Another project I am working on is surveying established populations of rare orchids at Catoctin National Park in Thurmont, MD.  Let me do some introductions.

Coeloglossum viride – Long Bracted Orchid (LBO)

The Long Bracted Orchid (Coeloglossum viride) was the first orchid for which I surveyed.  LBO is threatened or endangered in 8 states, including Maryland, and the population that we have here at Catoctin Mountain Park is the largest population in the state! LBO may not be the most charismatic orchid, but it certainly does have some strange habits.  This orchid has been surveyed since the early 1980s and has seen a significant amount of decline, most likely due to deer browsing.  What is interesting about LBO is that since a deer management plan has been implemented in the park, the population has been steadily increasing, but only in one specific area.  The only place that LBO has been found in the park is on the outer edge of a campground parking lot and along an adjacent horse trail.   The LBO thrives in the disturbed edge habitat that the parking-lot and horse trail provides!

Another orchid I have been working with this season is called the Purple Fringed Orchid.

Greater Purple Fringed Orchid

The Greater Purple Fringed Orchid (Platanthera grandiflora) is found in moist habitats and has a strong associated with skunk cabbage.  PFO has been surveyed since the later 1970s and has also seen a sharp decline likely due to the over population of deer in the park.  Measures have been taken to protect the orchid and the recent implementation of the deer management plan has also done good things for the populations of the Purple Fringed Orchid in Catoctin Mountain Park.

Platanthera grandiflora

I was able to get together a team of other interns and seasonal rangers to help me survey some swampy stream areas and we were able to find a total of 50 individuals!  We took GPS points and data on numbers of flowers and buds and were able to compare it to the previous years of data.  It is interesting seeing how the population ebbs and flows as the years go by.

The last orchid I ran into this summer is called the Large Round Leafed Orchid (Platanthera orbiculata).  While surveying for the Long Bracted Orchid along a horse trail I stumbled upon a strange looking orchid-like leaf with a stalk full of buds.  Back at the office I told the biologist about it and she directed me to a paper published in 2014 that documented a long-term study of the orchid populations in the area.  (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10531-014-0698-2)  After reading the paper and doing some research on the orchids listed in the paper I was able to get a good idea of which orchid I had found….

Platanthera orbiculata – Large Round Leaf Orchid

Platanthera orbiculata

After the orchid flowered I was able to positively identify it as Platanthera orbiculata.  The exciting thing about this orchid find is that this plant was listed as extirpated not only from Catoctin Mountain Park, but the entire Catoctin Mountain region!  Needless to say I was excited.  The paper draws a correlation between orchid decline and deer over population.  Considering Catoctin Mountain Park has had their deer management plan put in place for only 5 years, it is possible that the decline of deer browse has allowed this orchid to re-emerge.  Imagine what else could pop up!

Until Next Time,

Emily

I’ve been in Dillon, Montana for several weeks now, working at the BLM field office there. My mentor, Kelly Savage, is primarily a range specialist, but is also the plant specialist of the office. Kelly has taught me a lot about everything, from range land management to edible native plants to Native American cairns. I’ve also been out with range technicians doing different vegetation and stream surveys; one day I went out with a wildlife technician, Melanie, and looked for Goshawks on a timber sale allotment. The variety has been fun and I am looking forward to collecting seed this week.

As someone who does not come from a ranching background or even from the region, I quickly learned a lot about how life and work go out here. Several words and phrases have taken on new meanings for me since moving from Portland, Oregon to Dillon.

Looking out on Sage Creek

Land- On the first day my mentor and I drove around the grazing allotment she manages and discussed just about everything. Something that struck me though was her use of the word land. “Really, everything I am doing is to improve the health of the Land. If we manage it well, the Land can continue to give and teach us for many years.” I capitalize Land because when talked about in this sense, the word loses its stale meaning of a portion of the upper crust of the earth and becomes something that is a dynamic unit. “Land” means the dirt, rock, and debris (DAUBENMEIER) that hold up the flora, fauna, fungus wrapped into an inseparable package, interdependent and specific.
Land is also tied to ownership, which, depending who you ask, can mean responsible for or control over. Even the idea of “owning” land comes with controversy and implications of capitalism, exploitation, and inequality. (Tangent: some academics have claimed that the privatization of land coincided with the spread of written language, thus a shift to right brain values. I digress.) It is strange to think that while doing a seed collection if I walk ten steps to my right I could cross the imaginary boundary into “private land,” where the plants are now loyal to only the name on the title. However, proprietorship also allows for care for the designated plot of earth. It avoids the tragedy of the commons and ties a sense of commitment to its future. My job this summer will hopefully provide the data and tools to make informed and sustainable decisions concerning the use of the Land.

Binos- Rhymes with “dinos.” I spent a day with wildlife and had to bring my binos to do Goshawk surveying. I’ve never seen a goshawk, but after listening to the call box all day I will recognize its call until the day I die.

A bull and cow

Cow/Bull- Before my first day at the BLM, cows and bulls were cattle. Now one must distinguish between cow cows, cow bulls and cow elk, bull elk. I’ve seen plenty of cattle cows and bulls, but also a handful of elk. My co-worker Berett found three elk shed this week and let me keep one! It makes me feel like a real Montanan.

Big Country in Medicine Lodge

Big Country- In contrast to Land, country cannot be owned, despite the fences designating plots and borders. When driving on Old Bannack Road towards Big Sheep Creek, the sky, hills, and plains expand before me. Big Country is not only a geographically large area, it is space you can see. The nothing between the mountains becomes something, and that something is enormous compared to anything humans could build.

A visitor at a potential collection: Northern Sweet Vetch (Hedysarum boreale)

The past month has been spent analyzing our annual vegetation data from juvenile Desert Tortoise sites, and we’ve come a long way! We have also been searching across most of Utah and some of Colorado (Colorado Plateau) for potential post-oil well vegetation monitoring sites! This new project is a departure from our previous work, and will be a nice getaway from the heat in the Mojave! This has involved a tremendous amount of filtering through GIS data and looking at satellite imagery for promising sites. The criteria involve clusters of sites, each containing: sites where Artemisia tridentata and/or Coleogyne ramosissima grow (or would, if an oil well hadn’t been established), a site from each decade from 1950-2000 (when the oil well was plugged and abandoned), and that each cluster fall within certain climatic constraints. This is no small task when faced with over a thousand potential sites! But it has been a great way to learn more about GIS and get a look at post-restoration oil well from the air!

In other news, the weather has been incredibly unpredictable, with temperatures climbing well above 110 F and incredible thunderstorms at the same time! Incredible precipitation events have led to flash floods and sights like this dry lake bed near Primm, NV, which is not-so-dry anymore!

Meanwhile the perennials are sending off seed, and the summer annuals are waiting for their moment to sprout from this monsoon weather!

After an intensive week of training at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Jeanne and I returned to yet more training at the Las Cruces NM BLM office.  This included safety, UTV, diversity, NEPA, CPR, and various other trainings associated with  various other acronyms.  Additionally, we have gone out on a few range assessment excursions to scout for collection sites and to assist in plant ID for presence and absence  of plant species.   

We’re used to praying for rain in Southern New Mexico, and even though it’s been a sporadically wet spring, the summer is hot and dry no matter how you cut it, and the plants are usually accordingly sad and crispy this time of year.  As a result, our seed collecting activities have been limited to scouting populations using forensic botany. 

We have found excellent candidate populations of Bouteloua gracilis, Ipomopsis longiflora, Bouteloua curtipendula, Thymaphylla acerosa, Sporobolus airoides, Muhlenbergia arenacea (Sand Muhly), M. porteri (Bush Muhly),  and Sporobolus flexuosus.  Much to my surprise, we have also found a big, happy candidate population of Pleuraphis jamesii (James’ Gallleta grass).  I had been unaware that it occurred this far south, (usually what we find around here is the rather closely related Pleuraphis mutica “Tobosa grass”).  I had my doubts about finding adequate populations of Setaria leucopila because, although fairly common, I have never seen it in any great density.   Sure enough, though, we found a population that shall do nicely for an SOS collection.  Oh me of little faith….

 We have found a lovely population of Ipomopsis longiflora, but I’m afraid there will be some strategizing necessary since our reconnaissance indicates that the fruit capsules explosively dehisce almost immediately upon maturation.  Jeanne, my co-intern, called up a contact that she’d worked with on a restoration project involving a super rare species of Ipomopsis endemic to New Mexico (I. espiritus-sanctus, “Holy Ghost Ipomopsis) to get some information on how to collect seeds.  His suggestion was to bag the plant and catch the seeds that way.  I am hoping we don’t have to go this route for seed collection, but time will tell.

We have had luck finding Aristida purpurea (purple threeawn) from geographic regions not yet collected, but my mentor is after specific varieties (var. perplexa and var. longiseta).  However, thus far we have not found populations of either variety in sufficient quantity for collection.  But we have found good populations for Aristida pansa which may make for a viable substitution.

Anyway, we’ve seen a lot of beautiful but stark New Mexico landscapes.  I do love working in these open lands where there may be no signs of humanity for miles and miles, except for maybe the infamous spaceport in the northern part of the county. 

Overall, I have been impressed by the diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints in the Las Cruces field office.  And yet, there definitely seems to be a positive and generally fun work environment here.  I hope next time I update y’all, there will be a lot more  ‘nitty gritty’ plant collections to report on (may the skies open up on us with delicious rain…).  In the meantime, please enjoy some random photos of our adventures and some cool plants we’ve found along the way! 

David Morin

Las Cruces Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

Coryphantha longispina.  A poor photo of a cute cactus.

Helenium microcephalum

I keyed this critter to H. microcephalum, an unusual DYC found in a dry stock tank.

Creosote (Larrea tridentata) anyone?  We’ve got it; seemingly as far as the eye can see.  This is hotter than it looks.  Trust me.

Rangeland assessment team hard at work.  The Rio Grande valley is in the distance…

Ipomopsis longiflora with mesquite and Broom Snakeweed.

We shall be collecting from this site, provided A) we get rain and B) we can find a reasonable way to harvest the seeds.

Oryx scat.  I did see some oryx, but was too slow with the camera.  Hence, I’ll leave you with a photo of the next best thing.

My advisor, P. J. Alexander overlooking tank training grounds at the McGregor allotment.  The military gets to do training on this allotment for some reason. This is as good a photo as I’ll ever get of Patrick.  He’s odd about getting his picture taken.  I did, however, get his blessing to share this photo….

Mostly crispy Sporobolus airoides.  When the rains come, this will be a target collection site.

Penstemon ambiguus.  A very cool, shrubbish, and unusually low dwelling Penstemon in NM.  There are two like that that I know of, of about 70 plus Penstemon species in the state.

Houstonia rubra

A cool rubiacid from the coffee family!  And one that I’ve rarely seen in flower.  Rubiaceae is a huge tropical family, but with few taxa in the deserts of the southwestern US.  Also, a bit of Physaria fendleri, a hip yellow flowered mustard.

Over the past few months I’ve spent a minimum of 23 full days counting individual plants, and their flowers or flowering stems. That equates to 184 hours on hands and knees picking through scratchy weedy grasses, blackberry canes and poison oak to find various rare plants. Most recently my co-worker Christine and I just finished doing a complete census of a listed species of daisy called Erigeron decumbens on each of our many wetland prairie sites.

Doing this much intensive and detail-oriented monitoring has been a challenge. The thoughts that go through my head during particularly long stretches of flower-counting most resemble my experience of jogging. At first, I convince myself that it will fly by… but not too long after I find myself calculating progress versus length of road ahead or transects left to count and finally digress into an internal battle to keep moving forward. There is usually a fleeting moment when I question a few life choices and fantasize about a desk job, or even my past as a bartender / waitress. I bribe myself with sips of coffee and the occasional stretch in an effort to ignore sore knees and the sharp florets poking through my socks and into my ankle bones. I agonize over my ability to detect each tiny plant and constantly push myself to look closer. My muscles strain and my mind wanders… only 30 more to go…

About this time I have passed the half way point. My movements become more efficient and calculated and I find relative peace knowing that the hardest part is over. My mind loosens it’s fixation on the end and allows me to push through. In the final stretches, I bask in the glow of hard-earned accomplishment. Once I take my last step / stoop to count the last plant I feel as though I could keep going and going, my mind fully surrendered to the task just completed.

I’ve never meditated much but I imagine that the struggle to quiet one’s mind is similar to that of careful monotonous counting. In the end, my work equates to a few rows and columns of data; a collection of numbers to better know the trajectory of these rare species. As we walk to the car I notice my internal dialog with each step…1,2,3,4… I’m caught in a loop of numbers and when I close my eyes I can see those delicate leaves, the bashful flowering stem, and a particular shade of green that separates one plant from another in my mind’s eye.

Erigeron decumbens

Training, scoping, collecting, oh my!

June was a busy month for the interns at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. After a week of SOS East Training here in Chapel Hill, N.C., we dove into research. With our heads buried in herbarium specimens and Delmarva Peninsula maps, we prepared for our first trip to the coast.

We traveled through North Carolina up to Virginia and Maryland. During our time, we saw some beautiful coastal plain habitats…

But when we returned, we had work to do: seeds to clean and more permits to acquire.

Until next time!

Background-
Impression Sunrise:

Impression Sunrise (Impression, Soleil Levant), created by Claude Monet in 1874, is one of the most important works in the impressionist movement. The contrast of the diminutive, dark colored fishing boats against the dominant, red-orange hued sunrise conveys peace and tranquility. In the background, the soft gray silhouettes of factory smoke stacks, construction machines, and large ships are almost comforting. In the midst of all the boom of construction in France following the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871), this busy port of Le Havre may have symbolized the renewed power of France to Monet. But there is more than one way to view to heavy industrialization, and neither is generally that great for the fishermen.

