Amidst the every day monitoring of old fires and fuels treatments, counting sage and deciding the dominance of grasses and forbs, there is a special opportunity to geek out even harder. Two weeks ago I got the very special opportunity to go out to the field with the Idaho Natural Heritage Botanist of Fish and Game and monitor an endemic rare species, Castilleja Christii. Castiella christii (CASCHR) grows exclusively on the top of Mt. Harrison in the Sawtooth National Forest south of Albion, ID fairly close to Burley, which is apart of the Twin Falls District I work in. This species is also not listed in the Flora of Pacific Northwest, as it was determined just years after its printing. There has been historic mapping of this plant there so I got to learn a specific rare plant monitoring protocol that I really enjoyed, apart of some of the most floristically abundant transects I have ever seen, partly because they were all at 9,000 feet in elevation.

Driving up to Mt. Harrison is a really unique experience and I am pretty excited to go back there. Like most of Southern Idaho you have to travel through countless acres of farm fields  but then upon ascending the mountain you begin to see some trees and topography all of a sudden. The farther you climb up the more sub alpine it gets, there are parts when you think you must be in Northern Idaho, but no you get to the top and amidst the sub alpine rock and lakes and open meadows, amidst snow melt, you see ag for as far as you can see in the distance. Botanically speaking I understand why this area is monitored so heavily, there are multiple rare species there in what seems like an unlikely place. In addition there are epic displays from the Pedicularis to the Lupin to the Castilleja to the Ligusticum, the thick flowers were visually stunning.

Below is a picture of a sub-alpine buckwheat, Eriogonum microthecum var. simpsonii, that was a pretty find.

Here is a picture of the group of Fish and Game folks monitoring the Castilleja, you can get an idea of the numbers we were counting per quadrat.

I love Pedicularis contorta.

A sound of music-esque epic Lupine display in a transect

Adorable pygmy bitterroot, Lewisia pygmaea.

A cool new Rose plant I learned out there, Sibbaldia procumbens

A nice glamour shot of Castilleja christii amidst Ligusticum grayi.

A neat find off the trail, Aquilega coreulea, the colorado blue columbine, love those spurs, yah

This lovely little api is Cymopterus davisii, another rare plant that grows with the Castilleja that we found here both in flower and fruit, pretty neat

Here is a picture of Stacey, another Fuels Botanical Specalist, helping mount and label the herbarium specimems, many from the time spent monitoring the Castilleja with the Natural Heritage folks.