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The following is the third and last in a series of articles in which NPSO/ODA interns discuss their activities during the 1998 field season. Interns were selected from a pool of applicants and worked with scientists from the Oregon Department of Agriculture/OSU Plant Conservation Biology Program to carry out research related to threatened and endangered species in Oregon. Project locations ranged from coastal beaches to serpentines of southwestern Oregon to the eastside's high desert. Interns were jointly funded by NPSO, state, and federal dollars and plan to use their experience to further their careers in botany and biology. What follows here is Jeff Stephen's provocative and impassioned article on his experience monitoring rare plants in Oregon, especially Kincaid's lupine. Thanks again to NPSO for contributing to botanical education and work experience.

Tom Kaye Plant Conservation Biology Program Oregon Department of Agriculture

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"A clearcut, or even a mile-wide strip mine pit will heal in geological time. The extinction of a species, each one a pilgrim of four billion years of evolution, is an irreversible loss. The ending of the lines for so many creatures with whom we have traveled this far is an occasion of profound sorrow and grief. Death can be accepted and to some degree transformed. But the loss of lineages and all their future young is not something to accept. It must be rigorously and intelligently resisted." -- Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild. It seems that humans, collectively, are building barriers against plant evolution. As we proceed to alter the fluid envelopes that surround the earth, simple molecules that pass through all creatures, new selective pressures demand equally impressive innovations. But, as will happen more and more often, many plant species in Oregon must out-compete European superweeds while attempting to adapt to extreme deforestation and/or agricultural sprawl, and trying to migrate across vast "ecovoids," such as farmlands and metropolises, on an impossibly instantaneous time-scale. These species are being run into a wall, and their continued existence requires the creation of a window through which they may pass to the future. As a part of that mission, I was able to participate as an intern in the Native Plant Society of Oregon and Oregon Department of Agriculture plant conservation program.

The fearless botanist Tom Kaye facilitated the studious summer wanderings of two other interns, Lisa Karst and Madi Novak, and myself to and fro and back again all over Oregon. For the most part, we recorded demographic data of endangered Oregon plants that later will contribute to transition matrix models, which are a useful form of viability analysis based on short-term population dynamics and critical life-history stages. We monitored pink sandverbena (Abronia umbellata ssp. breviflora), Tygh Valley milkvetch (Astragalus tyghensis), tall bugbane (Cimicifuga [Actaea] elata), Umpqua swertia (Frasera umpquaensis), Snake River goldenweed (Haplopappus radiatus), Cusick's lupine (Lupinus cusickii), and Kincaid's lupine (Lupinus sulphureus ssp. kincaidii). In addition, I was able to assist in projects involving red root yampah (Perideridia erythrorhiza) and hairy popcorn flower (Plagiobothrys hirtus).

In particular, the status of Kincaid's lupine may serve to demonstrate the enormous difficulty of creating an adequate passage through time for just one of about 4,900 native U.S. species that are globally rare (Morse, 1996). An interesting aspect of this rare lupine is that it is the primary larval food plant for Fender's blue (Icaricia icarioides fenderi), a very rare butterfly endemic to the upland prairie habitat that was common in the Willamette Valley in relatively recent history. Contemporary land-use has eliminated 99% of such grasslands and the Fender's blue was thought to be extinct between 1937 and 1989 (Wilson et al., 1997). Merely 42 prairie patches remain in which Kincaid's lupine survives, and these represent the maximum potential range for Fender's blue, which itself occurs only in 13 of those patches and numbers less than 4000 individuals (Schultz, 1998). In addition, Fender's blue adults depend on several native nectar plants as a food source. Because so few patches of suitable native upland prairie habitat remain in the Willamette Valley, the already depauperate populations of Fender's blue are effectively isolated from one another, and each circles the drain of extirpation.

The specific challenge for Fender's blue is to restore degraded patches of upland prairie that are in close enough proximity to allow dispersal to occur via its association with Kincaid's lupine. The species is unlikely to survive much longer unless the preservation of existing habitat is supplemented with effective restoration of degraded habitat. As is true for all animals, insects ultimately depend upon plants, and can not exist in their absence. In this case, conservation of the Fender's blue includes conservation of the lupine, which, of course, itself includes conservation of ecosystem health, much as we may be afraid to admit it. Thus, to save these species in the long-run (only 50 years or more) demands nothing short of maintaining each of their countless interactions with all other species, which means more than building a fence around them.

In the few spots where Kincaid's lupine does cling to existence, it is being overrun with seemingly invincible invaders, such as Himalayan blackberry (Rubus discolor), Scot's broom (Cytisus scoparius), meadow knapweed (Centaurea pratensis), and tall oatgrass (Arrhenatherum elatius). This is largely because natural cycles of grassland disturbance have recently ceased altogether. Disturbingly, if humans left for hell today, these species would surely go extinct regardless. Thus, conservationists must actively undo harm in addition to advocating the cessation of harm.

Our role in treating this ecological emergency was to establish a permanent arrangement of study plots that will allow future investigators to monitor the response of Kincaid's lupine to various treatments, such as periodic mowing and burning, that mimic naturally sustaining cycles of renewal. Physically, this required the four of us wade across seas of blackberry for a week in the June sun, as we monitored the presence of lupine leaves and inflorescences and Fender's blue eggs in a large pasture northwest of Eugene. As much work as that was for four people, it was really only a small contribution to the extremely complex effort of patch-scale ecosystem conservation that must go into preventing extinction for a pair of endangered associates. The hard labor and extreme time-commitment that characterize this local project on small patches of habitat underscores the enormous difficulty and desperation of global, and even regional attempts to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, humans continue to snip away at every taxonomic branch. Considering that sudden climate change may disrupt the evolutionary synchrony that accompanies interdependence, and that fragmentation is inescapable at all scales, and furthermore, that the maniacal myth of perpetual economic growth is still accelerating, providing passage for creatures such as Kincaid's lupine and Fender's blue will be analogous to passing a spider web right through a wall. Can we do that?

I thank the Native Plant Society of Oregon and the Oregon Department of Agriculture for supporting our circumambulation, and Bob Meinke and Tom Kaye for allowing me to work with the Plant Conservation Program. I had a great time working with Lisa Karst and Madi Novak this summer.

Morse, L.E. 1996. Plant rarity and endangerment in North America. Pp. 7-22 in D. A. Falk, C. I. Millar, and M. Olwell, eds., Restoring diversity: strategies for reintroduction of endangered plants. Island Press, Washington, D. C.

Schultz, C.B. 1998. Dispersal behavior and its implications for reserve design in a rare Oregon butterfly. Conservation Biology 12: 284-292.

Wilson, M.V. 1997. The interdependence of native plants and Fender's blue butterfly. Pp: 83-87 in T.N. Kaye, ed., Conservation and management of native plants and fungi. Native Plant Society of Oregon, Corvallis, Oregon.

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Brad Smith

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By now Emerald Chapter hopes all readers know that it will be our pleasure to host the 1999 Annual Meeting in the Central Oregon Cascades this coming summer -- July 30 to August 1.

Perhaps it has become something of a cliché to state that the Cascades were born of fire and sculptured by ice. Stephen Harris no doubt coined the colorful phrase in the title of his 1976 book, *Fire and Ice.* The description has been picked up by other writers including Bill Sullivan in his outstanding guide, *100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades.* (By the way, Bill will be the featured dinner speaker at the meeting.)

No spot better illustrates the story of fire and ice than the area near McKenzie Pass we have chosen for the meeting: White Branch Youth Camp on White Branch Creek, two miles from the boundary of the Three Sisters Wilderness. Nearby are the three former volcanoes themselves, two or three million years old and all topping 10,000 feet in elevation, the massive South Sister having sent Ice-Age glaciers down to the present location of our camp. When those rivers of ice retreated 10,000 years ago they left hanging valleys creating the lovely waterfalls on Proxy Creek and White Branch Creek, the latter a short old-growth forest walk from the camp.

Although the Sisters themselves are volcanically quiet now, lava has continued to bubble forth in the McKenzie area, with some flows moving down a former glacier valley less than a mile from our camp. Some of the flows at the top of nearby McKenzie pass may be as recent as 400 years old according to Alt and Hyndman's *Roadside Geology of Oregon.* The lava flows have blocked a number of creeks forming lakes large and small which dot the landscape.

Is it any wonder that with this varied landscape sculpted by fire and ice, the flora is also diverse? We plan some superb hikes and drives into the high country to show you some of the best of the floral displays. Emerald Chapter members Bruce Newhouse, Charlene Simpson, John Koenig, Dave Predeek, and others will be leading these trips. Watch this space next month, as these folks have promised to help me write a brief preview for you of some of the beautiful and unusual species we expect to see.

Remember: "Get high the last summer of the Millennium in the Central Oregon Cascades!" The dates to mark on your calendar are July 30 through August first.

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"Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice."

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"What matter if we go clear to the west,

And come not through dry-shod?

For wilding brooch shall wet your breast

The rain fresh goldenrod."

Friends of the Oregon Flora Project Volunteer of the ORegon Flora Project have been busy. Recent work includes developing an electronic plant Atlas prototype, recording herbaruim specimen label data, and compiling portions of the Oregon Vascular Plant Checklist. This fall, the Native Plant Society of Oregon is sponsoring the Friend of the ORegon Flora Project to help raise the funds nexessary to produce a new Flora of Oregon. Currently, the Friends Committee is looking for the talents of a few enthusiastic folks to help us with grant writing, record keeping, and developing a dynamic fund raising strategy. We plan to initiate a campaign to reach new contributors, both individual and corporate, and secure funding for key staff positions. If you'd like to help, please contact me, Keli Kuykendall at 541.758.8409, kuykendk@peak.org, or write to at our new Friends address, Friends of the Oregon Flora Project, PO Box 402, Corvallis, OR 97339-0402.

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Last Modified December 13, 1998