Paired Sciences

Day 328: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it my love of exotic and semantically precise words which lured me into botany? Or was it the discovery of a floral gateway opening onto a full garden of exacting terminology and thus into a paradise of etymology? I believe the two sciences have walked hand in hand for so long that I cannot make that determination. In any event, this was a week for words of a botanical nature, initiated by an earlier inquiry from a reader as to the term for a plant whose flowers and leaves appear in different seasons. It was a word I did not know, so I turned to Arnie. His reply was straightforward: "There's a word for that?" My next appeal went out to David Giblin, Collections Manager and Research Botanist for the Burke Herbarium. As was the case with Arnie, he was stumped, at least temporarily. Meanwhile and unbeknownst to me, Arnie was digging, and as a matter of course, found several other interesting words which he forwarded to me with an admission that by the time he'd arrived at them, he'd forgotten what he was looking for in the first place. Rabbit hole!

Apparently I'd struck some nerves because David was also searching. I mean, there had to be a word, right? Botanists have a word for anything and everything to do with plants. Take "serrate" and "serrulate" for example. Both describe a type of leaf margin, a semantic distinction based on the size of dentition, and one I'm not sure I could apply confidently with a leaf of each type in either hand. Would I need a ruler? A magnifier? A microscope? Where does one end and the other begin? In the end, David's hunt was productive. He came up with "hysteranthous," and sent along a paper describing the phenomenon as it applies to autumn crocus (Colchicum). My three-volume dictionary does not include the word, although it acknowledges "synanthous," i.e., those plants whose flowers and leaves co-occur. The etymology of "hysteranthous" eluded me until I found "hysteresis," their roots originating in an entirely different Greek word than that which gives us "hysteria" despite the similarity. "Hysteresis" means "the lagging of a physical effect behind its cause."

Meanwhile, Arnie had dropped in my lap "hypogeal" (bearing seed leaves beneath the surface of the soil) and "epigeal" (bearing one or more seed leaves above the level of the soil) as well as "perennating" (which was obvious) and "phanerophyte" (a perennial plant which bears its perennating buds above the surface of the ground, as per Raunkiaer's system of organizing plant life by life-form category). I thanked him kindly for directing me to several new and unexplored rabbit holes, down which I am sure I will find many, many more fascinating verbal treasures. Of course I'm going exploring! Who do you think you're talking to, anyway?

Arnie's Retirement

Day 47: Arnie's retirement party was today, the last day I will see him in the work environment. I am sad, but happy for him and Sara at the same time. They'll be in the area a little while longer, but then they hope to be off to Ashland OR and volunteer service at Crater Lake. It feels like a forever-goodbye, but he's assured me they'll be back to do some hiking in the Park next summer.

I took a lunch walk to practice my presentation speech, found myself at Cougar Rock 1.5 miles from the office without really realizing how far I'd gone. Even so, I couldn't get through everything I wanted to say, my voice faltering and the tears coming to my eyes. I've seen a lot of people come and go in Park Service, but there has been no one I'll miss as much as Arnie.

One Last Adventure

Day 341: I don't remember having ever been as deeply affected by a Park Service colleague's announcement as I was when I heard that Arnie is retiring in November, "retiring" as in "leaving Park Service entirely and for good." His wife will also be retiring, and the two of them will most likely move out of state. Arnie has been so supportive of me and of Team Biota, encouraging us, instructing us, guiding us and most importantly, valuing the work we've been doing in the field, hunting down rare plants and fungi. Besides being a good supervisor, Arnie has been a friend, and because of that, he suggested that we try to get in one last hike together while the season will still allow. There was a hint of "Would you take me mushrooming?" in his voice, so we compared schedules and made the arrangements (in my case, asking for half a day off from my regular duties), and today went looking for chanterelles in a spot which has never yet let me down. Today was no exception. We each gathered enough for two nice meals, and because he's never eaten them before, I shared my recipe: fry in butter with a little garlic, add salt and pepper and gobble 'em up! A very special retirement gift is in the works.

