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.