The beauty of the desert only shows itself when you open your eyes. Over a month ago, I left my home in rural New Jersey to embark on an adventure in a “new” place: Santa Fe, NM. While one might think that time moves slowly in the heat of the desert, this past month has flown by. Completely awe struck by the beauty of open skies with clouds seemingly frozen in place, mountains tinged purple by the setting sun, and the overwhelming diversity of plants and critters, the reality of living in such a beautiful place has finally set in.

Angel Peak, NM

I am incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the BLM State Office in Santa Fe designing and establishing monitoring plots for rare plants across the state. Our first week involved revisiting and setting up plots for Townsendia gypsophila, an adorable aster that grows on gypsum deposits and may be threatened by recreation, development, and other disturbance. Brainstorming monitoring protocols and performing sample statistics proves to be rather difficult in the harsh, and particularly hot, landscape of northern-central New Mexico.

Gypsum-loving Townsend’s Daisy (Townsendia gypsophila)

The following weekend I traveled to the CLM Workshop and experienced the busy city of Chicago. Meeting so many fellow passionate nature nerds was really enlightening and made the workshop very enjoyable! On the flip side, being in the lush deciduous forest and (un)bearable humidity of Illinois made me slightly homesick for the northeast. Flying back to Santa Fe over the Rocky Mountains and Great Sand Dunes brightened these thoughts and solidified my excitement to be back to work.

View from Lake Peak, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, NM

The past few weeks were spent in Carlsbad, NM; a place that isn’t that bad. It was incredibly rewarding to work with the Carlsbad Field Office in setting up monitoring plots for the endangered G1 species Eriogonum gypsophilum. It was rather remarkable to reflect on the fact that these gypsum drainages are the only place where this plant is known to occur in the entire world. Despite the 110 degree days, dangerous hydrogen sulfide, and thorny mesquite and creosote, the experience made me greatly appreciate the importance of multi-use public land and the ability to integrate plants and wildlife into the mix.

Gypsum Buckwheat (Eriogonum gypsophilum)

Aside from work, I’ve spent most of my time eating red and green chile-smothered food (always order christmas), bagging peaks, cliff jumping, dancing to groovy music, and enjoying the magical atmosphere of New Mexico. This coming week I’m looking forward to working with the miniature Sclerocactus cloverae ssp. brackii and experiencing the intense monsoon season!

Wood Lily (Lilium philadelphicum) in the Pecos Wilderness.

Adorable red squirrel in the Pecos Wilderness.

Cooper’s Hawk at the Santa Fe Canyon Preserve.

-Dylan

BLM New Mexico State Office – Santa Fe, NM

So, here’s a fun fact about me: I am a descendant of Brewster M. Higley VI, who wrote the lyrics for “Home on the Range”. The song is about his Kansas home that he acquired land for through the Homestead Act of 1862. He then built a peaceful cabin overlooking the property, where he retreated during troublesome times.

Many times in my own life I have retreated into the wilderness to find peace and comfort. It wasn’t until I moved from Connecticut to Wyoming that I really understood his lyrics (below) , and marveled at similar western sites.

“Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day”,

Everything about the West was foreign to me up until a month ago when I drove thousands of miles to get here. Throughout my journey, I experienced the landscape, the flora and fauna and the culture changing drastically as I traveled west. The landscape was dry and barren, antelope played in the sagebrush lowlands, and elk congregated on mountainous, snowy summits. Cows grazed freely on public lands, and people were friendlier. Everyone wanted to know how I was doing, where I was going, and what my story was. Needless to say, I didn’t meet a single person with a discouraging word to say. And the sky certainly is big and blue most days. All of these things were very different to me, but what was most shocking was how quickly it felt like home.