Historically Present

Day 242: For several weeks now, Team Biota has been watching the snow melt back in anticipation of being able to time when Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae might appear in the basin where it was recorded in 1948. For those of you unfamiliar with backcountry travel in the shoulder season, melt-out isn't like the rolling back of a blanket. It's more like a major moth infestation eating away at that same blanket, holes appearing here and there until the fabric is entirely gone. Terrain affects the rate of melt, and sun exposure may work in either of two ways: by causing a hard crust to form lengthening the duration of snow in any particular area, or by melting it. It's not easy to predict which way it will go.

We had a fairly good idea that the basin would melt out ahead of the trail which accesses the general area. In other words, we knew we'd have to travel on a fabric of snow in order to reach the appropriate moth-hole. There, another factor comes into play: cross-country travel. At this time of year, snow travel off-trail poses a number of risks such as pools of meltwater or streams concealed below a fragile surface layer, or the dreaded "tree-well," an area of melt around a tree trunk or fallen log. Snow mats down flexible young trees like alders, pins them down until the spring-loaded branches trip like a mousetrap as soon as a hiker steps on the release point. In this case, we got lucky. The snow was sufficiently deep to allow us to skim over the tops of the tangled trees once we left the trail.

The basin was almost fully melted out. We performed an inch-by-inch survey of the section where Myrio had been present two years ago and found about thirty specimens. Then I circled around to the northwest edge and began working through the basin from tree-line down. Almost immediately, I found one Myrio and then another and another and another. As I shouted out the numbers in the growing census, Joe made his way up a small log which was almost completely grown over by meadow vegetation. I heard his excited call: "Got one...no, two. There's another one! There's a cluster of four, no, five-six-SEVEN!" Meanwhile, I was keeping count, "That makes 51, 52, 53, 57, 58-59-60!" By the time we called it quits, we'd raised the total to 88, but even more thrilling was seeing that they weren't confined to one narrow band. They were all over the place!

Needless to say, this was an exciting field trip. Arnie wasn't in the office when I reported back and returned his radio, but this morning, I gave him the news. Now that we've recorded occurrences in both of the known locations, we'll be expanding our search to other potential sedge meadows. The hunt for Myrio continues!

First 2018 Phantom

Day 231: Perhaps even more exciting than Team Biota's other recent finds, if perhaps not as showy, the first Phantom Orchid (Cephalanthera austiniae) has made its appearance in 2018. Although we thought it was too early for them to be emerging, Joe Dreimiller and I visited the site in the hopes of seeing any sign of new growth. This rare species has only been recorded in the Park three times (a single specimen in 2005 and now twice by Team Biota), with a fourth historical mention prior to the establishment of the Park in 1899. That fourth record is suspect; the location given is very vague and may have been from outside the Park. Last year during an extensive survey of the area, Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson and I recorded an incredible total of 14 stems which, due to the nature of the species probably only represents five or six plants. Needless to say, the location of these treasures is a highly guarded secret, but I can share them with you via photos. We'll be keeping an eye on the patch.

The Aspen Mission

Day 229: This is the first installment in the saga of Team Biota's May 29 field trip. There will be several more forthcoming.

Until yesterday, there had been no official record of Populus tremuloides (Quaking Aspen) within the Park boundaries. Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson had received a report and photos from a member of the Owl Crew, but with anything of this nature, the plant's presence needed to be verified and herbarium specimens needed to be collected. Arnie provided Joe Dreimiller and I with coordinates for the site and off we went.

It didn't look like a place where you'd expect Aspens to grow, and indeed the 41 specimens we identified and flagged looked like they'd been struggling for many years just to reach a height of thirty inches (the tallest), but there was no doubt that they were P. tremuloides: stunted, but definitely Aspen. Any obviously live growth (fresh foliage) occurred on stems no larger than my little finger. However in many cases, multiple shoots were observed emerging from a thicker (1.5") woody base, often with the dead wood of former growth attached to it. All but three specimens occurred in a narrow swale approximately 10' x 100', in thin soil over rock better suited to moss and lichen. With such a small population in a very localized area, we couldn't reasonably remove an herbarium specimen roots and all, so three twigs were taken, sufficient to document the species.

Arnie, Joe and I are baffled by the presence of these trees. How did they get here? They're too far from any known Aspen population for a seed to have been excreted by a bird, although I believe that there could be a slim chance that one might have been caught in feathers. Likewise, although elk enjoy the occasional snack of Aspen, the same distance limitation applies. We searched for a larger parent tree, but found nothing. It is, as they say, a puzzlement, but Team Biota is on the case!

A Myrio Of Rare Device

Day 221: Most of my readers will be familiar with these inconspicuous but very special little fungi from earlier entries in my blog. However, if you happen to have missed the fanfare, this is Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae, a critter which is rare world-wide not only as a species but as a genus. In 2016, my botany partner Joe Dreimiller and I found them in Mount Rainier National Park where they had only been recorded once previously in a different location in 1948. After some substantial research into the species' preferred habitat and the historical record, we were able to locate the 1948 site and found them present there as well. Since then, the Hunt for Myriosclerotinia has become an annual project for Team Biota under the aegis of the Park's Natural Resources division.

Last year, we found a record number in "our" site, but none in the historic site. Of even greater importance was the discovery of a specimen still attached to its host. Our Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson and I spent the remainder of that day dissecting it to reveal the knobby sclerotium characteristic of the species. At that point, any doubts about correct identification evaporated.

Today, Joe made a preliminary foray to "our" location and after an hour and a half of searching, returned to Longmire to report to me that he had found a single specimen. I dropped what I was doing, grabbed a radio, let a confidant know where we were headed and returned to the site. Over the course of the next hour of slopping about in snow melt, we found a total of seven cups. Not bad for a start to the season!

Eye Of The Beholder

Day 329: After winding up a discussion with Arnie, I was on my way back to my desk and had just exited Tobin Center when something lime-yellow caught my eye at the base of a tree. "Well, hello!" I said. "Where'd you come from, beautiful?" Immediately, I regretted not having hung the camera around my neck when I'd left the office. It never fails. The one time you don't have the camera is when you'll find something interesting you want to photograph. Fortunately, our offices are only separated by a parking lot, so this wasn't a huge issue. However, I was so excited by the discovery that I wanted to share it. I pelted back into Tobin at full speed and came to a stop in Arnie's doorway with the enthusiastic announcement, "You have got an absolutely gorgeous Dog-Vomit slime mold just outside your door! C'mere! You gotta see this!" Dutifully, Arnie joined me with a question on his lips: "Dog vomit?" Apologetically, I replied, "Don't blame me. That's the thing's common name." Together, we bent over to examine the specimen. For just a second, I imagined that I could see it pulsing plasmodially. Exultantly, I said, "Isn't it beautiful?" Arnie is used to me. He replied tactfully, "It looks like scrambled eggs."

"Scrambled Eggs" is indeed an alternate common name for Fuligo septica, although with humans being the strange creatures that they are, "Dog-Vomit" has taken the popular lead. The term covers a number of different Fuligos which are similar in appearance, but the four usual contenders can be distinguished from each other by the thickness and colour of the cortex and the size of the spores of each species. What invariably surprises me when I find one in the late summer is that they often occur in the hot, dry season rather than in cooler weather which one might imagine they'd prefer. Whatever food source drew these protists together, it was entirely concealed by their active consumption of it. At this site, they will eat and reproduce, and then go their separate ways until another food source is identified. As a scientist, it would be difficult for me not to admire the cooperation and communication which the slime molds display, better at social skills than many humans. Yes, I admire these handsome little critters despite the uncomplimentary terms others have laid upon them. "Dog-Vomit" indeed! Fuligo septica, your beauty is in the eye of this beholder.

Ranunculus Aquatilis Var. Diffusus

Day 287: Tentatively identified as Ranunculus aquatilis var. diffusus (White Water Crowfoot), this teeny-tiny treasure was another score from Arnie and Crow's bog adventure. The flower in the main image is imperfect; there should be five petals like those shown in the inset (lower right), but I could not capture the moss-like foliage with a perfect blossom. This aquatic species has thread-like, filamentous leaves on the portions of the plant which are submerged, so very different from the leaves above the water that they appear to be two different types of plant. In fact, the submerged leaves resemble those of the invasive Fanwort (Cabomba caroliniana). If Arnie had not pointed the flowers out to me, I would have dismissed the emergent foliage as a moss. Compare the leaves with the brown Douglas Fir needles in the upper right for size.

Adventures With Arnie

Day 286: I think my readers will understand why I want to put the punchline at the head of the story once they've read the whole thing. This little jewel is Sparganium emersum, a species known to occur in the Park, but one without an herbarium specimen. Arnie found it, and wanted me to have a look to see if I agreed with how he'd keyed it out. I was planning to go as soon as I finished my office work on Tuesday, but then remembered that I was wearing my "dress" boots. I shot him an email to that effect, but as the day wore on, the idea of photographing a new (to me) species while it was in prime condition won out, and when I left the office, I went straight to Arnie and asked, "Wanna go for a ride?" We put together the necessary equipment for taking an herbarium specimen, grabbed a government vehicle and off we went. Both of us have now keyed the plant out and yes, it is Sparganium emersum.

Those of you who have been following my adventures this year will remember the discovery of the Phantom orchids and my radio call to Arnie which was broadcast over all receivers: "Arnie, Joe and I are kneeling beside two Phantoms." Most people had no idea what I meant by that, but it caught the ear of one Law Enforcement ranger (Kelly) who referred it to another plant-loving Parkie, Ana. She told him, "They must be referring to Phantom Orchids" and naturally, she became curious about where the Phantoms might be hiding. Kelly spoke with Arnie who gave nothing away, but neither did Arnie tell me about the exchange and how it further developed.

A few nights ago, a friend invited me out to Chinese at an excellent restaurant in the middle of nowhere. When we walked in, I heard someone call my name. Sure enough, it was Kelly, accompanied by Ana. As I walked over to them, he said without preamble, "Arnie said I should ask you about some phantoms." I checked up short. No way did I believe that Arnie would compromise our find. I groped for a reply and finally said, "No, you're not going to catch me with that old trick!" We had a good laugh, and then the rest of the story came out.

It seems that Arnie and Kelly got their heads together and had decided to play a little joke on me about proper radio protocol. Arnie told Kelly that the next time he saw me, he should take me to task for "improper use of code phrases." That revelation confirmed something I've suspected: Arnie is a wicked tease. Obviously, I was going to have to find a way to get the jump on him. But how?

When I got in the car to drive into work on Tuesday, I noticed something I'd left in the cup holder between the driver's and passenger's seats: a sprig of Spotted Knapweed (a virulent invasive) which I'd plucked in South Hill and had forgotten to take inside for analysis. I realized I had the perfect tool at my disposal.

Upon arriving in Longmire, I went immediately to Arnie's office with the Knapweed in hand. As soon as I had his full attention, I said, "Houston, we have a problem...Spotted, I think." Arnie took the plant from my hand and replied, "Spotted or Black, I'm not sure which. Where did you find it?" I was ready for the question. I said, "In the rip-rap on the levee below the Sunshine Point washout." "How many?" Arnie asked. "Three or four," I said, wanting to make it believable. We talked for some time about how it should be treated...chemicals were out because the site was on the river, pulling would be difficult because it was bedded in rip-rap and it had probably gone to seed several years in order to be so firmly established. Oh, yes, he swallowed the story hook, line, sinker and copy of 'Angling Times.'

Then I changed the subject. "Y'know, I ran into Kelly in Salkum a few nights ago. He greeted me by saying 'Arnie says I should ask you about some phantoms.'" I elaborated on how Kelly had tried to trip me up, and how I'd stopped him in his tracks. Then I said, "...and I understand you enlisted him to play a little joke on me about radio protocol. You're messin' with the wrong person. Paybacks are a mother. I've been known to send people down to the (non-existent) basement of the warehouse as a practical joke. And there's no Knapweed at Sunshine Point."

I said it so quickly that the ensuing silence lasted a full two minutes before he could wrap his head around the words. When it finally hit home, he threw the sprig of Knapweed in the trash and said, "Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that then, do I? You're a sneaky one!" So we had a good laugh, talked about his Sparganium find, and then went back to work.

