Notes from the Field
We expected this survey season to be difficult with a hot and dry spring and summer causing shorter and earlier windows for finding rare plants. However, our volunteers, ever dedicated to the cause, rose to the challenge.
Sarah Stolar knew success would require arduous effort to reach a fern-leaf goldthread (Coptis aspleniifolia) population after Rare Care’s last three attempts couldn’t reach the location. She bushwhacked through difficult terrain for seven miles – at times having to crawl on her hands and knees to get through the brush. She not only found the goldthread but spent five hours surveying it in a shin-deep bog.
Jeff Thorson signed up to relocate a historical population of Alice’s fleabane (Erigeron aliceae) found in the 1980s. Due to historical location inaccuracy, Jeff had a large 1-mile radius search area. Brainstorming ways to best find the population, he discovered others had recorded it on iNaturalist (a flora and fauna observation app). He reached out to the observers to get coordinates, and the rest was smooth surveying.
Our volunteers also had success with a hard-to-find genus – moonwort (Botrychium). Inconspicuous, with unpredictable fruiting times, our success rate for finding moonworts is low. However, Jeannie Mounger with Cliona Byrne found upswept moonwort (Botrychium ascendens), and Janka Hobbs found western moonwort (Botrychium hesperium).
Long-awaited species were added to the Miller Seed Vault this season. Robin Fitch braved a windstorm in the Blue Mountains to collect Davis’s daisy (Erigeron davisii) seeds before they all blew away. Mary Kline visited a fringed kittentails (Veronica schizantha) population three times to get ripe seeds, finding two new subpopulations along the way. Julie Bresnan took a long drive to the Okanogan Highlands to collect seeds from two populations of northern blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium septentrionale).
If we could list all our volunteers’ accomplishments this year, we would need to print a book. Each effort is linked together in discovery, wonder, and a deep belief in the importance of protecting Washington’s rare plants.