This past September, Rare Care completed a three-year study to assess the vulnerability of rare alpine plants. Working with the National Park Service (NPS), Rare Care staff and seasonal interns mapped and monitored 159 populations found in National Parks in Washington to climate change, installed 26 long-term monitoring plots, collected seeds, assessed 26 focal species’ vulnerability to climate change, and developed adaptive management strategies that NPS could employ to mitigate the impacts of climate change. 

Did you know the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) is one of the agencies responsible for administering the Endangered Species Act? Alongside NOAA Fisheries, USFWS is entrusted with conserving all federally listed fish, wildlife, and plants. USFWS is also a very important partner that Rare Care collaborates with on endangered plant species recovery. And we’re excited to highlight one of the people doing much of the behind-the-scenes coordination– introducing Tara Callaway! 

If you have the fortune to be botanizing in southwest Washington, you might have the chance to encounter one of Washington’s rare paintbrush species. At first glance you might think this is the common, harsh paintbrush (Castilleja hispida) since both species have the same vibrant, orange-colored bracts and both are found at low to mid elevations. But it is in fact Chamber’s paintbrush (Castilleja chambersii), and when you look more closely at the leaves, you will see what is so unusual about this species. 

At the beginning of May, Rare Care staff and volunteers along with Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff completed the first of two botanical surveys of the Marcellus Shrub Steppe Natural Area Preserve. The goals of this visit were to know what plants are there and re-find any previously documented rare plants. We also wanted to fill in knowledge gaps for shrub steppe species distribution and abundance that may contribute to designating a species for conservation status. 

This excruciatingly rare plant has been documented in only one place: along a basalt ridgetop at the Hanford Reach National Monument.

Basalt daisy (Erigeron basalticus) is a cliff dweller, found exclusively along the Yakima River Canyon and Selah Creek. There you will find it tucked into crevices and cracks of the basalt cliffs formed in the late Miocene (5 to 11 million years ago). There are six known populations in Washington State. Over the past few years Rare Care has made a concerted effort to re-monitor all known occurrences, and we only have one left to visit! 

Each year Rare Care recognizes volunteers for their outstanding contributions.
Steven Clark has been with Rare Care since the inception of our rare plant monitoring program in 2001! Since then, Steven has contributed over 320 hours and submitted nearly 40 reports. He integrates Rare Care into the biology courses he teaches at Clark College, and helps inspire the future conservation biologists of our state. 

By Allie Howell
Allie Howell transitioned into Rare Care’s temporary Research Scientist position in February. Through September, she will be collecting field data, growing plants for outplantings, and helping with reporting on our many on-going research projects.
I have the exciting opportunity to delve deeply into several of this program’s ongoing projects.
So far, most of my work has been devoted to conducting vulnerability assessments on the rare alpine plants I monitored in the North Cascades, Olympic and Mt. 

by Josh Wozniak
Lake Chelan is a narrow, glacially-carved trench: 50 miles long from North Cascades National Park to the town of Chelan. Along its shores, species typical of both the east and west flanks of the Cascades Range are well-represented. The areas surrounding the lake also contain a number of rare plant species, including some that occur nowhere else in Washington. 

Tom Erler and Darcy Dauble are two long-time rare plant monitoring volunteers with a breadth of experience to share with our 38 recently trained monitors! During the monitoring season you will catch Tom searching for rare plants across the state, anywhere from the San Juan Islands to Douglas County. His day job is with the King County Noxious Weed program. Darcy Dauble is a retired librarian who can be found botanizing the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington.