Hello, my name is Charity Deatherage and I\u2019m in southern Oregon working on the Seeds of Success program at the Medford BLM.\u00a0 I\u2019ve actually only worked two days so far, but the days have been filled with educational botanical experiences!\u00a0 I\u2019m from the Willamette Valley (a few hours north), so many of the plants are familiar, but I\u2019m enjoying the diversity here and I\u2019m learning to recognize the many plants that are native to southern Oregon.\u00a0 It\u2019s also great that this region still has a lot of its native landscape relatively intact, compared to Willamette Valley prairies, which occupy less than 1% of their historic area.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m including a sample of the journal I intend to keep while I\u2019m working at this internship.\u00a0 Edward Abbey kept a journal when he worked as a park ranger which eventually became Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness<\/em>.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to follow in his venerable footsteps and keep a journal during my four-month season in southern Oregon.<\/p>\n Wednesday, June 16<\/p>\n We had a day of orientation.\u00a0 Doug, our mentor, showed us around the office and introduced us to BLM employees for the first half of the day, and after lunch we went out into the field.\u00a0 We went to a few sites near Table Rock, and Doug pointed out plants from which he\u2019d like us to collect seed.\u00a0 These included Madia<\/em>, Clarkia<\/em>, Agoseris grandiflora<\/em>, Eriophyllum lanatum<\/em>, Ceanothus<\/em>, Danthonia californica<\/em>, Festuca californicum<\/em>, and Elymus glaucus<\/em>.<\/p>\n Thursday, June 17, 2010<\/p>\n Amy, my partner, and I went out on our own today.\u00a0 Doug sent us to Antelope Road, where we were supposed to find BLM land to explore.\u00a0 Although we drove to the end of Antelope Road, we were not able to discern any public lands or any of the natural surface roads that should have branched off of the main road, according to the map.\u00a0 There were many \u201cNo trespassing\u201d signs, fenced lands, and gates on any roads we could see.\u00a0 We did brush up on our taxonomic skills and were proud when we could key plants out to species, even if they were non-natives or weeds.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t remember even the common name of Centaurea cyanus<\/em>, and hadn\u2019t tried to key out anything from Asteraceae in quite a while, so that was a good refresher.\u00a0 We also did our best to identify a few grasses; Amy recognized California fescue and I tried to key an Elymus species which we brought back to look at under the microscope tomorrow.\u00a0 We did note the location of a large population of Clarkia<\/em>, as well as Castilleja<\/em> (hispida<\/em>?), Eriophyllum lanatum<\/em>, and what we believe is Cryptantha intermedia<\/em>.\u00a0 From now on, I will be bringing my camera!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello, my name is Charity Deatherage and I\u2019m in southern Oregon working on the Seeds of Success program at the Medford BLM.\u00a0 I\u2019ve actually only worked two days so far, but the days have been filled with educational botanical experiences!\u00a0 … Continue reading