Day 264: Shortly after Arnie began his present tour of duty at Mount Rainier National Park, he jokingly assigned me the task of finding plants previously unrecorded within our boundaries. More than once now, he's had occasion to say, "I was kidding! I didn't think you'd take me literally!" when I have shown him a new species or a new location for a particular plant. Not all my finds have been joyous, though, and this year, my fame as a plant sleuth is verging on notoriety, an ungratifying turn towards the negative end of the spectrum. Earlier this year, I found our first Teasel, a nasty invasive.
Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) is my latest addition to the list of Park plants. A few days ago, I found a single specimen of this garden relative of Common Tansy growing in disturbed soil. I left it where it was, waiting for orders from Arnie when he returns from leave. Further complicating matters, the base of the plant is surrounded by roughly a hundred specimens of Anemone lyallii, a plant known to occur in only a few places in the Park. The Feverfew will have to be handled in such a manner that the A. lyallii is disturbed as little as possible. If that wasn't enough, close by, the alders were losing their leaves to Cottonwood Leaf Beetles and several young Douglas firs were coated with Woolly Adelgids, two more issues I'll be serving to Arnie's already-full plate. I am reminded of that old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." It's definitely been an interesting week.
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