"■ ■ ■ dedicated to the appreciation and conservation of the Colorado native flora" Volume 12, Number 5 September/October 1988 Rare Physaria in New Site Calendar Overview Jim Borland After learning of its affinity for Niobrara shale outcrops, I began a search of these areas for Physaria be////, one of the world’s rare plants found only in Colorado. The search area to date has been from 1-70 south to the mouth of Deer Creek Canyon, an area recently and in the future in the path of the new C’470 highway. Immediately south of 1-70 highway construction crews have made it un- necessary to look anywhere, as the new highway and its exit and entrance ramps have obliterated any possible out- crop of the Niobrara Formation, Although several colonies of a related species, Physaria vitulifera, were found south of this area, none of the sought- after P, be//// was found until the last site, one-quarter mile north of the entrance to Deer Creek Canyon, was searched. Here, on a small outcrop of apparent Niobrara shale, Rick Brune and I found several hundred specimens. Nearby were growing the only Stanleya pinnata I’ve seen in Jeffer- son County along with another selenium soil indicator, Astragalus racemosa. Although there are yet a few sites between Deer Creek and 1-70 to check, a clear line of sight south of Deer Creek reveals no other obvious outcrops of Niobrara shale. This may be the southernmost location for the species. As with several other known locations, this one is under both private and highway ownership. Additional information about calendar items will be found throughout this issue. Sept. 10 Edible/Medicinal Plants Leader: Tina Jones Sept. 24 Aquatic Plants Workshop Leader: Dr. Richard G. Walter Oct. 1 Annual CONPS Meeting Boulder, CO Ecology of Colorado Plateau Nov. 5 Penstemon Workshop Leader: Gwen Ketaidls Dec. 10 Carex Workshop Leader: Dr. David Cooper Page 2 Aquilegia Volume 12 Announcements Monograph Extended We are pleased to announce that the deadline for our matching funds grant to produce the Rare Plant Monograph has been extended for one year. Anyone who would like to work with the fund-raising committee should contact Eleanor Von Bargen or Elizabeth Otto. Remember, the Society is now solely responsible for finding funding for this important publication. Our mailings have brought in over $3000 to date. We ap- preciate the contributions, and would especially like to thank the Federated Garden Clubs for a recent donation of $500. Thanks also to those who helped with the last mail- ing: Sue Martin, Betty Bush, Miriam and Dale Denham, Nancy Lee Pate, Jean Morgan, Velma Richards, Eleanor Von Bargen, Peter Root, and Dorothy Borland. Correction Irr our last issue we published “Forest Management Benefits a Rare Plant" without designating the author. This article was contributed by David C. Powell. We ap- preciate his contribution and apologize for omitting his name. It’s Your Newsletter! Most members are pleas^ that we are now putting out six issues of Aquilegia each year Instead of the previous four. Unfortunately, there has not been a concurrent Increase in the number of contributions submitted for the newsletter. In preparing this issue, we are especially Indebted to Jim Borland for his contributions. Without his effort we might have had to publish large outline maps of Colorado or other space fillers. If you know of interesting natural areas, unusual occurren- ces of plants, or any aspects of Colorado’s botanical his- tory, please put your thoughts on paper (or on disk!) and send them in. We need YOUR contributions. Just a reminder: The newsletter schedule is bimonthly and contributions are due on the 15th of alternate months, as printed on the back cover. The newsletter is generally mailed in the middle of the next month, as it takes us three to four weeks to receive all articles, and prepare and print the newsletter. Keep this in mind when submitting notices of meetings or other timely material. Denver Chapter Fall Activities September 28 This will be a get-acquainted meeting. If you have four or five slides of things you saw or did during the summer, bring them to share with us while you meet the other mem- bers. October 26 This meeting will feature a speaker from The Nature Con- servancy. Details should be available at the September meeting. Note Denver Chapter meetings are held on the third Wednesday of the month at 7:30 PM in one of the classrooms at the Denver Botanic Gardens and