Hello from Grants Pass, Oregon!

I started a rare plants internship here late in March, almost April. I’ve been here just over three weeks, now. This is my second time participating in the CLM program– last year I was stationed in Susanville, CA focusing on seeds of success. Now I spend my days hunting a federally listed plant, Fritillaria gentneri.

Fritillaria gentneri

My partner, Kiki, and I have been tasked with revisiting 150 gentneri sites during the blooming season which is April through June. I’d say we’ve done forty or so sites. That may not seem like a lot, but some of these sites are hard to get to! Spring has sprung before my very eyes since I’ve been here, which means we stumble across blankets of wildflowers during every hike, but it also means we have to quickly check our remaining sites before they dry up!

There are also plenty of Madrone trees to climb on. Kiki swears up and down that climbing a tree increases the accuracy of the GPS. I’m dubious.

Grants Pass is nestled in the valleys of the Cascades and it really shows in the work. Kiki and I can be found crawling along slopes all over the area, hunting our precious lilies. I affectionately call it ‘billy-goating’, because goats are so good at climbing up scary steep rock walls. Likewise, Kiki and I have to be good at climbing up scary steep grassy or forested hillsides! Thankfully, there’s usually a manzanita or oak to grab on to for stability.

I’m not sure if this picture adequately captures how steep and terrible this hillside is.

The plants themselves can be quite conspicuous, or they can be shy. Sometimes a bright flash of red stands out from the landscape, sometimes it just blends in with the poison oak. It just depends! A lot of the sites are lily-free, which at first was discouraging, but it just makes the victory so much sweeter when a lily pops up! (even though it is totally out of our hands, finding a gentneri feels like a huge victory!)

Can you see the lilies~?

Kiki and I take time to explore the area on the weekends– last week we went to the redwoods at Stout Grove! They’re quite a sight. We had a great time climbing around on the trees that had fallen, and the river that runs next to the grove is so blue!

Kiki and a redwood.

Since most of our days are filled with intense hiking, sometimes we just want to relax by the river and exercise our minds with a rousing game of scrabble!

I lost..

Until next time~!

Lillie P