View of my new home from the top of Heart Mountain in Powell, WY

I quickly fell in love with the mountains all around me. I sought out adventure after adventure, and found that there was still so much to explore. And when I finally made it to Yellowstone, I felt how special it was to be where the buffalo roam. They are bigger than I ever could have imagined. When they get really close to the road, I still marvel at their sheer size. They are kind of adorable in a terrifying and majestic kind of way. But I am glad that the Wyoming state flag has their image on it, for their vast herds are one of Wyoming’s many treasures. And I am extremely thankful to be living where the buffalo roam freely.

A buffalo from my first trip into Yellowstone

While I do miss my family immensely, my next goal will be to find a job that will let me stay in the area longer so I can continue to explore Wyoming’s beauty while still working my way towards a more long term goal. That long term goal is finding a permanent job in an area I like, with people I like, doing something I enjoy. I am both loving and hating how vague that goal is at the moment.

Some days I feel like I know exactly what I’m doing, and other days I feel completely lost and often wonder, “what am I doing here?”.

Here’s what I have learned about what I’d like to do next:

-I would like to keep working in the field of environmental interpretation and recreation. I love connecting with the public and teaching them a bit of natural history wherever I may be. I also enjoy encouraging them to explore and recommending certain cites or activities in the area that would help them do so. I’ve been thinking about applying to a few park ranger positions, but I really don’t want to leave the area for awhile longer if I can help it. I love my field office, the location, the people, the management. However, at the end of my internship in 4 months, that may be enough time to move on and try living somewhere else for a bit. Luckily, that is quite easy to do with seasonal work.

Here’s what I’m still uncertain about:

-When I will go back to school and what for. Maybe being a park ranger will work out, maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t perhaps that will help me narrow down what I’d like to go back to school for and lead to a certain time frame as well.

At the end of the day, I know this is exactly where I need to be right now. And I feel very thankful to have this opportunity to work with wonderful people, in such a beautiful, fun area and learn about myself in the process.

Melissa Higley

Recreation Intern

Bureau of Land Management ~ Cody Field Office

I got into Susanville, California to start my internship with the Bureau of Land Management just about three weeks ago after driving north through the Mojave desert and northern Sierra Nevadas. As an east coaster, my tour through the west has been an eye opening experience. Over the past month, I’ve seen Joshua trees, many many dusty towns miles from nowhere, and more sagebrush than I can shake a hand lens at. Since starting my drive out west, I have been feeling pretty out of my element. I have spent a lot of time thinking back to the lush moistness of New England’s Appalachians where I grew up. The dryness and vastness of the west are pretty new to me.

Still, I can already feel the sagebrush steppe – where I have been working – growing on me. I am pretty sure that the best place to make a new ecosystem feel like home is to be thrown out there for six to eight hours a day intensely studying plants. We have been out in the field for most of our days so far. One of my favorite days so far has been exploring the Pine Dunes north of our office near the small town of Ravendale (population 20).The Pine Dunes are a unique ecosystem with about 40-50 Ponderosa pines growing in the middle of the inhospitable sandy desert. No one really knows why there are Ponderosa pines in the middle of the desert, but our mentor hypothesizes that there was a short period when the desert flooded, simultaneously exposing long-buried pine cones and providing them with the moisture to germinate and establish. While we were out there, we also found an odd-ball stand of willow shrubs perched atop a dune. I wonder if these too established themselves during a single wet season.

The beautiful Pine Dunes north of our field office

Our mentor used the term dynamic to describe these kinds of ecosystems. Ecosystems are constantly changing and working in restoration ecology, we need to remember this. This invites us to think about what we are restoring when we go to rehabilitate an ecosystem. Do we restore it to how it was 10 years ago? 50 years? 100 years? 1,000 years? Some might say that we should try to return landscapes to how they were before human contact. But I think that is problematic because there were people living on this continent for millennia before the arrival of Europeans and with the genocide of native Americans, so too went a wealth of knowledge about the continent’s ecosystems. So, we really don’t know what this continent looked like before human contact. Does it matter? Should we be striving to minimize any human contact on the land? Or should we be trying to figure out a way to make contact with the land without destroying it?

-Susanville Bureau of Land Management

Oh and did I mention that we went to the Redwoods over 4th of July weekend?

Before I arrived to my first day at the Colorado State Office I created goals for the CLM internship that I hoped to accomplish before the end of my 6 months. The first, and by far the easiest, was seeing all I could of Colorado. So far I have gained more than just a collection of places, but a knowledge of the people I work with as well.  After hours, amounting to days, of driving in a car with my crew this season, I have a new appreciation for reggae music, the lifetimes worth of unbelievable stories Carol (my mentor) has lived, and how much knowledge can be gleaned while flying down the I-70 through the Southern Rockies in a government issued Ford Explorer.

I will chronicle my past month adventures and gained knowledge by time since I last posted, so I can attempt to keep everything straight.

One of our many drives. Near Pagosa Springs

After monitoring for Astragalus debequaeus in May, mostly near the Roan Plateau, we went back slightly south to the little known town of Delta (pop. 8,720). Here, is where we got the pleasure of working with the fine folks at the Uncompahgre Field Office. Here, is also where we were finally able to work with Sclerocactus glaucus and see it in bloom! (not pictured here).

This scavenger hunt under, between, and around any bush or blade of Pleuraphis jamesii was a test of your yoga forward fold pose and ability to maintain a keen eye. This plant, however, somehow managed to steal my heart: much like me it exists in arid environments and is, more so than myself, fighting the long and hard fight of existing in such a place.

After our stints heading west from The BLM Colorado Office in Lakewood we took a turn south to the 4-corners region of the state.

Our first stop was Pagosa Springs to look at Ipomopsis polyantha to assist with a project that the Tres Rios BLM District Office is working on with the plant. To shorten the story, we ended up spending a short period of time with an interdisciplinary group including a BLM ecologist, a US Fish and Wildlife botanist, a Forest Service employee, a private rancher and two people from an energy company that oversees pipelines that passed through the area. I realized while listening to the ways which these these entities interact it is easy to oversimplify the management of lands- which involves the juggling of species habitat, land use, and the multiple-scales of the various activities across a landscape. Needless to say, it was a very insightful day learning about how agencies, private citizens, and companies work together towards the protection of plants.

I was also very excited to be introduced to Pagosa Springs. Here you can walk next to the San Juan River and see geothermic sulfur water running from streams dotting the sides of the river and pooling under bridges. More amazing was that all this was two blocks from a line of hotels with dozens of additional natural baths looking onto the river. I hope to return to this riverside oasis on my time off so that I can spend a few days soaking and lounging around the town.

Just a little side trip to see Mesa Verde. Don’t mind if I do.

After checking out Oreocarya revealii on a plot a stone throws away from some petroglyphs (also not pictured), we then moved on to search for Lupinus crassus with some of our newly acquired friends from Montrose. We had a fine time walking in what seemed like a portal back into my old stomping grounds in Nevada, through lands characterized by Pinyon and Juniper trees.

On to Penstemon grahamii! The week after we left the 4-corners area, we thought we would try and hit every county in Colorado that bordered Utah, in a month, so we headed to the north western corner of Colorado near the Uinta Basin. Near Rangley we, indeed found some P. grahamii along with P. scariosus var. albifluvis.

I think this was the most enlightening trip so far. These two species, I learned, are at the center of a legal battle that dates back to 2011, with advocacy groups seeking to list the species for protection while the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been working on a means of protecting the species in a Conservation Agreement between private citizens, the state of Utah, BLM district Offices, and Counties in Utah. It is an interesting case study because of the nuances of the situation, and is another case in which land management ought not be oversimplified. Both species have a large proportion of their population on private land, meaning that protecting the plant solely on public lands will not address the whole issue. However, listing species has, in the past, been the best way of providing the greatest protection to species that are seen as at risk. There had been an attempt to list this species before, but ultimately USFWS opted not to list it. Now, however, after a lawsuit in 2015, advocacy groups would like it to be considered again. This step, although seemingly helpful, would be opposed to the Conservation Agreement, in which, the entities involved are trying to avoid listing the species. In observing the current situation I understand the perspectives of the many groups involved and find it stimulating to learn the ways in which these groups work together, how the system has functioned historically, and how it is changing in a modern context. I am eager to see how the situation evolves in coming years.

