“Touching grass”— Leaving our little digital bubbles and getting in contact with the natural world around us. It’s usually part of a joke when this phrase is typed out on the internet, but what it implies about our human need for connection with the plant world is real. As someone who’s been touching grass professionally for the last two and a half months, I think I’d do well to ponder it for a while.
I had the wonderful opportunity late this August to attend a presentation at the local “food forest” by a Northern Cheyenne elder and his son. They are both ethnobotanists and spend their time learning about and sharing the stories of the Cheyenne’s traditional way of life and relationship with the plants of the region. They spoke of a people whose lives were intertwined with native plants not only out of necessity, but also voluntarily due to affection and desire for kinship with these spirits that surrounded them.
“Every plant has its own story”, they said. On the table in front of them were many plants that I have seen on the forest this summer—Artemisia frigida “Woman’s sage” and Artemisia ludoviciana “Man’s sage”, ceremonial gifts; Ratibida columnifera “Rattlesnake medicine”, which reduces the effects of rattlesnake venom when chewed into a poultice and placed on an incision near the bite; Prunus virginiana “Chokecherry”, which Cheyenne would harvest in the late summer and fall to be crushed and dried into patties that would feed hungry mouths through the long winter.
From left to right: Man’s Sage, Woman’s Sage, Rattlesnake Medicine
Their relationship to plants doesn’t end with the products that the plants provide; It extends to the inter-plant-personal—living being to living being. The elder and his son told about grandmothers laying out hearty meals at the feet of trees for them to enjoy, about how complimenting a particular patch of poison ivy on its beautiful sheen persuaded it to hold back with its itchy attacks, and always they imparted that we, humans and plants and even the soil, are all spirits connected through community as part of creation.
I’m cheating a little with this blog post by merely recounting what I’ve heard (but that’s what stories are for, anyway). Here’s a bit about seed collecting.
An attendee at one of the elder’s presentations once asked permission to take home some seed, so he told the attendee “you don’t need to take any seed—all you need to do is to touch the tree”. He told us, “plants have a way of following us home. There’s a magic about them. They’ll spring up in your yard”. I’ll take his word for it—there’s been many a day when the seeds of needlegrass burrow deep into the hem of my pants and spill onto the floor when I take my boots off at home. That said, I won’t be altering the protocol when we’re out in the field. We can’t count on enough needlegrass following us home to satisfy what we need for this project. We do need to actively harvest.
It’s a different kind of relationship that we have with plants as seed collectors this summer, but I’d say it’s still one based on respect and mutual good will. We leave plants be when the population isn’t large enough or healthy enough to withstand the stress. We collect no more than one fifth of the seed to leave plenty for the seed bank in the soil. Some members of the botany crew have even told me that they say thank you to the plants when they collect seed or take a specimen. What we’re doing, while perhaps reparative and necessary only due to our own impact on plant life through development and contribution to increasing wildfire risk, is an act of love and care for the plants and for the world community that they are vital to. And we benefit greatly from their fruits and the fruits of our labor through the maintenance of the vitality and beauty of our public lands, which are nourishing to people in many ways.
From left to right: Chokecherry, Echinacea
“When they are upset after being punished, children run and climb up high in a tree, not to come down until suppertime. Just touching the plant calms us down and takes away the bad feelings. When the child comes down and goes home, everything is alright again.”
Like I said before, we’ve been touching a lot of grass, and other plants for that matter. We can be in a field for hours on end, stripping seed from heads of grass, inhabiting quiet save for the sigh of wind and the chirping of crickets. For me, it’s time with brain empty. We’ve had other people from the office come collect with us, and they describe it in a nicer way: “meditative”. Either way, all this grass touching does something for us. The same way that working in the garden, or walking through the woods keeps us grounded. It’s an inter-plant-personal relationship that we’re all lucky enough to enjoy this summer. Whether I’ve got my nose in the wild mint while at work, or my toes in the lawn playing corn hole on the weekend, I’m glad to have a connection with plants. I hope they’re happy too.
This past month was one full of learning and growth…and missed seeds. August has been the most hectic month by far. I was able to collect from populations of Eriogonum heracleoides and umbellatum in the beginning of the month before heading off to Manchester, England for a week long conference.
While grateful for the opportunity, that meant leaving my seed collecting partner behind to harvest populations on her own. Not that she isn’t capable, it’s just a lot of work!
Causey reservoir overlook
Working out in the field took a bit of readjusting, fortunately I somehow made it happen. As we became more comfortable and confident with using the tablets we got better and quicker at tracking our previously scouted populations and collecting the data we needed for the FS. I’ve used ArcoPro, ArcMaps and Esri before but, this forest views their data through the USFS ArcGIS Online program. It’s been an adjustment but, I’m grateful I had the opportunity to learn and become familiar with a wider variety of GIS programs. This forest has a lot of mapping planned for the future and it’s rewarding to feel like we get to contribute to a future forest vegetation layer!
Among our many populations to keep an eye on, we also worked on shipping our collected seeds as well as completing and submitting the mid-season report. It was a bit more difficult than we wanted it to be at first but, once we got rolling, wrapped it up and had many takeaways from the tasks. It was a great way to evaluate ourselves and see the work that was getting done. It also gave us an opportunity to reassess our action plan and what needed to be done moving forward.
Although we had some lows due to populations being missed due to absences or everything seemingly seeding and naturally dispersing everywhere all at once, we’ve also had our highs – both literally and figuratively. We’ve experienced the excitement of electrofishing in a collaborative project with fisheries and wildlife for an invasive species monitoring. Apparently this particular trip was unusual in that we caught many more fish than usual. I’ve never felt more like an animal crossing character lugging around my net than in that moment.
“The ants go marching on and on”
Just a heads up, no one looks cool walking uphill against a stream. We all will look like we belong in a cartoon, trudging around in waders and boots that feel like weights tied to your feet. Slipping and falling is truly a matter of when, not if. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures showing the measuring and weighing process of the temporarily stunned fish since my hands were full of fish or was out following the “electro-cutioner” with an anxious and ready net.
“Oh no! You caught an invasive tiger trout!”
The literal part of the highs previously mentioned involved collecting seeded populations of Lomatium triternatum from Tony Grove and Mountain mahogany on the ridges of Card Canyon. Nothing brought me more joy than getting to what I thought was the top of the population, only to find 50+ more individuals at every potential peak.
Lomatium triternatumMature Mountain mahogany seeds reflecting the sunlight
Here’s a picture of one of our gloriously crafted nets…we just got back from electrofishing the week prior…how we didn’t think to ask to borrow their nets…Cassidie and I still don’t know but, it got the job done! Go seed collection crew!
September ready or not, (but hopefully ready) here we come.
A howling, cold wind forced the small crew of scientists to huddle closer. The group’s navigator glanced from her rudimentary compass to the horizon, concentrating her tired eyes on a small dark shape that stood opposed to the pale, starlit snowfields. The group was traveling in the Artic Circle, a land no more desolate now than most of the post-apocalyptic planet. At last, a man-made building resolved itself against the pale dawn. The tall concrete walls cut the wind and a quiet fell upon them. The navigator faced the stainless-steel entrance of the imposing tomb. She knew, though, that life lie frozen, preserved in that breathless place in the form of seeds. Millions of seeds, preserved by people of the past for the unknown future, contained the hope for replenished agriculture and revegetation. She had reached the ‘Doomsday Vault’ — the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Not the Svalbard Global Seed Vault but looks like a sci-fi building! Saw this radio equipment (?) on Blacktail Mountain, Flathead National Forest, Montana.
In the popular imagination, seed vaults conjure up post-apocalyptic visions of bunker-like warehouses filled with crop seeds for kickstarting a new human civilization. Helen Anne Curry, in her paper “The history of seed banking and the hazards of backup,” discusses the origin of this doomsday fear: a survival strategy for mid-20th century Cold War anxieties. The Cold War inspired a frenzy of record backups, computer and communication system redundancies, and other safeguards against global environmental catastrophes. Saving seeds represented an insurance policy for our food, forests, and the green of our planet. The Fort Collins Seed Bank in Fort Collins, Colorado fulfilled this need for redundancy, with the first “Fort Knox of the seed world’ opening in 1958 (Curry, 2022). The Svalbard Global Seed Bank, built almost 50 years later, continues to assuage similar fears but it also represents a more active, dynamic approach to modern day seed-saving needs. The Svalbard Seed Vault, located in the remote Artic Svalbard archipelago, functions quite literally as a seed “bank” in which a nation or organization deposits seeds in a safe box that is then available for withdrawal at the depositor’s request. Svalbard is a backup for the thousands of other seed banks throughout the world, a safeguard against the worst, but it is not a sealed off seed tomb. The seed vault regularly accepts deposits and honors withdrawals. To date, the only withdrawals have been from Syria in 2015 and 2017 due to the civil war disrupting a gene bank located in Tel Hadya, Syria (Dan, 2015).
Many organizations concerned with plant conservation and genetic diversity like botanical gardens, university laboratories, and nurseries, partake in some form of seed saving. The ability to preserve living plants, in the form of a seed, offers a highly adaptable opportunity for humanity to realize the needs and goals for both our local and global plant communities.
Conifer seeds stored in drums in the cold storage freezers at the Coeur d’Alene Seed Nursery; not as cold as Svalbard!
How It’s Made: Trees (and Plants) for Future Forests
My co-intern and I visited the USDA Coeur d’Alene Seed Nursery in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho this month. The 220-acre nursery includes 25 greenhouses, 130 acres of bareroot seedbeds, multiple buildings for seed extraction, and numerous freezers for seed banking. The nursery provides native conifer, forb, and grass seedlings and seed mixes mainly for Region 1 National Forests in Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota (USDA Forest Service). The nursery participates in many projects including the Northern Region’s Tree Improvement program for growing and testing Whitebark pine seedlings for blister rust resistance. The forest I am working with, the Flathead NF, is sending seed to the nursery for extraction and use in grow outs to increase seed number of our target species. Eventually, the bulk-grown seed will form pollinator seed mixes for use back on the Flathead NF in disturbed areas.
Greenhouse and fields at the Coeur d’Alene Seed Nursery.
We first toured the huge, industrially-sized “Seed Extractory”. Large boxes, each holding hundreds of pinecones, are stacked from floor to ceiling (see picture for scale). Hot air is pumped through the stacked boxes, turning the whole pinecone-filled column into a kiln. The heat opens the cones and releases the seeds. Inside the main building, ductwork lines then walls and ceiling, moving air from one machine to another, providing a means to separate the dense seed material from the chaff. Screens of different sizes could be fitted into the various sifting and sorting machines to accommodate a wide range of seed sizes. A sample from each batch of purified seed is then tested vias X-ray for seed viability. X-rays reveal dried-up embryos or hollow seeds that would otherwise escape notice. The nursery manager described the importance of creativity in purifying seeds and the lack of standardization in the seed cleaning processes since each species requires unique troubleshooting. Some seed extraction, despite all the helpful machinery, must be done by hand. This is the case for Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis). Whitebark pine is considered a “stone pine” due to the cone scales never opening, even when the seeds are ripe. Heating the cones up in the kilns only makes the scales close more tightly. The cones must be cracked open by hand, imitating the natural forces they encounter in the wild—being crunched by grizzly bear jaws or cracked by awl-like beaks of the Clark’s nutcracker (National Park Service).
Giant kilns for drying pineconesMachinery in the seed extractor buildingA “dewinger” machine for removing the wings off pinecone seedsThe X-ray room for seed viability tests
We next moved to the storage room, which contained huge walk-in freezers that housed enough conifer seeds to meet revegetation goals for Region 1 Forests for the next 10 to 20 years! Conifer seed, like other “orthodox seed,” can withstand freezing and drying for long periods of time. Some samples of Lodgepole pine seeds stored at the nursery since the 1960s still have a 70% germination rate (Robertson, 2024). The freezers at the nursery are not as cold as the -18C of the permafrost-entombed Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Hopkin, 2008). Seeds stored at higher temperatures, a warmer -2C, are not destined for potentially century-long storage. Rather, these seeds are used for ongoing projects and near-future seed planting. Pollen and seed from white pine blister rust resistant conifers is stored in the freezers for the Northern Rocky Tree Improvement Project. Four defense mechanisms against the blister rust have been genetically isolated and some conifer species, represented in the freezer, contain all four mechanisms of resistance (Robertson, 2024). Seed banks, nurseries, vaults, and libraries provide the necessary storage space for reassurance that genetic diversity can be maintained for both short-term and long-term conservation goals.
White pine blister rust infection (Cronartium ribicola); evident as the orange scab-like protrusions on the bark
My co-intern Erynn (on the left) and I with some pollen from a white pine blister rust resistant conifer
Reimagined Visions: Keep Cool and Save Seeds
While the fear of global environmental catastrophe still informs certain aspects of seed banking, seed saving today serves many other interests and needs. The Millenium Seed Bank Partnership stores seeds from 13% of the world’s wild flowering plants, representing a concern for the ex-situ conservation of wild plants as opposed to seed banking of only economically or agriculturally useful plants (Lewis-Jones, 2019). USDA Seed Extractories and Nurseries like the one we visited in Coeur d’Alene increase the availability of native seeds adapted to local, native growing conditions (Kantor et al., 2023). Smaller seed banks, housed in non-profits or botanical gardens, provide localized seed collections of endemic or culturally and historically significant plants. Seed libraries provide an even more dynamic and accessible service in which people from the community can lend and share seed among themselves. Seed saving of any kind represents a “partnership” of the “the mobile species helping the immobile species” and, of course, vice versa (Lewis-Jones, 2019).
Boxes of trees, ready for shipment, with an apt slogan: “Trees for Future Forests.”
“Whitebark pine.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/crla/learn/nature/whitebark-pine.htm. Accessed 1 September 2024.
Curry, H. A. (2022). The history of seed banking and the hazards of backup. Social Studies of Science, 52(5), 664-688. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127221106728
Dan, Charles. “Reclaiming Syria’s Seeds From An Icy Arctic Vault”. NPR, 24 September 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/24/443053665/scientists-tap-seed-vault-to-rebuild-a-vital-collection-stranded-by-war. Accessed 30 August 2024.
Hopkin, M. Biodiversity: Frozen futures. Nature452, 404–405 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/452404a
Kantor, S., Runyon, J., Glenny, W., Burkle, L., Salix, J., & DeLong, D. (2023). Of bees and blooms: A new scorecard for selecting pollinator-friendly plants in restoration. Science You Can Use Bulletin, Issue 58. Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 11 p.
Lewis-Jones, K.E. (2019), “The First Step Is to Bring It Into Our Hands:” Wild Seed Conservation, the Stewardship of Species Survival, and Gardening the Anthropocene at the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership. Cult Agric Food Environ, 41: 107-116. https://doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12238
Robertson, Nathan. “Tour of the Coeur d’Alene Nursery”. Coeur d’Alene Nursery, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. 20 August 2024.
It seemed telling, that the first day I went to check on a lupine population we planned to harvest from, the aspens announced the arrival of fall. It was early August, and thus, to me, unexpected. As I drove up the road towards the lupine patch, I passed the baby swan that we see every time we pass by Tern Lake. The baby has grown a bit larger every time we pass it, marking fast growth in a quickly moving season. When I arrived at the trailhead, I didn’t have to walk very far before I was in the aspen patch where a dense population of Nootka Lupine, the native variety of Lupine on the Kenai Peninsular, resides. I found the pods had turned from a bright green to a deep black. Some had popped open and released their seeds already. Above me the wind rustled the aspen leaves in waves, with the occasional unexpected, deep, swirling breath that signifies the onset of autumn. Suddenly the seeds were ready and fall had arrived, seemingly before the summer had arrived. Time, and thus seed development, happens in a strange and sudden, almost nonlinear, progression here and it’s been keeping us keen and on our toes, ready to harvest on any given day or moment.
Harvested dark dry lupine pods.