The story now picks up at the top of this entry. Just before lunchtime, we were off to see Sparganium, me in my dress boots despite Arnie's clear warning that "the mud will suck you down unless you stay on logs." I thought I had good footing on a two-inch stick. I was wrong. The mud was so soft that I sunk in, stick and all, up to mid-shin with my right leg. The action threw me off balance and my left foot landed on gooey mud and also sank. As I shifted my weight to try to free myself from the suction, I just went deeper and deeper until I was finally mired up to the knees of both legs. The voice in the Sparganium said, "I did tell you it wasn't a good idea to go over there!" as he was maneuvering around on solid footing to capture my plight for posterity. It took me at least five minutes to extricate myself. I suppose I deserved getting stuck in the muck for being so wicked to Arnie! When he sent me the photos, he said, "Your boots need a polish."

Botany - it's not for sissies!

Crow And Arnie's Excellent Adventure

Day 268: Park Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson and I met up Friday morning, left my car on one side of a hill, drove around to the other side in his car and hiked into the site where Team Biota had discovered seven Phantom Orchids, a rare and endangered plant found only in the Pacific Northwest. Arnie wanted to see them for himself, and my last visit had shown him that they were almost fully open. We arrived on site and after GPSing and photographing the plants, we split up and began exploring the surrounding area. I had not gone more than about twenty feet when I yelled out, "Arnie! Arnie! I've got three more! No, four...no, five! No, SIX! There's a young one in the ferns! I swear these were not here Monday. I KNOW they weren't! I stepped over this log right there!" Arnie came across to survey my finds and then said, "I'm going to check this drainage," with a gesture uphill. I reminded him that I'd been up there on Monday and had found nothing, but he said he wanted to look. I kiddingly commented, "You just want to find one all of your very own, don't you? I'll just stay right here and take more pictures of these." Off he went. I took more pictures, then patrolled the banks of another small intermittent stream but found nothing. On my way back to "orchid base," I heard Arnie: "I've got one! And where this one is, it changes everything we thought we knew about the habitat!" "Hang on," said I. "I'm coming across."

Upon reaching Arnie's specimen, I understood what he meant. It wasn't near water. There was none of the greenery we'd come to associate with the other specimens: no Oxalis, no Enchanter's Nightshade, no moss. More importantly (to our theories, anyway), there was no Red Cedar near the plant. Both of us addressed the innocently-offending orchid with the same question, "What are you doing here, little guy?" At this point, our census of "rare and endangered" individuals had grown to fourteen, all within a hundred feet or so of each other. "One plant couldn't be expected to thrive," said Arnie, "but we have a healthy population here." That said, we agreed that the numbers weren't large enough to sacrfice one of its members for an herbarium specimen.

Cephalanthera austiniae

Our main goal accomplished, Arnie thought we should do an extensive survey of a couple of other drainages. The largest of these was attacked bilaterally, Arnie on one side, Crow on the other. When it yielded nothing in a quarter mile, we decided to abandon it for another potential site on the other side of the hill. Please bear in mind that this is old and trailless forest. Every five or ten feet of travel meant heaving our aching bones over another fallen tree or series of fallen trees. There were occasional open patches which we greeted with great enthusiasm, but on the other hand, there were those devil's-club thickets which are part of the definition of "drainage" in the Pacific Northwest.

While going through one particularly nasty section of devil's-club, I stepped in a hole. My unavoidable collapse occurred in slow motion, but at the end of it, I found myself with my feet uphill of my head, on my back in the devil's-club. I was grateful for the pack which saved me from becoming a human porcupine, but the position was awkward and any hand-hold I could reach was covered in thousands of spines. I writhed and wriggled while Arnie, drat him, looked on, encouraging me with comments in the nature of, "I should get the camera out!" It was not the only such occurrence during our transit. I fell two more times, although in slightly better circumstances. Arnie also fell twice, at which point I reminded him of his camera threat. Unfortunately, he righted himself too quickly for me to make good on the idea.

