Castilleja

A Publication of the Wyoming Native Plant Society

October 2004, Volume 23, No. 3

www.uwyo.edu/wyndd/wnps/wnps_home.htm

In this issue:

Relicts and Refugia 1

Roristic Diversity of Wyoming Counties 3

Botanical Novitiates Rnd Botanical Novelty .... 4
Critical Habitat for the Colorado Butterfly Rant . 5

Requiem for a Lawnmower - review 6

Rocky Mountain Natural History - review 7

Whitebark Rne - excerpt 8

Cynoglossum boreale - addition to the state flora 9
Raising Livestock and Lowering Carbon Dioxide . 1 0

Scholarship Announcement 11

Natives vs. Imposters 12

Relicts and Refugia

By Bonnie Heidel

For all of the breath-taking alpine
topography of the Medicine Bow Range, some
of its heart-thumping botany lies low across
rolling expanses. Three years and three stages
of peatland research have documented vast
montane fen systems in the Medicine Bow
Range, refugia for eleven rare Wyoming
vascular plant species of concern including five
relict species previously unknown from
southern Wyoming.

Peatland rare species are disjunct or
peripheral as they are present in Wyoming,
denizens of high latitudes, not state and
regional endemics that are the focus of most
Wyoming Natural Diversity Database botany
research. However, review of the Wyoming
plant species of concern list in 2002 compared
against regional peatland floras indicated that

Above: Eriophorum gracile (slender cotton-grass) is
circum boreal, with outlying distribution in northwestern
Wyoming, the Medicine Bow Range and South Park in
Colorado By B. Heidel

peatlands harbor close to 10% of the rare
Wyoming plant species of concern.

Botanists took a plunge into peatlands
with pilot site surveys on the Medicine Bow and
the Shoshone national forests to compile a
working list of peatland rare species, flora, and
vegetation at a small number of known or
inferred peatland study sites (Heidel and
Laursen 2003 a, b; Mellmann-Brown 2004).
Results pointed to ... (continued on p. 9)

1

WNPSNEWS-

2005 Scholarship announcement! See p. 1 1
Fieldtrip photographs: See p. 7

2005 Wyoming Plant Conference

Initial plans are brewing for a 2005 Wyoming Rant
Conference next spring, jointly hosted by Wyoming
Native Rant Society (WNPS) and Wyoming
Technical Rare Rant Committee, as well as
prospective institution and agency partners. WNPS
members who might be interested in helping
organize such an event are invited to send their
names, contact information, and interest, whether
in helping develop the programs, local
arrangements, special events, partnerships or
publicity; via the WNPS homepage or 766-3020.

By-Laws Brainstorm

-Look for a vote by WNPS members on By-Laws
amendments in the upcoming December issue of
Castilleja. Amendments are under consideration to
create a life membership category and put the
WNPS membership year, Board term of office, and
fiscal year in line with one another. WNPS
members who might be interested in helping draft
or review By-Laws amendments are invited to send
their names and contact information via the WNPS
homepage or 766-3020.

Nominations sought : Members interested in running
for the 2005 WNPS Board are encouraged to
contact Jean Daly, President, or Bonnie Heldel,
Editor (see contact information, below). Officer
terms run for one year. Board members-at-large
serve for two years. The ballot comes in
December.

Wyoming Native Plant Society
P.O. Box 2500, Laramie, WY 82073
WNPS Board

President: Jean Daly (Big Horn) 674-9728
Vice President: Melanie Arnett (Laramie) 742-0988
Sec. -Treasurer: Drew Arnold (Laramie) 742-7079
Board Members: Kent Houston (Cody) 527-6572

Katherine Zacharkevics (Spearfish, SD) 605-642-2240
*★*★**★*

Newsletter Editor: Bonnie Heidel (Laramie;
email: bheidel@uwyo.edu)

Teton Chapter: PO Box 82, Wilson, WY 83014
(Joan Lucas, Treasurer)

Bighorn Native Plant Society: PO Box 21, Big Horn, WY
82833 (Jean Daly, Treasurer)

Webmaster-Tessa Dutcher (tessad@uwyo.edu)

Native Plant Partners : The Board of the Wyoming
Native Plant Society moved to join the ranks of
native plant societies across the country in the
Native Rant Conservation Campaign. This national
network of affiliated native plant societies, botanical
gardens, and other plant conservation
organizations is dedicated to information
exchange and advocating for native plant species
and community conservation through:

? increased funding and support for plant science
research and education,

? use of local native plants in restoration,

? prevention and control of infestation by invasive
exotic plants

? improved staffing and funding for Federal botany
programs, and

? stronger Federal laws for conservation of native
plants and ecosystems

Additional information is posted at: http://cnps.org/NPCC

Contributers to this issue include : Tyler Abbott,

Jane Dorn, Walter Fertig, Bonnie Heidel, and Hollis
Marriott.

Treasurer's Report : Balance as of 7 September
2004: General Fund $890.28; Student Scholarship
Fund: $149.00; Total funds $1,039.28

New Members : Rease welcome the following new
members and subscribers to WNPS: Ben
Chesebro, Laramie; McCracken Research Library -
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody; Karen Ferguson,
Buffalo; Alison & Dick Jones, Wilson; Yelena
Kosovich, Irkutsk, Russia; Phil & Martha Roberts,
Red Lodge, Montana; Rik Smith, Laramie.

*********

Meeting announcement : Intermountain Native
Plant Summit III, regarding native plant
propagation and restoration research. Nov. 3-5 at
Boise State University, Boise, ID. Includes
presentations, a germplasm workshop, forums,
and poster displays. There is no registration fee
but pre-registration is encouraged. For a copy of
the program, to pre-register and get hotel
information, contact: dale.nielson@usu.edu .

**The next newsletter deadline is 19 November.**

2

Above: Number of vascular plant species and varieties per county in Wyoming. Numbers derived
primarily from Dorn 2001 (Vascular Plants of Wyoming, 3''^ edition) and additional county records for
Teton County (Stuart Markow), Lincoln County (Clay Kyte & Walter Fertig) and Yellowstone NP
(Jennifer Whipple) and statewide from Bonnie Heidel and others.

Floristic Diversity of Wyoming Counties

By Walter Fertig

Although defined using political (and often
geometric) principles rather than biological criteria,
counties can provide a convenient framework for
quantifying distribution patterns of Wyoming’s
vascular plant flora. Of Wyoming’s 23 counties,
Fremont has the highest species richness with
1558 taxa, or about 55% of all vascular plant
taxa found in the state. Fremont County’s high
diversity can be attributed to a wide mix of
habitats, ranging from high peaks of the Wind
River and Absaroka ranges to desert basins and
rich wetlands along the Wind and Sweetwater
rivers. Park County is a close second to
Fremont, with 1540 taxa (54.8% of the state
flora), though it should be noted that these
figures do not include the portion of the county
contained within Yellowstone National Park. If
considered as a county-equivalent, Yellowstone
would rank 6*^ in the state with 1368 taxa, just

ahead of the other county it encompasses,

Teton (Dounty. Overall, species richness is
greatest in those counties with high mountain
ranges and lowest in the counties of the Great
Rains.

If total area of the county is
considered, however, Albany County emerges as
the state’s winner for vascular plant richness. At
11,160 km^, Albany is half the size of Fremont
County and 2/3 the size of Park (bounty, but
based on the number of species per log (area),
Albany comes out highest, followed by Park, and
then Fremont (Yellowstone NP emerges in fourth
place under these criteria). Alas, poor Goshen,
(Campbell, and Niobrara counties still have the
smallest floras no matter how you slice it.

{Editor’s note: See articles on pp. 1, 4, and 9 about
species additions that bolster the Albany County lead,
and boost the Crook County tally... and the state flora.)

3

Soxifrcga occidental is

From: Hitchcock, C.L and A. Cronquist. 1961. R. 3. Saxifragaceae
to Ericaceae. In: C.L. Hitchcock, A. Cronquist, M. Ownbey, and
J.W. Thomas. Vascular Rants of the Pacific Northwest. University
of Washington Publication in Biology.

Botanical Novitiates Find Botanical Novelty

By Hollis Marriott

Another wet summer in southeast
Wyoming produced wonderful opportunities for
field botanists this year. Visiting friends marveled
at the wildflower shows in montane meadows and
alpine fellfields of the Medicine Bow Mountains. I
had enjoyable excursions scouting out field trip
possibilities for the University of Wyoming
summer field botany course. And students
admitted that all that time spent learning plant
families and how to use dichotomous keys was
worth it -- when they discovered a new record for
the Medicine Bow Mountains at the base of the
high peaks of the Snowy Range.

Saxifraga occidental is, the western
saxifrage, was previously known from Wyoming
but had not been reported for the Medicine Bow
Mountains. The closest known locations are in
the Laramie Range about 60 miles to the east,

found during floristic inventory by Barb Packer in
the late 1990s. It also grows in the Black Hills
(WY and SD), the Sweetwater Rocks area, on
Casper Mountain and in the mountain ranges of
northwest Wyoming. The full range of the
species extends from Alaska and western Canada
south through the Pacific Northwest and Rocky
Mountains into New Mexico.

True to its name, Saxifraga occidentalis is
a lover of rocky sites. “Saxifraga” is derived from
the Latin saxum, a rock, and f range, to break;
members of this genus are also known as
breakstones or rockfoils. The name may also
refer to the use of saxifrages by herbalists in
treating “stones” of the urinary tract. The
second part of the scientific name, “occidentalis,”
means western. For some mysterious reason,
this species is listed as Alberta saxifrage in the
USDA Plants Database, considered by some to
be the final word on common names. Western
saxifrage is obviously more appropriate, based on
translation of the scientific name as well as
distribution of the species.

Like many saxifrages, Saxifraga
occidentalis has a scapose growth form, with a
cluster of basal leaves and a leafless flowering
stem, usually less than 25 cm tall. Flowers are
white, small (petals less than 3.5 mm long), and
variously arranged - from open branched
inflorescences to compact clusters. Inflorescence
type has been used to distinguish varieties within
the species, but with only limited success due to
significant regional variability. Material from the
Medicine Bow Mountains fits var. occidentalis, with
rather small and compact clusters of flowers.

Botany 4640 students Ben Pieper and
Dave Thorne collected the western saxifrage not
far from US Highway 130 near Snowy Range
Pass. It was growing on an interesting moist
microsite on a west-facing slope just below the
ridgecrest, causing us to scratch our heads as to
the source of the water ... seepage through
buried talus? There were several tiny pondlets
nearby. This area has been botanized since
Aven Nelson’s first years in Wyoming, so why a
new find? Is this saxifrage a recent arrival or was
it overlooked in the past? My guess is that areas
like the Snowy Range are so complex in terms of
microsite diversity that it takes a lot of searching
to hit all distinct plant habitats. This probably will
not be the last botanical discovery for the Range.

4

Critical Habitat and Conservation
Agreements Under Consideration for
the Colorado Butterfly Plant

The Colorado butterfly plant (Gaura
neomexicana ssp. coloradensis) is a short lived
perennial herb adapted to early to mid -succession
riparian habitat. This species is a regional
endemic restricted to approxinately 1,700 acres
of habitat in Laramie County in Wyoming, western
Kimball County in Nebraska, and Weld County in
Colorado. The Colorado butterfly plant is
currently listed as federally threatened through its
entire range. Of the known populations, the vast
majority occur on private lands managed primarily
for agriculture. Haying and mowing at certain
times of the year, water development, land
conversion for cultivation, competition with exotic
plants, non-selective use of herbicides, and loss
of habitat to urban development are the main
threats to these populations.

On August 6, 2004, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (Service) published in the Federal
Register a proposal to designate critical habitat for
the Colorado butterfly plant on approximately
8,486 acres along 113 stream miles. The
Endangered Species Act requires that the Service
designate critical habitat for species when they
are listed, or soon thereafter. Critical habitat
refers to specific geographic areas that are
essential for the conservation of the species and
that may require special management
considerations. Designating an area as critical
habitat does not affect land ownership or set up a
preserve or refuge. Critical habitat only affects
actions or activities where there is Federal
involvement (Federal actions, funding, permits, or
authorizations).

Designating critical habitat is one
mechanism for providing habitat protection for the
Colorado butterfly plant. However, working
cooperatively with private landowners to protect
habitat for the plant through conservation
agreements is the Service’s preferred approach
to protecting this species on private lands. The
Service has been working with the Wyoming
Stockgrowers Association, the Wyoming
Association of Conservation Districts, the
Wyoming Department of Agriculture, the Natural
Resources Conservation Service in Wyoming and
Nebraska, the City of Fort Collins in Colorado, and
the City of Cheyenne in Wyoming, to develop
conservation agreements with willing landowners
to provide for its conservation.

These agreements will include specific
on-the-ground actions to alleviate threats to the
species, and allow the Service access to private
land for annual monitoring of populations. These
agreements enable the Service to take an
adaptive management approach to evaluate
success of management actions undertaken, and
they facilitate the collection of data needed for
future recovery of the species. If adequate
protection is provided to the Colorado butterfly
plant through a conservation agreement with a
landowner, the Service will exclude that parcel of
land from critical habitat. Currently, one such
agreement is in place, and several more are in
the process of being completed.

The first step in evaluating the
conservation needs of the Colorado butterfly plant
is to monitor current status of the species
throughout its known range of occurrence.

Thanks to willing landowners the Service, with the
help of Dr. Don Hazlett, was able to survey 80
percent of the Colorado butterfly plant’s known
range of occurrence during the summer of 2004.
Information collected during these surveys, in
addition to previous survey data provided by
Wyoming Natural Diversity Database and the
Colorado Natural Heritage Program, provides the
baseline data used for development of
conservation agreements. The Service looks
forward to continuing to work with landowners to
complete a number of conservation agreements
prior to the finalization of critical habitat by the
end of this year. With the help of Wyoming
landowners, the Colorado butterfly plant could
become the first federally listed plant species in
the state to be de-listed.

5

Botanist’s Bookshelf

Requiem for a Lawnmower - Gardening in a
Warmer, Drier Worid, 2"^ Edition,

by Sally Wasowski & Andy Wasowski, 2004.

Taylor Trade Publishing. Paper, 211 pages.

Reviewed by Jane Dorn

It is not easy to promote the use of
native plants for landscapes without sounding
dogmatic, but the Wasowskis have written a book
that does just that. Each chapter of this easy-to-
read book combines humor, anecdotes and
sound advice to gardeners to advance the
concepts and practices of landscaping with native
plants. The Wasowskis have deliberately written
this book with a minimum of technical terms,
scientific names and professional jargon which
tend to scare readers away from some books on
this topic. While the Wasowskis have lived in and
frequently written about Texas gardening, this
book presents sound landscaping principals that
can be applied to any part of the country,
including Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains.

For anyone who has ever had to speak
before an audience about landscaping with native
plants, this book should be required reading. The
major anti-native plants arguments and
misconceptions are addressed, so that, after
reading Wasowskis’ book, you too can easily
refute these cherished notions without starting a
riot. For example, if you find a gardener who
really loves non-native plants like roses or
petunias, the Wasowskis point out that local
natives will mix well into the more traditional
landscape, and that using natives doesn’t
necessarily mean “100 percent native.” Or, when
you hear someone equate xeriscaping with
expanses of gravel and cactus, you would be
able to point out it really means balancing plant
selection with available natural moisture and that
native plants have already figured out that trick
without human help. Even the ‘weed laws’ issue
is addressed with good advice on how to
approach the touchy issue of neighbors who view
your naturalistic plantings as a weed patch.

The title chapter Requiem for a
Lawnmower, is obviously a plea to stop scheduling
summer weekends around municipal watering
restrictions, mowing, weeding, and fertilizing the
non-native, monoculture called a

lawn and create a landscape that might include
native grasses and is adapted to local conditions.
As Sally points out, “because we weren’t spending
inordinate amounts of time doing [lawn]
maintenance, we were free to simply enjoy our
garden.”

It is easy to talk about use of native
plants for landscaping, but as this reviewer can
personally testify, much harder to put into
practice if one depends on the offerings of the
traditional nurseries. The Wasowskis point out in
their chapter Our Unsung Horticultural Heroes,
there may be tougher ways to make a living than
growing native plants for nursery stock, but not
many. This is one area where native plant
supporters can make a difference. Encourage
local nurseries to stock natives, then buy those
natives. Ask for other natives. Encourage your
gardening friends to purchase and use native
plants from local nurseries. Encourage nursery
owners to participate in native plant activities. Be
generous with your knowledge of native plant
culture.

The book is set up in seven sections with
a total of 48 chapters. Each chapter is a short,
stand-alone essay which creates easy pick-and-
choose reading. It would be a good addition to
any public library. If you are already a convert to
the landscaping -with-natives philosophy, you
might want to add this non-technical book to your
own library as an excellent first book to loan to
doubters and possible converts, and a good
refresher when you need to communicate with
native-plants-won’t-work gardeners.

6

Botanist’s Bookshelf

Rocky Mountain Natural History- Grand
Teton to Jasper, by Daniel Mathews, 2003.
Raven Editions, Portland, OR, 2003. 656 pp.

Reviewed by Walter Fertig

The only thing I enjoy as much as a rousing
day exploring nature in the out-of-doors is reading
about the natural history and lore of the plants,
animals, and environment that I enjoy in person.
Much to my wife’s lament (though she knew full
well of my affliction and married me anyway), I
must have just about every popular field guide to
trees, wildflowers, birds, reptiles, fish, rocks, and
bugs in print, as well as most of the current and
classical technical manuals. While all these books
have their practical uses and charms, it is hard to
lug more than one or two on a long field outing,
and, frankly, most are not very scintillating
reading for cold wintry days when I’m spending
more time inside than out.

So I’m always very pleased to find a book like
Dan Mathews’ Rocky Mountain Natural History -
Grand Teton to Jasper. This pocket-sized book
covers the entire gamut of Rocky Mountain
critters and landscapes, from rocks, minerals, and
climate to insects, birds, mammals, fish, herptiles,
fungi, ferns, mosses, and flowering plants. Of
course no one book can cover every single
species in these diverse groups (and still be
portable), so instead the author focuses on the
most common and typical forms. Mathews’
writing goes well beyond the terse descriptions of
standard guides (though these are included too)
to discuss the biology, ecology, and history of his
subjects in pleasurable and fact-filled prose. Thus
Rocky Mountain Natural History is a field guide

writing that just happens to also have handsome
meant to be read and enjoyed as good nature
line drawings, color photos, and descriptive text
on hundreds of biological topics and species.

My favorite sections of the book are the
frequent sidebars on a variety of topics, ranging
from contemporary ecological theory to musings
on weeds and whirling disease, biographies of
leading naturalists of the 18^^ and 19^^ centuries,
Indian folklore, and animal behavior. Additional
supplemental information is provided in the
appendices, including the most informed critique
of the state of taxonomy that I’ve read by a
non-taxonomist.

Rocky Mountain Natural History specifically
covers only the northwest corner of Wyoming -
from the Absarokas and Wind Rivers to Grand
Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Most of
the book addresses the northern Rockies of
Canada, western Montana, northern Idaho,
northeastern Washington, and the Wallowas of
eastern Oregon. Many species are included that
won’t be found in Wyoming, but it is never bad to
expand one’s horizons and learn about new
areas. The quality of the photos is first rate,
though unfortunately most are quite small to
save space. The line drawings are also mostly
excellent, especially the timeless art of the late
Jeanne Janish (from the Vascular Plants of the
Pacific Northwest series) and some illustrations
attributed to Willis “Jepson Manual' Jepson (who I
had no idea was such an accomplished artist).

Reading Mathews’ book is a lot like having an
entertaining naturalist along for a hike. Other field
guides and manuals will still have a place in my
knapsack, but none of these can rival Rocky
Mountain Natural History for sheer variety of
natural history factoids and wit.

{Editor’s note: See the next page for an excerpt!)

Above: In June, Wyoming Native Plant Society and Above: The hike offered a rousing day exploring and swapping

Buffalo Bill Museum conducted a Heart Mountain hike. botanical lore. Photos bv Nathan Bender. Buffalo Bill Museum

7

Whitebark Pine

By Daniel Mathews

With their broad crowns and tufted, paler foliage, whitebark pines are easy to tell from the other high-country
conifers.

They’re easy to tell even in death. If you find yourself in a subalpine forest with large, bleached, forked and crooked
dead tree trunks towering over young spruces and firs, this was once a fine whitebark pine grove. We’re in the midst of a
catastrophic decline of whitebark and limber pines throughout most of our region. It seems to be caused by both
introduced blister rust and the ramifications of fire suppression; fire tends to control the pines’ worst enemies and
competitors. The worst native enemies are dwarf-mistletoe and bark beetles. Fire suppression allows overly dense
stands of lodgepole pine to stagnate; these attract epidemics of bark beetles, which head upslope looking for other pines
after they overpopulate their lodgepole resource. They prefer bigger whitebarks, with bark thick enough to protect and
nourish their larvae. Most “ghost forests" of whitebark pine were killed by blister rust, but in the area from the Sawtooths
to the Bitterroots (which may be too dry for blister rust) bark beetles are the culprits.

While studying whitebark mortality in the Salmon River area, Dana Perkins found some magnificent survivors. The
oldest is 1270 years old - placing whitebark pine eleventh on the longest-lived tree species list - and the biggest is 8%
feet in diameter [2.6 m]. Fires initiated fine stands of whitebarks in Montana’s Mission and Whitefish Ranges, but blister
rust killed most of those.

Growth form varies with elevation. In the alpine zone, whitebark pine grows as krummholz (dense prostrate shrubs).
It’s a major component of krummholz patches especially in the Wind River, Wyoming, and Salt River Ranges. At its
lowest elevations it may grow straight and single-stemmed, resembling lodgepole pine. Whitebark pines are shade-
intolerant and fairly fire-resistant, especially on high sites where they are widely spaced and the undergrowth is low. Fire
suppression has tipped the scales in favor of the competition - spruce and fir - and the pine’s enemies have piled on,
greatly accelerating the decline. Once pines are gone from a stand even blister rust-tolerant ones won’t be able to retake
much lost ground until a fire takes out the forest. Pines have failed to return to much of the great 1910 burn in northern
Idaho, possibly because blister rust was already making pine nuts scarce in that area.

Normally, whitebark pines reseed into large burns much faster than other trees, because whitebark pine nuts travel on
adopted wings. Their own undersized wings remain stuck to the cone scales while the cones remain stuck to the branch.
Fat, heavy and wingless, the seeds wouldn’t go far in the wind even if the cone did open, but they fly as far as fourteen
miles in the beaks of Clark’s nutcrackers. Whitebark pine seedlings grow from caches buried and then forgotten by these
birds, who prefer to cache seeds in bare or burned areas, enabling whitebarks to broadly recolonize large burns where
wind-disseminated trees can only crawl back, generation by generation, from the green periphery.

Nutcrackers cache up to 15 pine nuts together. Several may germinate and grow as a clump. Diana Tomback
investigated whether the multi-stemmed form typical of whitebarks is genetic or a result of clumped seedlings fusing as
they grow up. The answer: both, in roughly equal numbers. You can’t tell fusers from clones visually.

In another study, she found that patches of whitebark krummholz destroyed by a fire were replanted by nutcrackers
within a few years. Krummholz whitebarks don’t produce cones (they’re too stressed) so there would be no other way for
the species to get established on sites where it can’t grow erect.

Many characteristics of whitebarks and their Eurasian relatives apparently co-evolved with nutcrackers and their
relatives, having no obvious adaptive value other than to accommodate these birds. Cones are borne on vertical branches
near the top of the tree, making them easy for birds to see and work on. Nutcrackers came to North America from Asia
only two million years ago, likely bringing whitebark pine’s ancestors with them.

They may even help save the species from blister rust. The fungus kills trees from the top down, eliminating cone and
seed production early. In heavily infected stands, nutcrackers are thus forced to find the small percentage of whitebarks
with rust- resistant genes. Unfortunately, these desperately hungry nutcrackers will most likely eat a much higher
proportion of seeds they collect than normally, but those that they do plant will be selected for resistant genes. We have
to hope there are still enough nutcrackers around to take care of the replanting when fires, sooner or later, provide the
seedbeds.

Though long overlooked by forest researchers because of their low commercial value, whitebarks are extraordinarily
valuable to wildlife. Grouse find their dense crowns cozy in winter. Red squirrels and both black and grizzly bears eat
tons of pine nuts. Bears get them by robbing squirrel middens. Blister rust became widespread in the Yellowstone
ecosystem only in the 1990s but it’s already seen as a serious threat to grizzly recovery there.

Excerpted with permission from Rocky Mountain Natural History - Grand Teton to Jasper. Raven Editions, Portland OR, 2003.

Addition to the Flora of Wyoming:

Cynoglossum boreale

Cynoglossum boreale (northern wild
comfrey) CROOK COUNTY: Cynoglossum
boreale is now known from the Black Hills of
Wyoming (Tatina et al. 2004). It was discovered
in northern and east-central parts of the Bear
Lodge Mountains during 2002 plant surveys and
documented from 37 locales.