The next week we went back to that lupine patch with a couple extra helpers to harvest our first seeds of the season. After weeks of learning, mapping, and monitoring plants, it was surprisingly gratifying to finally pluck the first fruits of our labor and bring them back for processing. In a few hours we had harvested what culminated to about 30,000 lupine seeds. Harvesting seeds from a wild plant makes you notice things about that species and their ecosystem that prior to, you might not. For instance, when lupine pods dry, they spiral. And when they dry out enough, the pop. As we were harvesting the lupine pods, we could hear them popping, spreading their seeds, as they naturally do. Our goal then, was to catch the pods after they had dried but before they had popped, a tall feat in a quickly moving season. Sometimes this window seems to only last a day.
Another thing we noticed about nootka lupine in its natural habitat is that a certain type of small worm thoroughly enjoys its seeds. After popping open a pod, we would often find multiple worms inside of them who had made evident munching holes through several of the seeds. Thankfully there were enough pods and seeds that were worm-free to be very worth continuing to harvest and keep these seeds. Initially, these worms struck me as a bad sign. As one would relate to a food crop being full of worms, they instinctually sent a wave of disgust and dread through my body. But after finding various insects, worms, and spiders in subsequent harvests of different seeds, I began to realize that there was something very natural and right about worms being present in these pods. These seeds were not grown for us, they were not grown for our restoration project, or the ease of our ability to process these seeds for storage and propagation. They were grown for the plants, the place, and the ecology in which they reside. And, though my initial reaction to the presence of these worms was negative, I later realized that bearing witness to interspecies relationships while harvesting a native plant within it’s natural ecosystem was most likely a sign of a healthy and balanced ecosystem. And so although the worms were a bit of a hassle to extract from the seeds while processing them, and while the seed viability of our harvested population decreased slightly because some of them had worm holes through them, my perspective on the presence of worms and insects within the native seeds we were harvesting changed over the last month by normalizing their presence and beginning to question their ecological role and relationship with these native seeds.
Sam using the Clipper to process Lupine seed.
Speaking of processing seeds, the above photo illustrates the key tool and method that we have since used to process the native seed that we have harvested. We call it the “Clipper,” and it does a very good job of sorting and winnowing large quantities of native seed. The photo depicts my coworker, Sam, utilizing it to process the lupine seed we gathered. It’s not difficult to use and it greatly increases the efficiency of cleaning seed and sorting out nonviable seed by utilizing a system of different sized screens and fans to filter out the pure seed.
One thing that makes our job interesting is how dynamic it is. Since every native seed that we harvest is drastically different than every other, the harvesting and processing of each seed is unique as well. Thus we must try out the various screens and fan speeds for the clipper with each new species we process. And because this is oftentimes the first time this plant has been harvested for these purposes, we are forced to get creative and figure out the best way to do both process, as well as harvest these seeds.
The inherent diversity of these seeds also means a lot of variability in the signs of readiness of mature seeds between different species. In order to check seed readiness, we perform cut tests under a microscope, to get a clear vision of the structure and state of the inner tissues of the seed. Seeds tend to solidify as they mature, but the exact consistency of the megagametophyte (inner tissue of the seed within the seed coat upon which an embryo feeds) of a mature and ready-to-harvest seed seems to vary between plants. The inner tissue of the lupine seeds were very hard, even to the extent that they were difficult to cut through, whereas the megagametophyte of Carex mertensii (Merten’s Sedge) is much softer than the lupine, though still seemingly mature.
My own discernment of a mature seed from an immature seed is still developing, though I have noticed that it is getting better and better the more seeds at the more stages I observe. For example, we are currently monitoring the seeds of Swamp Cinquefoil (Comarum palustre), for which there is no information available online about how to discern a mature from an immature seed. While the seed is still a bit soft on the inside, after watching the progression and gauging the thickness of the seed coat, we think it is just about ready to harvest. It is important to note that the discernment about the development of a seed in relation to when to harvest it must also be balanced with observing when and how quickly the plant is dispelling the seed from the fruiting body. Oftentimes we have waited because the seed doesn’t seem quite solid and thus developed enough to harvest. But then, the next time we go back to check it, the seed has been expelled as the plant intended, lost (to us) within the soil seed bank, exactly where it wants to be.
While this is a challenge to correctly time, especially when juggling multiple species, all with different schedules (as well as different schedules for the same species in different locations and microclimates), this has been a gratifying skill to hone. It is both science and art. I often find myself and my field partner consciously or unconsciously calling upon our intuition to decide where we need to go on a given day. It’s happened on multiple occasions where we have made a plan of where to go the day before, but when we get to the office something is calling one of us somewhere else. Thankfully we are both generally flexible and often trust the other if they are getting a calling to a particular place on a particular day. More times than once, we have trusted that calling and have both been pleasantly surprised that a certain plant or seed we weren’t even thinking about was ready and needed to be harvested that very day. So that is another aspect of the job that I am enjoying – that it is both a science and an art, and that the more artistic and intuitional aspects of it strengthens and reinforces the depth of connection and integration one has with the ecosystem they are working within, encouraging one to be more in-tune with the land they are working with.
Anyways, since a picture can say a thousand words, I will finish this blog post by sharing many of the photos that I have captured within the last month while out monitoring and harvesting seeds, pairing them with descriptions to give a little bit of an insight into our day to day activities while harvesting native seeds for restoration out in the Chugach National Forest.
The Land We Work Within
Hope Point Trail – a place we (thankfully) get to frequent for monitoring and harvesting at least once a week.Harvesting Hordeum Brachyantherum in a beautiful setting on a gorgeous day.Sam in a muskeg, where we often find our plants of interest.