are open to the public. About CON PS Workshops Enrollment In workshops is always limited, Contact CONPS workshop coordinator for registration and workshop information: Bill Jennings, 360 Martin Dr., Boulder, 80303, 494-5159, Be sure to include your mail- ing address and phone number if you mall in your registra- tion. Registrants will be notified by mail about two weeks prior to the workshop regarding final location, time, lunch, suggested references, etc. Please register promptly, as workshops tend to fill up fast. However, cancellations sometimes create openings, so you might want to check with Bill up to the night before the workshop if you want to try to register at the last minute. Winter Workshops For the winter (1988-1989), we have already received com- mitments from instructors for workshops on the following topics: Pre-settlement/Post-settlement Vegetation in the Arkansas Valley; Dr. Dexter Hess Grasses; Dr. Helen Zeiner Comparative Features of U.S. Alpine Floras; Dr. Bettie Willard Pollination Ecology Dr. Boyce Drummond Composites Dr, Joann Flock Number 5 Aquilegia Pages Annual Meeting to be held October 1, 1988 The Annual Meeting of the Colorado Native Plant Society will be held on October 1, 1988 at the CU Events Center and Conference Facility In Boulder, Colorado. Registration will begin at 8:45 AM. The meeting will focus on the ecology of the Colorado Plateau. The program for the morning will include: Late Quaternary Paleoecology of the Colorado Plateau - Dr. Ken Cole Geo-botany of the Colorado Plateau — Dr. John Emerick Climate and Vegetation of the Colorado Plateau - Nolan J. Doesken Ethnobotany of the Colorado Plateau “ Meg Van Ness Ornamental Uses of Plants of the Colorado Plateau - Jim Knopf Beginning at 1 :45 PM, there wilt be field activities. You may choose to see cactus gardening or go to the Boulder tellgrass prairie to compare the plains prairie with the grasslands of the Colorado Plateau. Field activities should be concluded by 3:45 PM. During the lunch break, box lunches will be provided for those who have preregistered and requested the box lunch. The cost of the box lunch will be $6.50. There will also be a registration fee of $3.50 to help defray ex« penses of the meeting. There will be a Board of Directors meeting at 4:00 PM following the field activities. Aii newly elected Board members and continuing Board mem- bers need to be present for the election of officers and to conduct other business of the Society. We are looking forward to seeing all of you at the Annual Meeting. Be sure not to miss iti For further information or to register, please call Eleanor Von Bergen at 756-1400. Blue Grama - Colorado's State Grass Bouteloua gracilis Approximately 65% actual size Page 4 Aquilegia Volume 12 Witches’ Brooms Dr. William A. Weber This summer, for some reason, many people have had their attention drawn to the gigantic witches’ brooms on subai- pine fir. This was especially true on the Flat Tops where several of our summer courses have radiated out from Meeker. A friend in Ohio sent me a color slide showing this strange "mistletoe " and needed an identification. The critter responsible is a rust fungus. It produces a "perennial hypertrophy". Jean Meyer’s book, Plant Galls and Gall Inducers (Borntraeger, Berlin and Stuttgart, 1987), says: 'These are characterized by a mycelium which lives for many years in the infected organ and produces its sporulatlons each year in the same place, instead of being annual and short-livKJ. Also, the hypertrophy is al- ways bound up with the parasite and develops with it year after year. This Is the case, for example, with Gym- nosporangium sabinae on various juniper species. It is also the case with the spherical gall ("cauldron") on fir, consisting of a basal hypertrophy from which the witches’ brooms arise, caused by Melampsorella 'caryophyllacearum (DC.) Schroeter. As we have men- tioned above, some rusts have more or less pronounced organoid effects. The most striking are the witches' brooms, characterized principally by supernumerary ramification (==polyclady), form^ of closely-spaced vertical shoots bearing r^uced leaves," The alternate host, if you can believe It, is a species of SteP laria (chickweed). The C.U. herbarium contains lots of specimens of the fungus on fir, and also on spruce, but very few specimens of it on the Stellaria. You should be able to see little white pustules on the needles when sporulation occurs. Colorado