Route-finding was governed by density of devil's-club, at times driving us up hillsides we'd hoped to avoid climbing, and somehow, somewhere along the line, we went awry and got on the wrong side of a hill. We wound up laying a new course to waypoints I'd pre-installed on my GPS, points which took us a quarter mile back the way we'd come, and then down some rather steep terrain until we finally reached my car. The distance we had travelled from the orchids was roughly two miles. It is a measure of its ruggedness to say that it took us six hours to complete it. I came home, took a bath, and promptly fell asleep in my chair.

Cephalanthera Austiniae, Phantom Orchid

Day 258: About a year and a half ago, Park Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson gave me a challenge: every week, I was to find a new plant (i.e., a species occurring in a previously unrecorded location). By the time last August rolled around, Team Biota (Joe and Sharon Dreimiller and I) had given him enough to fill out the remainder of the year. The challenge resumed this spring, and we're already ahead of schedule.

Arnie decided to up the stakes during the winter. He had received a photo from a botanist friend who had discovered a single specimen of Cephalanthera austiniae in 2005. Despite his long career in the field, Arnie has never seen a Phantom Orchid in the wild. He had been given vague coordinates by the friend and supplied us with a rough estimate of where the 2005 sighting had taken place, a circle roughly a tenth of a mile in diameter, off trail and into tangled forest. After our other duties were done for the day, Joe and I decided to give it a try even though we felt we were a month too early. Thus the saga begins.

My thought process after clambering over several large fallen trees, wiping spiderwebs from my face (they're sharp when they get in your eyes), and following a number of false leads ran along these lines: "That's another white stick...the ground cover is so thick in here you couldn't find an elephant...licheny bit...stick, yeah, another white stick...stick? Waitaminit, that doesn't look like a stick. That doesn't look AT ALL like a stick!"

Then as I got a clearer view, I said very loudly, thoroughly at a loss for any other words, "Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, SHIT! Joe! Joe! Joe! Shit! Oh, Joe!" to which Joe responded, "Are you all right?" I said through copious tears flowing down my cheeks, speaking rather breathlessly and not solely due to exertion, "Joe...I've got the plant!"

"What?" said Joe from 75 feet away. By then, I was crying so hard I could barely speak, "I've...got...the...PLANT!" and I knelt down beside it to pay homage. I heard Joe say, "There's another one behind you!" There was another one five feet away. Neither displayed open flowers, but we had found them, one of Mount Rainier National Park's rarest species.

I tried radioing Maureen, our contact. No response. It registered with me that I had never gotten Arnie's radio number, so I did the next best thing. I called Dispatch. "Dispatch, 442. Please call Arnie Peterson and ask him to contact me by radio." Dispatch replied, "Stand by." Less than a minute later, Arnie's voice came over the air: "442?" "Arnie, Joe and I are kneeling beside two Phantoms," I responded. Short and to the point, he replied, "GPS and photos. Check in with me later." I already had my GPS on the ground, averaging a reading.

For the most part, my photos were poor due to lack of light except for this one, but in any event, a return trip is in order next week to see if the flowers have opened. Our retreat was made somewhat easier by following a distinctive geographic feature, eliminating some of the route-finding hazards we encountered on the way in. Still, you don't want to get into a patch of Devil's Club, and even more to the point, you don't want to grab its stalks to pull yourself uphill. Nor do you want to exhaust yourself by repeatedly heaving your body over the jackstraws of blowdown. That particular exercise gets old really fast.

Some time later, we attained the truck and made our way to Longmire. As we were leaving Arnie's office after showing him the results of our search, I reminded him of the challenge he'd given us. His comment: "It'll be hard to beat this one." I've promised to guide him to the site if he can free up the time. Those herbarium specimens he was cataloguing will keep. The Phantom won't.

An Historic Day

Day 243: You see before you the portrait and moment of scientific discovery. Yesterday was an historic day. Team Biota isolated a heretofore unrecorded host Carex (sedge) for our rare friend, Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae.

So momentous was this discovery that we made a trip out to a point where we could contact Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson by phone. When he answered, I announced without preamble, "We've got the sedge!" He immediately dropped what he was doing and drove an hour to meet us at the site. Ankle-deep in snowmelt water and under a penetrating rain, Arnie and I obtained three juvenile specimens from the 42 inventoried on this trip, a painful but necessary sacrifice in the name of science. One was preserved with the Carex still attached, and the fungus' tell-tale knobby and diagnostic sclerotium visible.

Arnie was unable to identify the specific Carex in the field, but of the known hosts for Myrio, only one occurs in the Park. That host does not grow at this site. In and of itself, Myrio was a signal discovery; documenting it on a new host is emphatically more significant.

I am enormously grateful to my companions in Team Biota Joe and Sharon Dreimiller for their field-work in inventorying Myrio despite the unfavourable weather, and for providing this photo of a couple of soggy but very happy scientists.

Tussilago Farfara

Day 212: Last summer, the invasive plant species Tussilago farfara was discovered at a roadside pullout in the Park. Several theories suggest how it got there; a seed brought in with a load of purportedly "weed-free" road gravel, carried on someone's car bumper or in a piece of mud stuck to the undercarriage, or simply borne on a summer zephyr in some prior year. It has a seed head which resembles that of the common dandelion, little parachutes just waiting to be lifted away to new homes. In any event, several of us who are skilled in plant identification were authorized to monitor the site and to remove it, all but one specimen which our Plant Ecologist wanted as a test subject for chemical control. I had marked the spot with a rock (my companions in Team Biota are now very familiar with "Crow rocks"), but one thing led to another, and before he could treat it, the snows came. I was given permission to remove the plant manually if the site cleared, but the snow persisted for the remainder of the winter. I figured my rock would have been moved by the plow, but day before yesterday, we stopped at the site to check. The rock was still in place, and right beside it, Tussilago was putting up new growth. I lifted it with the dandelion jigger I'd brought along for the express purpose of vegicide and delivered the corpse to Arnie with the phrase, "I have a present for you." I'm watching you, Tussilago.

Carex Under Scrutiny

Day 2: When a rarity is discovered, it is not enough to simply document it and move on. One must seize the opportunity for further investigation in the hopes of bringing something previously unknown or unnoticed to light. In the case of a botanical find, this often involves repeated trips to the site, pulling in various outside experts, analyzing anything and everything which might be a contributing factor in the species' preference for a specific location or ecology.

Since I was clearly out of my depth when it came to sedge identification, our Park plant ecologist took it upon himself to "bone up" on the subject and go into the field with technical manuals in hand. Once he had obtained a specimen of a likely host for the rare fungus we discovered earlier in the year, he sent his findings along to me to see if the same questions were raised in my mind. Indeed they were! He brought me a sample of the sedge so that I could take photos of it through the microscope to validate his ID. A lot of "ifs" followed in our ensuing emails and personal conversations, largely based around the evidence that this is the only sedge at one of the fungus sites. IF we can demonstrate that it hosts the fungus, it will be the first record of Myrio parasitizing this species of Carex. Unfortunately, my minute dissection of all parts of the specimen failed to yield up the slightest trace of the fungus on this individual plant.

Ctenucha Rubroscapus/Multifaria Complex

Day 279: A few days ago, I was out in the swamp with our Park Plant Ecologist searching for examples of a rare plant in the chest-high "grass," and was pulled up short by this handsome insect hiding deep in the vegetation. "Who you?" I said, and then, "Arnie? You know anything about bugs?" A negative from my companion didn't deter me from taking photos, and when I got home, I submitted one to BugGuide.net, trusting to their entomologists to provide me with an answer. In due time, it was identified as a Ctenucha ("ten-OO-cha"), with the reservation that it is one of several species in the rubroscapus/multifaria complex. The generic common name for these critters is Red-Shouldered Ctenucha, a type of Tiger Moth found only on the West Coast.

Good And Evil

Day 270: In close-up, it's easy to see that these two plants are not the same species, but from a distance of six feet, you might simply think one was a colour variation of the other or a fading specimen. The similarity of the two allowed an invader to go unnoticed for a number of years until it had spread over an area encompassing approximately 600 square feet of Longmire Meadow. It was only through the curiosity of a Park colleague that its true nature came to light. Once we determined that it was not our native Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris ssp. lanceolata, left) and was in fact Carpet Bugle (Ajuga reptans, right), we began working on a plan to eradicate it.

Over the next ten days or so, I pulled together a team of volunteers who assaulted it in a manner not unlike the grid-by-grid excavation system used in archaeological digs, and on Wednesday when they left the site, about 75% of the weed was gone. Yesterday, Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson took a break from his office duties to help me clear the remainder. A total of 50 man-hours went into the project, contributed by eleven "deveg" team members. Nine full-sized trash-can liner bags filled with Ajuga were taken away from the site.

Ajuga propagates both by seed and by stolon. The site will have to be monitored closely for the next several years to be sure that this invasive species doesn't regenerate and get a toe-hold again.

Erythranthe Breweri - A Penny Perspective

Day 233: I barely know where to begin. Yesterday, I went on a botanizing expedition with my friend Joe. He'd baited me with a report of an insectivore I'd never seen in the wild, but by the time the day was over, we had recorded half a dozen rare/uncommon species. The prize was won by Erythranthe breweri, formerly called Mimulus breweri and known commonly as Brewer's Monkeyflower. It has only been recorded in a few locations in Mount Rainier National Park, and the site at which we observed it was not one of them.

Upon referring our find to the Park's Plant Ecologist, we were dispatched on another mission: to collect a single specimen for inclusion in the Burke Museum's herbarium. I am of two minds with respect to taking herbarium specimens, one side of my head arguing that if it's rare, it should be left in place, even as the scientific part of my brain protests that being able to profile the DNA or otherwise study a rarity has great and growing value. Since we were able to count at least 36 individual specimens at this site, I carefully removed one, cleaned its hair-like roots of soil and pressed it temporarily between the pages of a notebook, laying it out as naturally as possible. Spreading the petals was no easy task since even in the space of a few minutes, they had begun to curl. Immediately upon returning home, I transferred it to acid-free paper and weighted it for drying. Once the process is completed, I will return it to the Park where it will be catalogued and archived.

Herbarium Specimen

Day 217: I was a little unsure of protocol when I gathered two specimens of Tussilago farfara from the Park even though they were slated for removal, and decided that I'd better check with our Plant Ecologist before turning them over to the Invasive Plant Council. I'm glad I did, or I might have been guilty of a federal offense. Even noxious weeds growing within the boundaries of a national park are government property. I could have disposed of them in a government trash can, but I was prohibited from giving them away, even though both the IPC's and the Park's herbarium specimens eventually wind up at the UW's Burke Museum. After some discussion with Arnie regarding the irony of this situation, it was decided that I could keep them at home for pressing and drying, since he didn't have a place in his office where they wouldn't interfere with daily operations.

Per the instructions I had been given by the IPC, I placed the specimens between sheets of acid-free paper backed by newsprint and cardboard to absorb moisture. Stacks of encyclopaedias and dictionaries served as my press. Although I have not glued them down (I don't have the proper archival cement), they're ready to turn over to Arnie for further disposition. This was the best one, showing both the flowers as well as the leaf and root structure.

Corallorhiza Mertensiana

Day 206: "You're looking for pink asparagus." Those were the words I used to describe our quest to Park colleague and friend Anne Spillane this morning. We'd already visited Corallorhiza trifida at two locations and had discovered one more specimen, bringing the year's total to an astonishing 17. During the hunt, I had noticed a few spears of Corallorhiza mertensiana (a related and much more common species) poking their little heads up through the forest duff. I asked Anne if she would like to visit a site I call the "Mertensiana Grove," a suggestion to which she readily agreed. It was there where the search for pink asparagus began in earnest. By the time we had covered roughly half an acre of mossy ground in open forest, our tally of Western Coralroot surely numbered over 100. There were 21 spears in this colony alone, more evidence that 2016 promises to be another banner year for mycoheterotrophs.

As a footnote, our trip also included removal of two more specimens of Tussilago farfara, the invasive I described a few days ago. Both were found at the site of the original infestation. In a moment of whimsy, I put today's score in an interoffice envelope directed to our Plant Ecologist.