This spring I spend my days at Mima mounds natural area preserve and glacial heritage prairie in Thurston County, Washington.  I monitor camas distributions on mounds and their inter-mound swales, along north-south gradients.  I record camas phenological stages and the relative abundance of other ethnobotanical species important to the Native peoples of this land. Each day, when the prairie warms up it becomes a-buzz with busy bees, pollinating future camas crops.  Butterflies dance on the breeze, a pair of Northern harriers soar over mounded terrain, and meadowlarks sing happily as I count “Bud – Bud – Flower – Fruit – Fruit – Flower – Flower – Fruit . . .” My volunteer companion, Dale Pressler, records this monotonous drone.  Riffle club shell-fire and a remote-control toy airplane periodically shatter the serenity of our routine. But the prairie’s beauty, the secrets lying dormant in these earth mounds, and my desire to complete my PhD keep me coming back, day after day, week after week. Continue reading →

Adapting to the challenges we face in the future includes bringing native plants closer to our everyday lives. Looking at native plants and how we used them in a historical context is important because we need to preserve and recover traditional uses of plants and invent new ways to use them in order to promote their preservation.

Use of Native Plants in the Pacific Northwest

This pertains to the northwestern corner of the United States and adjacent islands of the San Juan Archipelago. Prior to 1859, this area was sparsely inhabited with people of European heritage. Through the 1870s, movement around the area was only possible by canoe or pack train and it was not until the 1890s that wagon roads for freight and stage were in place. Continue reading →

I.    INTRODUCTION

Surface erosion and mass soil losses from landslides are of great concern to land managers. Accelerated erosion and slope instability can be caused or exacerbated by human activities. Increased erosion can cause adverse cumulative watershed problems by increasing sedimentation, degrading water supplies, reducing forest productivity, destroying anadromous fish habitat, and degrading other critical environmental functions. Structurally mature and floristically complex plant communities significantly reduce surface erosion and contribute greatly to maintaining slope stability. Management of forested, coastal, urban, agricultural, and riparian areas should conserve plant cover.  The relative effectiveness of vegetation in any specific locale will be a function of site-specific conditions. Continue reading →

Every catalog issue I have a chance to write on something that might be interesting to our readers. At times this column has news of our work on native plant cultivation, propagation and marketing. At other times I have tried to link our mutual interests in native plants to contemporary topics such as urbanization, invasive exotics or sustainable agriculture.

This time I would like to tell you about my favorite pastime during late spring, summer and the fall months – seed collecting and to make some observations from my own perspective, a native plant seed collector, on global climate change and our own denial of the problem. Continue reading →

Almost every developed nation (except the United States) has ratified the Kyoto agreement; 39 of those countries have passed national, legally-binding emissions- reduction targets. Recently the world’s two largest developing nations, China and India, have begun designing their own domestic programs to curb carbon output. Twenty five American states have enacted laws to reduce their carbon footprint and, with new leadership in Washington, we Americans may soon join the rest of the developed world in a sustained effort to reduce and offset our very large carbon footprint. There are numerous ways to reduce and offset carbon and it is likely that plants will play a significant role. Continue reading →