You can read more of the agreement here:

https://www.fws.gov/mountainprairie/species/plants/2utahbeardtongues/Penstemon_Conservation_Agreement_2014Jul22_final_signed.pdf

You can read more about the lawsuit here:

http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/1%20-%202015.03.26%20-%20Complaint.pdf

Hello beautiful. P. scariosus var. albifluvis

On our trek up to find a new plot of P. scariosus

The next part of my journey takes me to The Chicago Botanical Gardens in the town where my family has its roots. I am excited to be able to visit family and, at the same time, engage with like-minded people on the program that allows me to visit such special places…and with an opportunity to see my parents and a good friend while there, there is a lot to look forward to!

Taryn

Colorado State Office, BLM

Lakewood, CO

Hello! My name is Mike Mahoney, and this is my first blog post as a CLM intern. Following training in mid-June, I trekked 2,100 miles cross country in my tiny hybrid and arrived at my home base for the next 5 months, Susanville, California. Just an hour and a half north of Reno, Susanville sits in a valley at the intersection three different eco-regions with the Great Basin to the east, the Sierra Nevada Mountains Range to the west, and the Cascades to the north. For the next 5 months I’ll be working out of the Bureau of Land Management’s Eagle Lake Field Office. The office mostly manages rangeland in the Great Basin to the north and south east of the city in both California and Nevada

From one of the trails in Susanville Ranch Park, you can get a great view of Susanville! Check out the snow capped Diamond Mountains, a part of the Sierra Nevada’s, in the background.

During my first two weeks in office, my co-intern and I spent a good deal of time getting ourselves acquainted with the field office and the lands managed. At first glance, there does not seem to be much out on these lands. A good deal of the management area is mountainous and rocky, covered in mid thigh height shrubs or grass, only to be broken up by the occasional riparian area or table land. Much to my surprise, there is a large demand for public land, even though it may look to just be sitting there unused. Our office manages the land for cattle grazing, wild horse populations, off terrain vehicle usage, other outdoor recreation purposes (ie. camping, hiking, etc.), and last but certainly not least, conservation and restoration of native flora and fauna. Additionally, in our office we have range experts, archeologists, wildlife biologists, and ecologists, all with different agendas and expectations for management strategies. It’s a dynamic and exciting process with real outcomes!

Burrowing owls are some of the sensitive animal species our field office manages! This owl was found at a site adjacent to some of our sage brush study plots.

Now, as a transplant to the west, I have a lot to learn about the natural history of the area and the cultures of the people that shape this landscape. Hopefully by the end of this internship, I will be better acquainted with not only the native plants, seed collection, and monitoring strategies, but that I also will gain new insight into this holistic management process.

We took a trip to naturally occurring sand dunes in our management area. Check out my co intern Jake’s post to see some of the Ponderosa Pines growing at the location!

Before starting my internship, I had a grand idea in my head. I pictured myself hiking through a lush forest, finding colorful flowers everywhere I looked, and being swept away by the forest’s beauty. Then my mom looked up my ranger station on Google Earth. The images showed the station in the middle of chaparral, with no trees in sight, let alone a whole forest. Although my day dreams of frolicking through the forest seemed to be crushed, I kept my spirits high, knowing I would have an amazing experience no matter where I was working.

