Rae Selling Berry Seed Bank & Plant Conservation Program

Join us at the Earth Fair at First Unitarian Church! Buchan Reception Hall, 1211 SW Main St, Portland, 12:00 to 2:30pm.

CITIZEN'S RARE PLANT WATCH UPDATE!

We have had great success and a lot of fun with the trips we have done so far this season. We found frigid shooting star (Dodecatheon austrofrigidum, photo credit of species to Kaitlin Andersen) in full bloom at a Coast Range site nobody had visited in over 40 years! We were able to map a good size portion of a largehead sedge (Carex macrocephala) population near Cape Meares and update old population data on purple sicklepod rockcress (Boechera atrorubens) for the Mt Hood National Forest. Finally, we mapped sites of Coptis trifolia (golden root) that were just emerging in snow melt swales.

Here are some Citizen's Rare Plant Watch monitoring trips in June. Please note that space is limited. If you are interested in a particular trip, I can give you more information about what it will entail. Also, if the scheduling of a trip doesn't allow you to participate, and you'd like to see if some adjustment can be made a day or so on either side, it might be possible, so ask!

Please speak to about the possibility of independent assignments or leading a trip at any time.

June 8-9: Astragalus misellus var. misellus (pauper milkvetch) on the
Crooked River National Grasslands. The 3 hr drive means this will be an overnight trip for most Portland area peeps.

June 11: Allium nevii (Nevius' onion) in the Mt Hood National Forest. About 2 hrs to get to this area of multiple sites.

June 17-18: Astragalus peckii (Peck's milkvetch) and Botrychium
pumicola (pumice moonwort), near La Pine. Another overnighter and fun camping opportunity!

June 26-27: Castilleja chlorotica (green tinged paintbrush), near the
Oregon Badlands. Also, a long drive and overnight.

If you are interested in helping out our just want to find out more about this amazing citizen / community science program, please contact:

Kris Freitag
Rae Selling Berry Seed Bank & Plant Conservation Program
Portland State University
[email protected]
www.pdx.edu/seed-bank

A Rare Plant Guide for Oregon!
Two NPSO Committees (Rare and Endangered Plants, and Friends of Oregon Flora Project) are collaborating with…

OregonFlora https://oregonflora.org/

…to produce a new interactive rare plant guide to describe some 200 rare and endangered Oregon species in partnership with federal agencies and with:

Rare Plant Conservation Program (ODA)
Oregon Biodiversity Information Center (ORBIC)

Completion is slated for late 2024. The guide will reside on the OregonFlora website.

With a projected cost of $25,000, NPSO is offering a $5000 challenge grant to kickstart Phase 1 fundraising. Details are in the March NPSO Bulletin.https://www.npsoregon.org/bulletin/2023/NPSO_2303.PDF

Donate HERE: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RELP555Q644T8

On September 13, 2022 several of us traveled up to Mt Hood Meadows to continue with a monitoring project for the Mt Hood National Forest. Our target species was a rare grass, Brewer’s reedgrass (Calamagrostis breweri), which is endemic to Oregon and only known from several populations on Mt Hood and Mt Jefferson. Preferred habitat is moist to mesic subalpine meadows and riparian areas.

Threats to this species include disturbance from recreational activities such as hiking, camping, and horseback riding that cause erosion, soil compaction, and trampling. Ski-run and resort management activities may also affect this species. However, climate change may end up having the greatest effect on its survival since low-genetic diversity may not allow the species to evolve quickly enough. Tree and shrub encroachment and longer growing seasons may reduce available habitat as other species displace and/or outcompete Brewer’s reedgrass where it occurs.