Each year the Rare Plant Care and Conservation Program (Rare Care) hosts a weekend to monitor rare and threatened plants of Washington State. Trained monitoring volunteers, Rare Care staff, and National Forest staff work together to collect data on rare plant populations. This year’s monitoring weekend was held in the Colville National Forest. Based at Frater Lake, we camped below the stars and woke to the chattering of red squirrels busy with their daily chores.
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The UW Botanic Gardens is a member of the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC), a network of botanic institutions whose mission is to prevent the extinction of U.S. native plants. The CPC was founded in 1984 and operates the only national program of ex situ conservation of rare plant material in coordination with 40 leading botanic institutions. They maintain the National Collection of Endangered Plants with over 1,400 species represented and also conduct research, restoration, education, and advocacy programs.
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Stacy Kinsell is the Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator for the Rare Plant Care and Conservation Program (Rare Care), but it hasn’t been a straightforward path to get there. Kinsell’s undergraduate work was in social work and urban studies. After school, she packed up for an adventure in a new city far away from her native Georgia and moved to Seattle. She quickly fell in love with the city, but not the career and after a few years of working in her new field, Kinsell was feeling burnt out.
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If you’re looking for a symbol of resilience and survival for the new year – perhaps, even, a symbol of the ability to endure trial by fire with beauty and grace – consider Whited’s penstemon, pauper milk-vetch, yellow lady’s slipper or the dwarf evening-primrose. During the 2016 monitoring season, several agency partners asked Rare Care to devote monitoring efforts to populations affected by 2014 and 2015 wildfires that burned approximately 1 1/2 million acres.
Read more »The US Forest Service recognized Rare Care - including hundreds of trained volunteers from all parts of the state - with its Regional Volunteer Award for Citizen Stewardship and Partnerships.
Read more »Rare Care will be offering a volunteer training on rare plant monitoring in Seattle on Saturday, March 1.
Read more »The latest issue of the Rare Plant Press is out. Learn about the rare Astragalus plant, projects to conduct a population estimate of the largest Sidalcea oregana var. calva and mapping Sisyrinchium sarmentosum populations, and more! The Rare Plant Press is a publication of Rare Care, a program dedicated to conserving Washington’s native rare plants.
Read more »Twenty-five volunteers, agency partners and Rare Care staff gathered in Klickitat County in mid-June to monitor rare plants.
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