Berries Found While Working
Cloudberry from a muskeg.Raspberry soon to be eaten.Super-sized salmon berry.
The Plants We Work With or Alongside
Marsh Marigold, dried and gone to seed!Rhinanthus minor (Little Yellow Rattle), the second species we harvested from for the restoration project.Wild geraneum gone to seed, not harvested for the project but super beautiful when gone to seed.Angelica lucida, harvested with much satisfaction and glee.
Seed Harvesting and Processing Procedures
Sam putting out harvested Cottongrass to dry.Our seed drying set up – bread trays stacked and lined with newspaper, a fan, and a dehumidifier all within a grow tent.One of our smallest harvested seeds – a species of rush which was suprisingly satisfying to harvest.One of our biggest harvest days yet.A mix of native seeds in line for cut-testing.A microscopic view of the seed of Angelica lucida. The seed in the middle has been cut into and you can see the nice inner tissue of the seed. This one looks good and mature.
Alaskan Autumn Aesthetics
Beautiful plants changing colors…just because.Autumn arrived in Turnagain PassBeautiful hues. False hellebore and dramatic clouds – a good pairing.Sam checking Jacob’s Ladder seeds.Bright fireweed, speaking to us loudly.Me, harvesting grass seed (Calamagrostis canadensis).
Now we’ve got to get back to harvesting, for it is high season and by the next blog post I presume none will be left. Stay tuned.
While I have lived in Illinois for a while I cannot believe that I haven’t experienced the prairie the way I now have with this position. For school we were tasked to write a large plant inventory project and I chose a small prairie closer to my home. However, this prairie surprises me in new and beautiful ways every single day. We have had some extremely hot days to contend with and that is an adjustment for me as well. Altogether I wouldn’t trade my experience thus far for anything in the world.
First off my co-interns that I am with are so knowledgeable about the plants that we are seed collecting from. Being a Wildlife Conservation major I have experienced and wrote several projects on plants however, wildlife is my wheelhouse. I have had the fortunate opportunity to be around a group of some of the smartest plant people I have ever met. With the use of iNaturalist and their help I am not only learning about all the Native Illinois plants but I am also learning and retaining their names. The conservation field has equally a huge piece in conserving native plant life. I think being from the Redwood forest I am used to those plants, trees, far more than these but this like I stated above has been a great adventure and experience in learning.
Being a part of this adventure I’ve had the pleasure of spending my days in the field not only collecting seed but experiencing the wildlife on the prairie. In particular it was nice to witness Monarch larvae yesterday
As a wildlife person this is evidence that we are doing something wonderful. The monarch butterfly as of 2023 was added to the vulnerable to extinction list and we don’t want it to get any further as we need our pollinators.
Being a part of the group that is planting and helping restore the prairie has been rewarding and educational. Seeing milkweed in the wild, while not ready, is evidence that this program is working.
Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca L.)
Along with seeing the caterpillars and monarch’s the amount of milkweed throughout the prairie, while not ready for picking, is beautiful. Because, we are sustaining the monarch’s life by having this tallgrass prairie.
Another seed collecting experience was met with a hangout session with a viceroy butterfly while seed collecting. Because we could be standing in one place for several minutes the amount of insects we see and that could be all around us varies.
Viceroy (Limenitis archippus)
One of the other interesting things about this internship is the seed cleaning process and everything that entails. From the collecting, to the combining of our mutually collected seed in one location, to the hand cleaning screen process, then my favorite part so far is weighing and looking at the seed under a microscope. I tried to get a picture of what it looked like through the ocular lens of the microscope, it is something that before this internship I didn’t spend much time doing on my own. While I do have my own microscope at home, I feel like this skill that I have learned will have me wanting to do this more.
Looking through the ocular lens at various Carex
While seed collecting one day with the volunteers that help at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie not only did I witness a flyover of some of our resident sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis), but I also at the same exact moment captured a picture of another pollinator, the Golden northern bumble bee (Bombus fervidus).
Common buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia)Sandhill crane (Grus canadensis)
While we are sandwiched between a landfill and an Exxon plant I feel like we are making a difference and it is evident in all the life that is out there. A refuge of sorts in an otherwise flatland that is Illinois. I think at this point in my internship, while I did start late, I have been to almost every site to collect seed. I am learning more every single day from not only our mentors but from my well versed co-interns. I am thankful to be here and I cannot wait to learn more about tallgrass prairies.
partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata)
dense blazing star (Liatris spicata)rosinweed sunflower (Lianthus silphiodes)wild indigo (Baptisia)smooth ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata)Seed through the microscopebig bluestem (Andropogon gerardi) with an Exxon backdroptall cinquefoil (Drymocallis arguta)cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis)Seed ready for picking golden alexander (Zizia aurea) black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta) backdropView of seedbedsViews of seedbeds false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides)great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)Seed ready for the microscopeAn invasive wild carrot (Daucus carota)prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya)Soldier beetle on a rosinweed sunflower (Lianthus silphiodes)Joe-pye weeds (Eutrochium purpureum)Eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) feeding on nodding onion (Allium cernuum)obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana)dense blazing star (Liatris spicata) ready for seedsmooth ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata)evening primrose (Oenothera biennis)tall cinquefoil (Drymocallis arguta)tall bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum)coneflower (Ratibida pinnata)Seed cleaningGround SquirrelSandhill crane (Grus canadensis)
In Scotland, the £1 coin is distinctly marked by the country’s national flower, a thistle. It is said that the flower earned its place there in a battle against the Norsemen, who had a bit of a Lego’s moment. In attempting to sneak up on the Scottish army at night, the Norsemen had taken off their shoes. When one unfortunate soldier happened to step on the thorny plant, screaming in agony, he alerted his enemy.
In a variety of other cultures, from Roman to Native American, thistles were used and appreciated for concrete uses (medicine), and even spiritual ones (charms of protection). And ecologically, I’ve noticed the way that bees cling to the flowerheads and seemingly get drunk off the many flowers squished into each cluster. They fight tooth and nail to stay on their little patch, even if you use leaves, twigs, or even other flowers (not from personal experience, of course) to get them to evacuate the area.
Just the other day in fact, I handed a bag of thistle leaves to a local who claimed his goats loved to munch on them. As we watched his truck pull away after he thanked our crew for pulling the invasive (and feeding his goat), we blinked at one another in confusion. Why would any living thing wish to put a thistle in its mouth?
My favorite way to see Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle). We tint our herbicide mix with blue dye, allowing us to see which individuals we have sprayed.
For the past few months, I’ve been spraying and pulling invasive thistles.* And, having seen the way thistle outcompetes and damages native ecosystems, while also being pricked more times than I would like to admit, my distaste for them comes from an understandable place. Which, in turn, makes any tidbit on thistles being found enjoyable…a shock. It is like discovering your mortal enemy fosters puppies in their free time, and is really, annoyingly, good at it. But there is also a morbid curiosity involved in learning of this hidden side to them—can I trust these claims? What else are they good at? Why am I seeing them in my dreams???
All of this to say, this blog post is simply me sharing what I’ve learned. I don’t hate thistle any less. I do not hesitate to pull them out of the ground if given the chance. But the fun facts are just that. Fun. And yes, you can technically eat them. With lots of preparation. But I have pulled up a few roots that look remarkably close to carrots, so do with that information as you will (—a stew. Not that I have given it that much thought).
Anyways! In other news from this past month:
Some salmon-luck and the beginning of stinky season (fish are rotting and bear poop abounds).
Cool funky fantastic plants!
The one aquatic plant that I’ve included is in the genus Callitriche, or starwort genus. Their flowers are unique as they can be pollinated no matter if they are above the surface, at the surface, or below it.
Sobering clear-cuts performed by private timber companies.
Pictures I will be keeping:
That about wraps it up. Until next time!
-Emma
*There are thistle species native to North America, and I am more than happy to leave those alone!
I’ve been helping the Midewin hydrologist (technically the fish biologist) Len Kring compile the Watershed Restoration Action Plan (WRAP), and in the process, learning many things that my basic (eco)hydrology course at NU had not taught me. Let me begin with an analogy — water is a hungry creature. It eats sediment when it is pure, and only once it becomes satisfied on a good meal of sand, clay, and silt, does it contently meander its way downstream, lazily picking up some sediment in one place and depositing a little in another. When something rudely interrupts the water’s course and forces the water to drop its sediment, it once again becomes hungry and begins eating away at the banks and bed downstream.
Unfortunately, there are many things that bother the water of Prairie Creek as it flows through Midewin, which encompasses about 80% of the Prairie Creek HUC 12 watershed. There are old bridges with supports in the middle of the creek. I thought at first, what could possibly go wrong with supports in the creek? But one only needs to take one look at the old railroad trestle with at least 3 supports in the river that has accumulated an impressive log jam behind it to see the problem. As debris floats down the stream during high flow, it gets caught in those supports, accumulating and forming a dam. This not only prevents fish and other aquatic organisms from traveling across the barrier, but it also causes the areas downstream of the dam to erode heavily. This is because obstacles cause sediment previously carried by the steam to be deposited, meaning that the water immediately downstream of such obstacles is relatively free of particulate matter and “hungry”, wanting to pick up sediment from the banks and channel bed. Water also tries to go around the dam, widening the channel at both ends, until those alternate paths also get blocked by incoming logs. In the end, the downstream portion becomes both wider and deeper, and the banks keep receding. The solution is to demolish all unneeded legacy bridges, and replace those that are still necessary with bridges having no in-stream supports.
Left: horrible log jam upstream of legacy railroad trestle. Right: the downstream side of the dam has widened to 3x the original channel width, eroding the banks and causing trees to fall.
A similar issue occurs on a smaller scale with poorly designed culverts. These are typically under roads, and often take the form of two or three buried pipes. Typically, they are too narrow, causing water to flow through them at higher velocities than it normally would, causing erosion on the downstream end. While the culvert begins with having the same level relative to the ground on both the upstream and downstream sides, it often ends up being above grade on the DS side, resulting in a waterfall. Additionally, these small culverts also often become blocked with debris, causing water to erode the soil around the culverts as it seeks a new path through. This has resulted in numerous culverts developing large potholes, making the roads above them almost impassable. The solution is creating wider culverts consisting of bottomless arches sitting on bedrock or a concrete slab.
Downstream side of poorly designed culvert which has turned into a waterfall.