As I drove to the station on my first day, my dreams were restored. I know you are not supposed to trust everything you see on the internet, and this was a perfect example of why. As I drove through the twists and turns of the mountain roads, I was in awe at the forest surrounding me. The massive Jeffery Pines and abundant wildlife blew me away, however this was not the most shocking element of the forest. When I opened my door, I was overwhelmed by the sweet butterscotch smell of the pines. I had been taught that if you approached a Jeffery Pine and stuck your nose in-between the bark scales, you could smell butterscotch. No matter how many times I tried this in the past, I could not smell anything. However, in this new land of adventure, the smell was everywhere, I felt like I was in a candy store who had just taken a huge lick of a Butterscotch Dum-Dum.

The next three weeks were filled with very similar experiences. Time after time I believed I knew what would be around the next turn on the dirt mountain road, however, after coming around the bend, the unexpected would be staring back at me. We have found springs in the middle of dry patches, meadows in the middle of heavy forest, and massive pines that stick out amongst the rest.

My partner and I have been tasked with collecting native seeds for a pollinator garden, however we have decided to expand the project, and also create a collection of different pollinators from the area. Although collecting seeds can be tedious, trying to catch a Carpenter Bee can be nerve-wracking. None of the hikes we have been on have caused my heart to race like it does when I am sticking my hand into a net with a plastic bag to capture the bee inside.

So far our seed collection is comprised mainly of Cobwebby Thistle, Cirsium occidentale, which has been painful to collect and clean. We are hoping that as the summer progresses, other species will soon go into seed and be ready for us to collect. For now we are taking what we can get, and running around chasing bees and butterflies with nets like fools. I can not wait to see what other candy I can find in the candy shop that is the Los Padres National Forest.

Sincerely,

Sophia

Los Padres National Forest, U.S. Forest Service

Los Padres National Forest, Frazier Park

I have been stomata deep for the past two weeks in McCall for what feels like botany summer camp and I am nothing short of wilted. Instead of attending the Chicago Training I took a summer Advanced Field Botany intensive through the University of Idaho. It has exceeded my expectations in many regards but has left me feeling like I know even less about plants, the world of angiosperms continues to expand for me and makes me feel like I will be studying this for the rest of my life. Both confirming and overwhelming.

The class schedule is as follows, one day in the field collecting voucher specimens and one day in lecture in the lab keying out what we collected the day prior. Below is a picture of the class organizing our collections in the field.

After we organize it in the field we clean the specimens up and put them in a large press and then in a plant dryer. Tower of Pisa am I right??

A big part of the class has been orienting myself again to phylogeny, especially since the professors do a lot of work on phylogeny, specifically on the Super Asterids. I woke up early to write it out on the board the other day.

One of the instructors wrote out all the angiosperm families on the board according to order and phylogeny.

All in all it has been actually a really expansive experience. It has been nice getting away from the dry deserts of Southern Idaho and being in the lush and abundant forest and mountains and lakes of central/western Idaho. I have keyed out a lot of plants in the last two weeks and feel re-inspired to continue studying by myself and pursue a degree eventually. All in all, even though I am totally wiped from this class, I wish I could take it again and get even deeper into genre specific questions, key even more gramanoids, and try and dip my toes into lycophytes.

Here some cool shots from the class and some of my favorite showy flowers.

Xerophyllum tenax, A bumpin’ year for Bear Grass here

Scutlleria galericulata

Pedicularis groenlandica

Mimulus breweri, baby monkey flowers are my favorite

A view into Hells Canyon in the Payette National Forest

Clematis hirsutissima, I love showy ranuncs’

Classmates collecting on an allium flat full on Alliums, Calochortus, Penstemons, etc.

A little subalpine Nuphar pond

Aconitum columbianum in white flower

New England is absolutely stunning. When I originally applied to the SOS internship with New England Wildflower Society, I was nervous to be far from my home in Georgia, but eager to learn new flora, see new landscapes, and create rewarding memories with fellow plant enthusiasts. I did not realize the vast diversity of landscapes that I would be able to see and study. I have only studied Botany in the Ohio area because that is where my college was located. New England has introduced me to much more than the beech-maple forest and deciduous woodlands that I was used to studying. Our SOS trips so far have ranged from dry sand dunes, salt marshes, freshwater wetlands, bogs with lush Sphagnum mats.