Cynoglossum boreale is a perennial that
grows up to 0.5 m tall in open coniferous and
deciduous forests of the Black Hills between 1200
and 1500 m. It is native to boreal forests of
Canada and hardwood forests of the
northeastern United States. All of the Wyoming
locales where it was documented showed signs of
disturbance associated with logging or grazing,
and the authors present this addition to the
Wyoming flora as reinforcing an earlier hypothesis
(Larson and Johnson 1995) that C. boreale
migrated or was introduced recently to the Black
Hills and is becoming more widely established.

What is a native species? A USDA
definition is widely -used: “A plant that lives or

Relicts and Refugia - continued from p. 1

a need for baseline systematic inventory. The
second stage of peatland inventory spanned four
large landscapes on the Medicine Bow National
Forest that represent about 10% of the national
forest. Digitized soils mapping, National Wetland
Inventory mapping, and color aerial photographs
were used to survey all large areas of the two
soils units containing organic soils. One hundred
fifty-six fen sites were ground-truthed and
digitized. They are located primarily in
drainageway settings, and to a lesser extent, in
glacial kettles (Heidel and Thurston 2004).

Finally, intensive documentation of fen
vegetation and flora were conducted at a set of
sites representing the array of fens this last
summer (Heidel and Jones in preparation). The
flora includes five new additions to the southern
Wyoming flora (Table 1), and they are rare and
localized compared to the extensive fen habitat.

grows naturally in a particular region without direct
or indirect human intervention.” The possibility
that Cynoglossum boreale has spread or was
originally introduced in Wyoming by human
intervention is inferred by its habitat affinities and
the timing of discovery after extensive floristic
work had already been conducted (Marriott
1985).

The characteristics of Cynoglossum
boreale that distinguish it from C. offbinale include
its blue corolla, obovoid nutlets, and absence of
leaves on the flowering stem.

Literature cited

Larson, G.E. and J.R. Johnson. 1995. New vascular plant
records for the Black Hills of South Dakota and
Wyoming. Prairie Naturalist 27:115-121.

Marriott, H. 1985. Flora of the northwestern Black Hills,
Crook and Weston counties, Wyoming. M.S.
Thesis. University of Wyoming, Laramie.

Tatina, R., V. Coenen, N. Tashe, K. Barton, C. Dockrill,

A. Joynt, and B. Leoppky. 2004. Rrst record of
northern wild comfrey from Wyoming. Prairie
Naturalist 36: 125-126.

Table 1. New additions to the southern Wyoming flora
on peatlands of the Medicine Bow Range

SCI ENTI H C
NAME

COMMON

NAME

NEAREST WY

LOCALES

NEAREST CO
LOCALES

(from Weber
and Wittmann
2001)

Car ex leptalea

Bristly-

stalk

sedge

Absaroka, Beartooth
and Teton ranges

Colorado

Springs,

Tarryall

Range

Eriophorum

gracile

Slender

cotton-

grass

Beartooth Range,
Jackson Hole

South Park

Muhlenbergia

glomerata

Marsh

muhly

Absaroka Range,

Black Hills, Jackson
Hole, Upper Green
River

Absent

Sparganium

natans

Small

bur-reed

Absaroka,

Beartooth,

Yellowstone

Plateau, Jackson

Hole, Wind River
ranges

At scattered

subalpine

locales

Trichophorum

pumilum

(Scirpus

pumilus)

Pygmy

bulrush

Absaroka and Gros
Ventre ranges and
Jackson Hole

South Park

Relicts and Refugia - continued from p. 9

The Medicine Bow peatland flora also
includes two species once known from a few
Medicine Bow Range locales, including Carex
paupercula {Carex magellanica', Bog sedge) and
Epilobium oregonense (Oregon willow-herb) that
have been documented to be widespread in the
Range. The bryophyte flora was also
investigated.

Fens on the Medicine Bow Range
represent more than odd vestiges of northern
plant distributions; they are a major slice of
Medicine Bow Range wetland vascular plant
species and habitat diversity. Furthermore, they
comprise a high proportion of net wetland
acreage and significant total landscape area,
spanning over 1% of the entire landscape of the
two largest study areas. The largest fen site was
89.4 acres, and the longest fen site was 1.5 miles
in length.

