Oregon coast, but the CBG delivered. I was grateful for a crash course in plant family ID, which formalized smidgens I have picked up in the field. It was also great to hear the history of the CLM program, but even better to hear why we matter. For me the week led up to the story of Sand Mountain, a BLM site east of Carson City where CLM interns’ grunt work was the foundation for an agreement to safeguard the Sand Mountain blue butterfly.

My Sand Mountain is the deep sand country east of Carlsbad, where the focus of my internship is an AIM study at 24 sites. My part in the Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring is a series of vegetation transects coupled with species richness surveys and soil stability tests. Transects are fun, especially the challenge of plant ID. It has been tough wrapping my brain around the conversion between the environments of western North Carolina and southeastern New Mexico. A smattering of what I’ve had to learn:

Oaks are: (NC) majestic giants reaching several stories above you. (NM) groundcover.

Grasses are: (NC) demure and wispy. (NM) some of the biggest, meanest, toughest plants around.

Don’t touch the plants, because: (NC) you could hurt them! (NM) they could hurt you!

Sandspurs are a painful problem: (NC) at the beach. (NM) everywhere.

Rain is: (NC) a refreshing end to a warm summer day. (NM) a rumor, nothing more.

Herpetologists study: (NC) huge salamanders. (NM) hugely controversial lizards.

Cows walking in the middle of the road are (NC) unheard of. (NM) typical field work day traffic.

Dead plant matter will (NC) promptly decompose into compost. (NM) sit there forever awaiting a fire.

Besides the AIM studies I’m being sent to lots of other range and wildlife projects around the office, wherever help is needed. We’ll see how it all goes and I’ll share in future posts.

Most of this month has been spent collecting seed, and also finishing up the spring plant monitoring. I am including some pictures of collecting Ephedra (Mormon Tea) seed, of Delphinium cardinale on Laguna Mountain, and of a Common Poorwill whose nest we accidentally found while collecting seed. Finding cool birds is another advantage of being out in the field!
When we are not out in the field, I have been working on seed processing, and also on trying to learn ArcMap in order to map the new populations of rare and endangered plants that we located this spring. This is completely new for me and is challenging but interesting. I also used ArcMap to assist with preparing reports for parcels of land that will be up for sale later this year. My task was to report vegetation types and soil types. To report soil types, I used the old Soil Survey maps which I found very enjoyable. Another project I assisted with was helping the implementation crew clean up a target shooting area…wow what a lot of trash! $40 worth of scrap metal plus half a trailer of just trash. It has been interesting to see the way the public regards BLM lands. Of course, it varies a lot with the individual, but there seems to be a trend of people wanting the government to provide both access and free services on the BLM lands, but not wanting to take responsibilty that shared public ownership of the land entails. Of course this is neither new, nor suprising, and I have to keep in mind that there are people out there that appreciate having access to public lands and act responsibly so that everyone can enjoy them.

Next month we will be continuing the seed collection and in addition have a tamarisk removal project in Panoche Creek which should be interesting as the herbicide will be applied by helicopter…I’ll take pictures.

Almost one month in and its incredible how fast the time has flown by!! I am working in the great BLM state of Nevada. It has been an abrupt change from the lush landscape of Pennsylvania, but has been growing on me ever since I landed in Reno back in May. It’s great time getting to know my coworkers, mentor, and the ways of the Great Basin and Eastern Sierra’s. The most exciting, heart pounding, experience we have surmounted so far definitely has to be the face-to-face bear encounter one cold night up in the Sierra’s. Although slightly nerve racking it was amazing to see wildlife other then the occasional desert bird and lizard.
Recently, I have returned from the wonderful CBG workshop and can’t say enough how great it was to meet so many other interns like myself that are scattered across the nation. It definitely makes me feel like I am a part of a larger family then just the group of interns that I work with from the Carson City BLM office. The experience has made me feel proud to be a part of such an excellent program. I look forward to talking more about my botanical adventures in later posts and sharing the new stories that are bound to happen during my time in Nevada.

I feel more and more each day that the work Ive been doing here at the Carson City, NV BLM is meaningful and important. Now you add to this sensation a wonderful crew and mentor and you tend to look forward to work everyday. My favourite thing so far about my time here is the ever-changing nature of our work. Every week is something new and exciting and nearly every day we see or do something different. I love being immersed in a job I feel is challenging and meaningful while also getting to spend this time with others that share my enthusiasm and sense of wonder for the natural world. The first time we saw a Great Basin Collared Lizard it was as if we were all seeing a lizard for the first time. Out came the video cameras, pictures being snapped, fingers being pointed. The lizard, who eventually became known as Wowsosaurus, even let me touch his back. The thing I treasure most about my work here is that while we are working, which is generally fun in itself, we get to see, learn, and experience so much. Its like work, school, and play all in one. I couldn’t have asked for a better career starter!

I wrote this in May and thought that I submitted it for review, but as it turns out when I log on to post for June, that is is still here saved as a draft…oops. I suppose I am better with plants than technology. Anyways..the following is my May update, belated by 1 month:

I have been at the Hollister BLM office for 1 month now. Our main focus this month has been monitoring populations of the threatened Camissonia benitensis (San Benito Evening Primrose- a tiny little yellow primrose that actually blooms in the morning) as well as other rare spring blooming plants. We have surveyed previously known popluations as well as discovering some new populations in areas that my mentor had located as having potential habitat (C. benitensis‘ range is restricted to serpentine and serpentine transitional habitats..see previous posting for more info). It was exciting to find the new populations and also learning about many other new (to me) species that grow in these unique environments. Now that our surveying is complete, it is time to collect seed and I have spent several days this week collecting and processing C. benitensis seed. In addition to the work I am doing in the Hollister office, I have also spent some time working over at Fort Ord BLM including attending the dedication of Fort Ord as a National Monument last Saturday.

The clarkia’s are blooming and spring is definately coming to an end here on the central coast…there is hardly any green left in the hillsides. Every year in amazes how quickly the change happens!

Rachel Veal
Hollister BLM Botany Intern

Also..I attached a picture of the stark serpentine barrens at the Clear Creek Management Area, and also one of Clarkia breweri– a California endemic which typically grows in serpentine scree.

Hello from Missoula, Montana! My name is Rachel and I started my CLM internship with the BLM on June 4th. Where, oh where to begin. In the past month I have been cramming my brain with new information, meeting all of the wonderful, friendly people in my office, hiking and adventuring in the beautiful country around Missoula and also exploring the awesome city itself.

On a more day to day basis, my mentor, my field partner and I have been doing a variety of things in the field, most of them revolving around vegetative surveys or monitoring BLM sensitive species plants and culturally important plants. Relating to the BLM sensitive species plants, we have been scouring potential habitats for Keeled Bladderpod (Lesquerella carintata), a rare mustard that is found in dry, steep sites with very loose, rocky soil. This is not easy hiking by any means due to its preferred habitat, however the scenery and views are stunning (as pictured below).

The culturally important plants we are monitoring are Camas (Camassisa quamash) and Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), two beautiful wildflowers that are shown below. Bitterroot is my favorite wildflower I have seen in Montana, it grows very close to the ground and has small succulent leaves, if leaves are even seen.

Later on in the summer when these plants are seeding, I will be collecting seeds, along with a few other species of shrubs (including Bitterbrush, Purshia tridentata, which is also pictured below).

The vegetative surveys we are conducting are Pace and Daubenmire surveys. These are conducted every 5 years to monitor changes in species diversity and soil, litter, moss and rock cover as a result of cattle and wildlife grazing in the area. Each survey involves finding the transect location using a GPS and photos from previous years. Once the transect location has been found the surveys are different in their methods. A Pace survey involves walking 100 paces from your starting point along the contour of the land (following a specific azimuth) and identifying the plant touching the tip of your boot and any over-story. A Daubenmire survey, which is shown in the picture below, involves running a 100ft tape from the transect’s starting point and placing the Daubenmire frame (the red and white rectangular box in the picture) every 5 feet on one side of the tape and every 10 feet on the other side of the tape. Then, all of the plants within this frame are identified in terms of their percent of ground cover.

Both of these surveys have helped me a great deal in learning my native plants here (and unfortunately non-natives too). Additionally, since the transects are scattered throughout BLM land, I have been lucky enough to explore lots of different habitat types and areas. I have seen some incredible landscapes and wildlife, including a Snowshoe Hare, a Red Fox den with playful pups, Mule and White-tailed Deer, Elk, Wild Turkeys, raptors of all sorts and so much more.  I have also been learning a lot about using GPS units and GIS software which is often frustrating and slow going but a necessary skill to have in any field of biology.

Overall, I have had an amazing month! My internship is off to a great start, it is hard to believe sometimes that I get paid to go hike in beautiful country and look for and identify awesome plants! Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Rachel