Worst of all, there is a large dam just north of Doyle Rd., which is significantly altering channel shape and function both upstream and downstream, and acts as an impenetrable barrier to fish and other aquatic organisms. Removing the dam might be as simple as dynamiting it and then carting away the debris. However, there is a large amount of sediment trapped behind the dam (reaching almost the top of the dam on the upstream side), which may be contaminated due to army activities. This means that before the dam is removed, the sediment must be tested for contamination. If there is a hazardous level of contaminants, the sediment would need to be dredged out from behind the dam before the dam can be removed (as removing the dam would mobilize all of that sediment). This would significantly complicate the process and drive up costs.
Doyle Rd. dam.
The Watershed Restoration Action Plan (WRAP) for Prairie Creek includes all of these things and much more. The plan lists all steps (essential projects) that are necessary in order to improve the watershed to the next condition class, the three classes being (3) impaired function, (2) functioning at risk, and (1) functioning properly. In the case of Prairie Creek, the current state is functioning at risk and the desired state is functioning properly. Most importantly, approval of this plan will allow Midewin to acquire funding to address the essential projects, which include both structural improvements like ones listed above as well as invasive species removal and native habitat restoration throughout the watershed.
I forced myself to stop lamenting about missing this or that about a month ago, choosing instead to fully enjoy the remainder of my time in, arguably, the most beautiful place on Earth (Lake Tahoe). Then, I knelt down to cut open some seeds. Somehow, when I stood up, August was just about over.
As I swam this past weekend, staring at the light dancing in the water, I couldn’t help but get a bit wistful at how fast its all changing. The chill from the water lingers for a bit longer after drying off now. The aspens are starting to show tinges of yellow, heavier layers have replaced t-shirts on my morning bike ride to work, and believe it or not, I got stuck in a snowstorm on my hike last weekend. For me, there’s always a bit of melancholy that comes along with the waning days of summer. In addition to summer being my favorite season, my heart breaks thinking about my favorite off-work activity (reading on the beach until I get hot, jumping in the lake, drying off, repeat) slipping through my fingers. At the same time, watching the seasons change in an entirely new way is so captivating. Another, admittedly much sillier, upside to this season of my life is that this is the first fall I will be “harvesting” anything, which really makes all the seasonal festivities make much more sense.
Site of my weekend wistfulnessSummer snow!Ten minutes later…
With autumn now looming over us, Gerardo and I have been very busy, driving around all around the basin in search populations ideal for seed collection. We have shifted into spending all our time scouting in preparation for September, when the whole Forest Service botany crew will begin seed collecting. Suddenly, everything seems to be in seed. Populations we’ve been monitoring all summer are now in fruit, which has been so exciting to watch. Finding more populations after scouting all summer has become challenging, but this makes each new location on our map a bit more rewarding.
Bromus carinatus in fruitCirsium andersonii seeds
We got our first taste of seed collecting last week at Spooner Lake; a new parking lot has been approved for construction in a patch of forest, meaning all plant populations (and their seed bank) will be lost from that immediate area. Because of these unique circumstances, we were able to collect all of the seeds from some of our target species rather than the standard 10% or 20%, saving them from an asphalt-covered doom. We have yet to clean the seeds, but we estimate that we collected roughly 15,000 seeds! I listened to a great audiobook and spent ~10 hours in a forest plucking seeds off plants. I cannot fathom a better workday.
As the end of summer creeps closer, I find myself more at peace with the change than in past years. While the incoming colder weather may spell the end of my dearly-beloved beach days, it also marks the beginning of the most rewarding part of my internship yet, seed collection! Most of all, I’m looking forward to the idiom, “you reap what you sow,” applying to my life in a somewhat literal sense.
“What do you like about it? Is it the topography, or the wildlife, or something else?”
It’s a common question when I share with my coworkers how much I love the Tumacacoris and the Atascosas. Coronado National Forest is huge and incredibly diverse, and in the heat of a Sonoran summer most people don’t want to be on these two smaller, lower elevation mountain ranges. They lack the refreshing temperatures of the higher ranges on the Forest. As far as I can tell, the most abundant animals here are cattle. I would advise against swimming in either of the lakes because of heavy metal from mine tailings, waterborne illnesses from grazing, and ample leeches.
This landscape is hot and humid, winding with canyons, hills, secret swimming holes, and perennial streams. Much of it is not true desert but the Madrean Archipelago, a blend of conifer forest, oak scrub, grassland, and wetland. Humans are everywhere – canyons full of agave scrapers and hand axes, camouflage jackets and plastic bottles from the refugee crisis unfolding on this part of the border, pictographs, abandoned vehicles, and ammo (both modern shell casings and older arrowheads).
It is easy to explain why I love the plants and the animals and the air of this place. It’s harder to explain that love when considered with the heaviness that comes with the task of surveying plants and collecting seeds from these mountains. To a lot of people in Southern Arizona, “Chiricahuas” is a mountain range. To a lot of other people, the Chiricahuas are a nation of Apache people who were forcibly removed as part of a genocide in the mountain ranges who still bear their name. The Huachucas are a mountain range and also the name of a Pima village that was wiped out by settlers. What is considered to be the final battle of the American Indian wars was fought in Bear Valley in the Atascosas. There are trees and lichens alive today who were alive to witness all of this. It is not lost on me that I am harvesting seeds from places with a painful and shameful history. It is not lost on me that this would be true nearly anywhere on the continent.
I don’t have wisdom to offer anyone about this. A land acknowledgement (“I am harvesting seeds on land that traditionally belonged to many different nations, all of whom were treated brutally by the nation we call the United States”) does not seem useful. I thank every plant from whom I harvest seeds (and every plant I collect for herbarium pressing), but I also know every one of these plants is here in these landscapes – landscapes so deeply modified and architected by humans – because of the care of Indigenous people and nations. Indigenous people and nations who are still here, but generally not present at my workplace to provide oversight or input.
On this part of the Coronado, it’s impossible to forget this challenging, painful, complicated history. There is sweet birdsong and beautiful flowers and evident bitterness. Regardless of any land acknowledgement I make, the land asks me every day to acknowledge that my work here is fraught. The pictographs, the arrowheads, the cattle, the border wall – every day I am asked to remember who was here and who is here and who might be here next. I don’t love all of it, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to be here and witness it, and maybe work toward human justice in this place that has been sculpted by so many human hands. To me, that is a type of love.
Mexican Free Tail Bats fly over Ruby Peak in the Coronado National Forest. A population of 400,000 lives seasonally in the old lead mine in Ruby, which was abandoned in the 1940s as the ore veins were spent.
Another month has gone by here in Plumas National Forest. As the season goes on by and we approach the end of summer, I find myself in awe at how much we’ve accomplished. We’ve fallen into a steady routine by now, with most of our time consisting of checking on plant phenology, collecting mature seeds, and occasionally processing seeds to ensure good storage. That last part is key, we learned: ensuring our collections are stored properly. Following a chaotic end to our week, we showed up one Monday morning to be greeted by hundreds of flies that had taken over our office. There was a moment of confusion before we realized what had happened over the weekend– the rustling paper bags reminded us. The large Wyethia collection we were quite proud of from the week before was not properly looked at before bringing it inside. We definitely didn’t sort through the seed heads, given that we arrived back at the office around 10 pm after getting our truck stuck in the mud. Being too fried from the eventful day and also too used to loose seed collections, the thought of breaking up the seed heads to prevent moisture and loosen up whatever was inside didn’t occur to us that night.
Our plans for the day were pushed back a bit so we could make time to address the issue before it got worse and affected the rest of our collections. This meant we had to take our many bags of Wyethia mollis seeds outside and sort through them, cracking open individual seed heads and sorting out the seeds, removing any infected parts. This process was tedious and frustrating; sharp splinters pierced our skin as we crushed open the seed heads, dusty particles of plant material emitted an unpleasant odor into the air, and plenty of larvae wiggled around us. It felt like we had been defeated. Just a few days before, we had felt so accomplished, having stumbled upon a massive population. This was easily one of the largest collections we made all summer. Now we had a setback, with a ton of seeds to look through during peak collection time.
Wyethia mollis seed heads
But thankfully, not all seeds gave us so much trouble. One of the best parts of this month has been seeing all the variety of collections we have, and the unique experiences each species brings as we collect. There’s little variation in what we do everyday, at the surface level. Each day is the same, yet each day is unique: different plants offer different habitats, collection methods, textures, scents. Having collected from most of our target species by now, I’ve half-consciously created a ranking in my head of the most satisfying plants to collect from. A few of the highlights are:
Veratrum californicum (Cornlily): This water-loving lily is often found in serene wet meadows, growing about 4-5 feet tall at times, creating an almost corn-maze-like effect. The seed pods took forever to reach maturity, but once they did, they easily made the top of the list for most satisfying collection. Thin, papery pods the size of grapes could be easily crushed, making a lovely crinkling sound and releasing several white, papery seeds. And if the seeds were really far into maturity, you could even grab a whole stalk, tilt it over into your bag, and gently shake it, releasing hundreds of seeds effortlessly.
Cornlily at various stagesMature seeds
Asclepias cordifolia (Purple Milkweed): Milkweeds are so fun to collect. Upon reaching maturity, the dried pods crack open to reveal some of the softest material I’ve ever felt. Each seed is accompanied by a large puff of milkweed “silk”, an incredibly lightweight pappus that aids in wind dispersal. This is a plant that makes me look forward to tedious seed cleaning!
Milkweed going to seed
Lupinus arbutus (Lupine): Lupines can really be hit or miss. Our first encounter with Lupine collection was extremely unpleasant: while opening a pod, we had about an 80% chance some gross little larvae would pop out at us. But as we sampled new populations and learned that not all Lupines had this issue, at least not quite as severely as the first one, Lupine collection became one of my favorites. We came across a particularly good population of Lupinus arbutus that had virtually no bugs inside–yay! And then we finally got to experience the joy of having a perfectly mature seed pod pop open right in your hand as you reach to collect, separating all the seeds instantly and offering a nice crunchy feeling.
Lupine seed pods before maturity
Monardella odoratissima (Monardella): Everyone in the building knows when we’ve collected Monardella– the strong minty scent spreads all throughout the hallway, becoming a nice natural air freshener. A few weeks ago it helped to mask the stench of old milk left in the communal fridge, quickly making it an office favorite. It definitely gets a few points for that alone. But the tactile qualities are nice as well. As the seed head dries, you simply walk up to one and crumple it, the seeds gently flaking off into the bag.
Monardella going to seed
Elymus elymoides (Squirreltail): Elymus elymoides gets points just for the name. But also, it’s a funky looking native grass that has brushy seeds that you easily strip off in one sweep.
I could go on and on but I’ll stop there with my top five. And of course, my least favorite should be pretty obvious. (Wyethia mollis…)
In addition to seed collection, here’s some photos of some other fun stuff I saw this month:
Sierra Primrose, Primula suffrutescensFritillary butterflies all over this Angelica sppFull moon rises over the valley