And now-
Impression Sagebrush:

Traveling out here, I drove cross country with my mom all the way from Saint Louis, Missouri to the tiny town of Burns, Oregon. It was the longest road trip I’ve ever been on. What struck me the most was how much of this country is miles upon miles of highway connecting little towns to little towns, the green grasslands blending into dark mountains blending into red rocks blending into gray-green sagebrush. It occurred to me on that trip that this is the stuff America is made of.

Compared with my Massachusetts hometown of Lexington and my erstwhile home of St. Louis, the scenery around Burns is incredible. Here in Harney County, one might crest a hill only to be confronted with a towering butte, or a range of snow crested peaks. It seems that every tiny dirt road has a view of expansive gray-green slopes, or the shimmering tan flat of desert. You might say it’s majestic.

The people of Burns are endlessly friendly and helpful to us newcomer interns. Several have invited the four of us into their homes, a couple have introduced us to other young people in the area, and some have invited us to fish and shoot with them. Many people have recommended their favorite activities to us. One night at a fiddle music festival, we were even given waltzing lessons, and another time we were welcomed with rocky mountain oysters at a cattle branding. Yes, many people have different world views from us city folk, but that has never dampened their honesty and hospitality.

One of the first things that surprised me about the BLM came up in my first conversation with my mentor, Caryn. During the interview process, she told me that the BLM was hoping that the sage grouse would not be federally listed as a threatened species. At first I was shocked, since I had expected that people would want to protect a species whose population has seen such a precipitous decline in the recent past. On second thought, this position makes sense since it would be difficult to coordinate protection of the sage grouse according to the endangered species act with the many ranchers who use BLM land.

When I arrived in Burns and started work however, it seemed not only that the BLM did not want the sage grouse to be federally listed, but many individuals actually saw the potential listing of the sage grouse as a threat to the ranching lifestyle that dominates the county. They believe that sage grouse are in decline for three main reasons: 1) fire due to drought, 2) invasive annuals such as cheat grass, and 3) encroachment into sagebrush by western juniper trees (Juniperus occidentalis). All three of these things also pose challenges to their ability to raise cattle.

Later, when I was hiking in the Steens Mountains with friends, we happened to meet a man who had helped write the petition to federally list the sage grouse. He was upset when we informed him that the BLM was still seeding burned areas with crested wheat-grass (Agropyron cristatum), a non-native grass that provides good forage for cattle. In his view, the cattle ranching industry was the one threatening the sage grouse in three main ways: 1) overgrazing grass so that it provides no cover, 2) allowing raven populations to overwinter on dead cows causing an increase in ravens which then prey on sage grouse, and 3) degrading water sources by trampling.

Clearly there are at least two sides to the sage grouse issue, and they seem to come to a head over the issue of ranching and cows. Cows are highly valued and represent a way of life in Harney County. In fact, even though many cows stand in the road, anyone who hits a cow with a car must pay for it. Ranchers and those who work closely with them at the BLM see the importance of ranching in the community. These people live lives that seem to come out of an old western, complete with brandings, rodeos, cowboys, and roundups. Other people see cattle ranching as an ongoing problem that is only getting worse as the high population of cattle (over 100,000 in the county compared to about 7,000 people) degrades the land over time. Some people even argue that with their use of government land and government subsidies, ranchers are all essentially “living on welfare”.

Beyond the seemingly timeless beauty of Harney County’s rich culture set against its stunning landscape, there lies a conflict between cows and birds, or maybe just between two groups of people. Hopefully, the large amount of funding currently going towards sage grouse research can find why the sage grouse is really declining and how the decline can be stopped while cooperating with ranchers, because the sage grouse is being considered for federal protection over the next few years. The clock is ticking.

This was a very eventful month. Outside of the spectacular workshop in Chicago, my team and I have been monitoring a fledgling golden eagle and a few fledgling prairie falcons. On one of our visits we were actually lucky enough to witness all four fledgling prairie falcons make their first observed flight. Later that week we met with another office here in Utah and worked with fellow CBG employees to find and collect native seeds for the Seeds of Success program.

Also, we’ve completed our work in Hamlin Valley. This week we’ll be focusing on completing our reports and assessing how we can optimize sage grouse habitat while maintaining areas important other wildlife. This is particularly relevant for raptors, since they exploit Pinyon-Juniper for nesting, but also pose the largest threats to Sage Grouse.

Finally, we were invited to train with the Cedar City Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on proper capture and release of the threatened utah prairie dog. Their work centers primarily on extracting prairie dogs from properties where they pose as a nuisance or hazard, and releasing them at sites where they can prosper. So far this internship has been exposed me to a plethora of useful field experience, and I’m excited to how the coming months will unfold.

This is Amelia (as in Earhart)

Introducing the Brady Bunch