The weekend of June 5th-8th, 14 Rare Care volunteers traveled to the Okanogan Highlands in the Tonasket Ranger District of the Colville National Forest and surrounding Bureau of Land Management land for our annual Monitoring Weekend. Almost every person found and surveyed our target species for the weekend – northern blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium septentrionale). Six of the ten populations surveyed were larger in size than reported in the 90’s, some 10-100 times larger. 

Along the rutted road to Colockum Creek Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), remnant patches of 7-foot-tall big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) give a glimpse of what the ACEC might have looked like before
recent wildfires. Today, most of the site is covered by a near-monoculture of nonnative cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and tumble mustard (Sisymbrium altissimum) because the site has burned three times since 2013. 

Jacob Maki was Rare Care’s 2025 seasonal field technician. Maki started as a volunteer monitor with Rare Care in 2021. After graduating with a degree in plant biology from the University of Washington last year, he decided to take a stab at a full season of Rare Care.
Assisting with seed collections, outplantings, and monitoring, he traveled across the state from the Olympic Mountains to the basalt cliffs of the Columbia River, and even to channeled scablands in Odessa, WA. 

In August, Rare Care Program Manager Wendy Gibble attended the Plant Conservation Leadership Summit at the Atlanta Botanic Gardens. Over 100 leaders from 64 botanic gardens and affiliated organizations across the US convened to strategize how to advance plant conservation objectives in this new environment of severely reduced federal funding. Nearly all organizations have been impacted by the termination of federal grants and/or the lack of new funding opportunities. 

Meet Arturo Zazueta, horticulturist at the Washington Park Arboretum!

Sit in on one of the horticulture staff’s check-in meetings and you’ll quickly notice Kathleen Glasman because she’s game for everything: another team member needs some help running a volunteer opportunity in the Arboretum? She raises her hand. Someone else needs help clearing brush out of their area? She’s available and ready to help. She’s been in the horticulture game for more than 30 years, and her expertise shines through whenever you talk to her. 

Naomi Reibold is Rare Care’s new Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator. Hailing from Indiana, she has slowly made her way further west over the past five years following federal public land jobs as a botany technician. She has worked in Missouri, Idaho, Utah and Oregon. For the past two years, Naomi has spent her field seasons in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest learning and falling in love with our native, endemic and rare plants. 

Pacific lanceleaf springbeauty (Claytonia multiscapa ssp. pacifica) is a tiny plant for such a big name! Though seldom seen, it can be found in the Olympic Mountains, Vancouver Island and the North Cascade Range of British Columbia. A surveyor would need to look for it early in the season just after snowmelt in wet subalpine and alpine meadows at elevations above 4,100 feet. 

Lincoln Erbeck’s humor and joy contrast with the technical and often dangerous nature of his work. As a climbing arborist and horticulturist at the UW Botanic Gardens, Lincoln is not just responsible for the health of trees in the Washington Park Arboretum — he plays a vital role in ensuring the safety of the people who visit. And he does this all with a big smile on his face. 

Meet Kevin Rusch, a horticulturalist at the University of Washington Botanic Gardens and part of the team of folks who care for the collections at the Arboretum!