“Quick-Guide” to the Plants of the West Eugene Wetlands

The monitoring season has come to a pause until next spring. We have checked off all but one of the R/T/E plants (Sericocarpus rigidus) this season and have actually come out ahead of schedule. S. rigidus is just beginning to flower, while others such as Lomatium bradshawii have succumbed to mere litter and thatch, completely indiscernible. So, for now, I had to come up with some sort of project to work on among the more intermittent tasks I’ll be doing such as seed collecting, site maintenance, monitoring youth crew, etc. For the time being I will be working on a plant identification guide of the West Eugene wetland plants for future interns. We already have a list of all known wetland plants in Eugene, so I am basically building the guide off of that by figuring out their primary habitat type (emergent, wet prairie, upland) based on their wetland indicator status as well as where I’ve seen them primarily in the field, and sorting them by those categories and by family. I have a total of 384 species that I am finding notable characteristics for quick identification in the field. Part of the idea is that since this is meant for only the West Eugene wetlands, you don’t have to key them out, but instead go to the section according to the habitat type you are currently in, or the index in the back with the species list and page numbers, or use the list of family characteristics I will be providing to verify the species you are looking at. And of course there will be photos associated with each species so if you’re not sure if the description fits, just see if it looks like it. Since this is for only Eugene and there are only 384 plants to discern between (most of which look nothing alike), the photo you are looking at and the plant in front of you are likely going to be the same species. I’m hoping this will be an easy, quick, and educational way for future interns to learn all the plants in the West Eugene wetlands.

Here are the main rare and endangered plant and insect species we monitored this season that will also be included in the “quick-guide”: