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Yosemite Area Audubon
4540 Ashworth Road |
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YOSEMITE'S RARE PLANTS
Contact: Len McKenzie
(209) 742-5579
Audubon Program Will Showcase Yosemite's Rare Plants
Contributed by Len McKenzie
National parks are special places, collectively showcasing this nation's natural and cultural heritage. Residents of this area are fortunate to live near one of the National Park System's most inspiring sites, Yosemite. Living here offers us frequent opportunities to savor the park's sublime scenery and discover its natural communities of plants and wildlife.
Discovery―personal or scientific―of a park's resource values is perhaps the most exciting and soul-satisfying experience awaiting anyone who explores these places. That was undoubtedly the response of botanist Alison Colwell and fellow park scientists who recently discovered in Yosemite a species apparently new to science.
Colwell will feature that discovery, along with others, in a slide presentation, "Rare Plants of Yosemite," Thursday, February 14, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Sponsored by the Yosemite Area Audubon Society, the program will be held at the Mariposa Methodist Church parish hall on 6th Street between Highway 140 and Bullion Street in downtown Mariposa.
In 2001 Congress directed the National Park Service to inventory the parks' biodiversity and to develop a plan for monitoring the health of their flora and fauna, recognizing the necessity of documenting biodiversity in order to protect it. Yosemite, for its part, created a database of species previously documented in the park and set about to update the data on rare species.
Colwell joined this project in 2003, working with plant ecologist Peggy Moore and geographer Charlotte Coulter to map known rare plant populations, search for new rare plant populations in likely habitat and record data of sites found. Among other areas, they focused on the wet montane meadows south of Yosemite Valley, where groundwater seepage, mainly snowmelt, keeps the water table too high for forest encroachment. These meadows hold a number of species known only from the central Sierra Nevada region.
During the course of the survey, the researchers found not only new populations of species targeted in the survey, but also species not previously known to occur in the park and a bog-orchid that appeared to be a species unknown to science. Enlisting the help of a bog-orchid specialist, they confirmed its uniqueness and published a formal scientific description in 2007. Scientists believe this species, Platanthera yosemitensis (Yosemite bog-orchid), is restricted to Yosemite National Park.
Colwell's talk will examine hypotheses of why these meadows harbor such rare and endemic species and mention some other species of interest found here, including the starry ladies' tresses orchid Spiranthes stellata, which was published as a new species on January 15, 2008. That plant is not a new discovery, but botanists now recognize this Sierra Nevada endemic as distinct from the more widespread hooded ladies' tresses (S. romanzoffiana).
These new discoveries led the researchers to suspect that the Yosemite flora was not as well documented as previously thought. A grant from the Yosemite Fund enabled them to find other undiscovered species in Yosemite, primarily in unusual habitats for these species. The rare habitats targeted are metamorphic rock outcrops (most of Yosemite is granitic rock) and mineral springs. Colwell will discuss the interesting plants they found in these sites, including some rare moonwort ferns (one of them previously unknown from California!).
A native of Maryland, Colwell received a B.A. in botany from Cornell University, where she discovered parasitic plants, now one of her passions. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in population biology and evolution from Washington University in Saint Louis and has done postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado and the University of Washington. She subsequently worked for five years studying fish parasites at the Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle and has been a botanist in Yosemite for the past five years.
Colwell's presentation is open and free to the public, although donations to defray program costs and to support Audubon's local activities are welcome. Refreshments will be available.
Yosemite Area Audubon's birding trip this month will be to the Merced National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, February 16. Participants will meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Mariposa Rest Area adjacent to the history center to carpool. The trip is free and the public is welcome. Bring binoculars, field guides, lunch, beverages and insect repellent.
Call (209) 742-5579 for additional information about either the program or the birding trip.
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Sphere of Influence: Mariposa, Sierra National Forest/Watersheds: Merced, San Joaquin and Kings, Mariposa County, Eastern Madera County, Yosemite National Park, Sierra National Forest and watersheds, Eastern Merced County.
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Last Modified: February 05, 2008