Xeriscape ’88 This conference, sponsored by Xeriscape Colorado! and Metro Water Conservation Inc., has been scheduled for October 27th and 28th at the Airport Hilton Hotel in Den- ver. "Colorado Xeriscape '88" will focus on the most cur- rent Information available for landscape water conservation technology. The speakers will share their ex- perience and expertise in this increasingly popular con- cept. Registration forms and further information about the con- ference will be available soon. Contact Kim Hout, c/o Metro Water Conservation Inc., at 695-6387 for additional infor- mation. New Betula Hybrid Jim Borland Late last winter Rick Brune and 1 took a walk along Clear Creek in the vicinity of Prospect Park, to clear our heads and try to shake the doldrums of winter’s long visit. Rick showed me several clumps of birches which displayed both pure white and tawny colored bark among the com- mon black-red barked Betula fontlnalis (River Birch). A call to Dr. William Weber, C.U. Herbarium, reveal^ that, al- though he and others had known of these trees for several years, no specimens of the white and tawny barked forms had ever been deposited in the herbarium. Thinking this might be a slight extension of the range of the known Betula papyrifera (Paper or Canoe Birch) and its hybrid with B. fontlnalis, forming B. X andrewsll, I returned several times to take pictures and gather branch, leaf and catkin samples for verification. Later this summer these samples were finally presented to Dr. Weber whereupon he pronounced them Betula pendula (European Birch) and hybrids between this and B. fontlnalis. Curiously, the hybrid trees, like B. X andrewsll, grow until the trunks attain only about 3 to 4 inches diameter before that stem dies. Sprouting usually occurs then, forming a new main stem for the clump. Part of the problem in attaining all the necessary plant parts for verification was the dramatic differences observed! be- tween flowering and fruiting of the three different looking trees. Hybridization is apparently a chancy thing, depend- ent upon the last flowers of one species and the first flowers of the other. Rumor has it that a nursery used to occupy land adjacent to this site and probably is the source forB. pendula. Fur- ther downstream, several other white and tawny stemmed birches can be found as well. A new flora for Colorado will have to add a new species and a hybrid to the list of native and naturalized species. Number 5 Aquilegia Page 5 A Woody Plant Emporium Jim Borland Those of us in the Denver metropolitan area are indeed for- tunate that enough foresight was shown by both Jefferson and Denver Counties in setting aside at least a portion of Lookout Mountain for open sp^ce and parkland. We are even more fortunate that the Beaver Brook Trail which begins on the low side at Windy Saddle, Windy Saddle Park, provides us with an easy trail which when traveled only one-half mile reveals over 27 species of woody plants within sight or arm’s reach. A careful eye will reveal an ad- ditional 17 species during the drive down into Golden. Above the trail, another dozen or so species can also be seen and if over 50 species of woody plants isn’t enough, several more are sure to be found off the northwest side of Lookout Mtn„ especially near Clear Creek. Better than the Beaver Brook Trail, in my opinion. Is the now defunct |eep trail which starts immediately beside the well traveled trail, but a few feet farther north. Where Beaver Brook T rail goes up at this point, the jeep tmil travels down, but not before passing by Ceanothus fendlerl which forms large mats over rocks and in the grasses. /j^rom the vantage point of the trail's head one can see Janiperus scopulorum, Plnus ponderosa var. scopuiorum, Prunus virginiana var. melanocarpa, Acer glabrum, Rhus glabra var. cismontana, and Ribes cereum. A few more steps reveals f?/7t;s tnlobata, Rosa woodsli, and Rubus delicfosus. A bit farther down the trail one encounters one of the few areas where Prunus pennsylvanica var. saximontana grows in profusion. Preferring rocky soils, this pin cherry spreads underground, forming large colonies of plants, the largest of which Is only 7 feet tall. The fruit is only pea-sized, but the taste is very reminiscent of the commercial varieties of sour cherries. In the next few yards one encounters Pseudotsuga men- ziesii, Physocarpus monogynus, Clematis ligusticlfolia, Jamesia amerlcana, Amelanchier alni'folia, and