A couple weeks ago, I was asked to introduce the Pine Hill Preserve to a group of high school students. The task of introducing the preserve and its mission in a compelling way felt like a challenge. The landscape of the preserve is dry, thorny, steep, and shrubby. It lacks most of the features that usually attract people to the outdoors – and in fact, it wasn’t really protected for the purpose of recreation in the first place. Instead, the primary mission of the preserve is to protect several species of rare plants.

Around the same time, we found out that a new species – Carex xerophila, named in 2014 – may constitute a new rare plant for the preserve. Before this sedge was recognized as a unique species, it had been lumped in with Carex brainerdii and Carex rossii in the Pine Hill Preserve area.

Inflorescence from the newly described Carex xerophila

As I considered the possible addition of this new rare plant and my upcoming task of presenting the preserve, I got to thinking about the philosophy behind rare plant conservation. Is it truly important to prevent species from going extinct? If so, why?

There are a few go-to responses to the question of why to protect rare plants. One is that if a species goes extinct, there are likely to be unforeseen consequences for the entire habitat. In complicated ecosystems where pollinators, primary producers, predators, and prey are tightly intertwined, it is nearly impossible for us to predict what will happen when a species disappears.

Another is that individual species of plants can be immensely valuable to humans in ways that aren’t always obvious. Medicinal plants are a good example – many of the compounds used in pharmaceuticals come directly from plants. So, when we drive a plant to extinction, we could be losing an effective treatment or even a cure for some human ailment.

But is it worthwhile to protect a species even if it isn’t a linchpin in its ecosystem, and even if it doesn’t hold any secrets for our well-being? I think that protecting a species from extinction could be justified as a simple demonstration of respect for life. We don’t understand very much about many species, and in some ways we don’t know very much about life itself – so perhaps we should prevent extinction simply out of deference to the unknown.

Carex xerophila at Pine Hill Preserve (low shrub on bare soil)