Ponkapog Bog in Canton, MA. So lush!

I have learned so many species of water-loving plant that has made me view coastal flora in awe. Among my love for these species I have also found a new-found love for graminoids. My fascination sparked when I first saw a Sparganium in flower.

Sparganium americanum in flower. So beautiful!

The intricacy of the male and female flower is nothing I have seen before from a grass-like plant, especially a plant that is so morphologically different then the Typha, which is also in the Typhaceae family. When we started learning more about the other graminoid families Cyperaceae, Juncaceae, and Poaceae the intricate details of these flowers and seeds were beautiful. Although Poaceae is still daunting to me after taking a course at NEWFS garden, Poaceae, Cyperaceae and Juncaceae are as fun to look at as they are sometimes challenging to identify. The seed heads and seeds are cool too! The perigynia in the sedges look similar to awesome and fleshy medieval maces. In the Juncaceae family, the little tubercles that crown the achenes of Eleocharis like little fertile queens ready to be sown into the ground. In fact, we made our first collection yesterday of Eleocharis palustris.

The love of my life, yet the bane of my existence in deep mud flats: Eleocharis palustris

There had been a big rain before we got to the muddy wetland area. As I was searching for mature seed heads I could not help but fall right through the mud, thighs deep. I dug myself out and crawled on all fours to get to more stable ground to continue to collect. After laying my eyes on those cute little tubercles, I decided that I did not mind repeatedly sinking in the deep mud with flooded boots for these achenes. My eyes have been opened to the beauty of graminoids and I cannot get enough. The diversity of graminoids is something that I am eager to explore further in this internship and beyond!

As someone who has grown up in the humid, temperate woodlands of Pennsylvania, the exposure to the western climate has been interesting… Just last week, a fire, dubbed “earthstone”, had started right behind our apartment and still continues to burn through mid-eastern Nevada. (The biggest fire I’ve seen in PA are football bonfires, rallying the fans and the team to defeat our number-one rival.) With barely any trees and never-ending sagebrush expanses, adjusting to this new, extremely open place seemed intimidating. The first few weeks I had to adjust to the unrelenting dry heat and the sudden increase in elevation… let’s just say my exercise regime was “revised”. The nosebleeds almost every other day was super fun too.

Our project working on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest has us looking for only ONE target species, but we have a list of a total of 80 opportunistic plant species to collect seed from if we come across it. With no historical points to access target species, our job is to scout and mark collectible populations. This large, inclusive project comprises of target species that are essential to pollinators, sage grouse, and range management. Restoration and preservation of diversity are the overarching goals. I am super grateful to be apart of a project that includes so many facets to science and the community.

Image of a sphinx moth obtaining nectar and pollinating nettleleaf giant hyssop (Agastache urticifolia)

Since we’ve been exploring the HT districts, the only thing we’ve been hearing from the locals is that we are lucky to have visited Nevada this year. The large snowfall over the winter has provided the wildflowers more than enough water to thrive and give us such beautiful views!

View from the Santa Rosa district located at the north-central portion of NV near the Oregon border. If you look close enough, you’ll see our #1 enemy: the cow.

As we explore the wilderness of the HT districts, I have become extraordinarily thankful for major (paved) highways. The rocky gravel roads that we use to scout for plant species can be driven at a max of 25 mph. Patience is much needed in these places with no cell service and not a person in sight. Payton (my coworker/roommate from Ohio) and I have much to learn in these lonely places, but at least we have each other to endure the ceaseless driving and triple-digit heat.

Over and out!

Alyssa Hay

USFS Reno/Sparks