The fens may also be important in
regional water cycles. A hydrological study at the
“Elk Creek study bog” suggested it functioned like
a sponge at the head of a drainageway, providing
slow, stable water release. Its subsurface peat
was 80-85% water by volume, with hydraulic
conductivity averaging a sluggish 0.0239 cm per
day (Sturges 1967). Yet this same fen readily
returned water to the atmosphere, like an
evapotranspiration “pump” (Sturges 1968).

Medicine Bow refugia and relicts lie in
secret no longer, but they still hold puzzles to
their past, present and future.

REFUGIA are natural habitats that have remained
stable over time, and are more restricted in the
present than they were in the geological past.
RELICTSare species or vegetation stands that
had more widespread distribution in the geological
past than in the present, persisting in a given
area. FEN is a type of peatland, i.e., wetland
where organic matter accumulates under
saturated conditions, and that receives significant
inputs of water and dissolved solids from a
mineral source rather than solely from the
atmosphere.

Acknowledgements This work was conducted through
challenge cost-share project agreements between
Medicine Bow National Forest and Wyoming Natural
Diversity Database.

Literature cited

Heidel, B and S. Laursen. 2003a. Botanical and ecological
inventory of peatland sites on the Medicine Bow
National Forest. Prepared for Medicine Bow
National Forest. Wyoming Natural Diversity
Database, Laramie.

Heidel, B and S. Laursen. 2003b. Botanical and ecological
inventory of peatland sites on the Shoshone
National Forest. Prepared for Shoshone National
Forest. Wyoming Natural Diversity Database,
Laramie.

Heidel, B. and R. Thurston. 2004. Extensive inventory of
peatland sites on the Medicine Bow National
Forest. Prepared for the Medicine Bow National
Forest. Wyoming Natural Diversity Database,
Laramie.

Heidel, B. and G. Jones. In preparation. Botanical and

ecological characteristics of peatlands on Medicine
Bow National Forest.

Mellmann-Brown, S. 2004. Botanical and ecological
inventory of selected peatland sites on the
Shoshone National Forest. Prepared for Shoshone
National Forest. Wyoming Natural Diversity
Database, Laramie.

Sturges, D. L. 1967. Water quality as affected by a
Wyoming mountain bog. Water Resources
Research 3(4): 1085-1089.

Sturges, D. L. 1968. Hydrologic properties of peat from a
Wyoming mountain bog. Soil Science 106:262-264

Raising Livestock
and Lowering Carbon Dioxide

A prospective new economic enterprise is
proposed for private grazing lands in Wyoming -
sequestering “carbon credits” in rangeland soils
(Campbell et al. 2004). The premise is that
carbon credits can be created by adopting range
management practices that store carbon
compounds faster than current practices, and
that new storage capacity can be evaluated
economically and sold.

The carbon storage potential and costs of
seeding alfalfa, thinning sagebrush, mineral block
placement, and dispersing range utilization thru
water developments were compared individually
and collectively. Ranting alfalfa showed the largest
increase in carbon storage, but mineral block
placement was the most cost-effective approach
to creating carbon credits. Private grazing lands in
the U.S. are said to hold the capacity to store
additional carbon equivalent to about 5% of the
total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, so the
researchers concluded that carbon credits hold
promise in raising livestock and lowering carbon
dioxide in Wyoming.

Literature cited

Campbell, S., S. Mooney, J.P. Hewlett, D.J. Menkhaus, and
G.F. Vance. 2004. Can ranchers slow climate change?
Rangelands 26; 16-22.

10

Wyoming Native Plant Society

2005 Botany Research Scholarship

Applications are due by 28 January 2005.

Scholarships will be awarded in March, 2005.

Electronic copies of the scholarship application are also
posted on the WNPS homepage at:
www.uwyo.edu/wyndd/wnps/wnps_home.htm

The Wyoming Native Plant Society was established in 1981 for the purpose of encouraging appreciation and
knowledge of the native flora of Wyoming. Towards this end, the Society has promoted research on native plants and
habitats in Wyoming through its annual scholarship program. One to three scholarships in the amounts of $300-500 are
awarded each year to undergraduate or graduate students conducting research in Wyoming. Projects may address any
aspect of vascular and nonvascular botany, including taxonomy, ecology, genetics, plant geography, range science,
population biology, physiology, palaeontology, and mycology.

2005 Student Scholarship Application

Name

Address

School

Department Advisor

Project Title

Research Goals and Objectives.

Summary of Project: On 1-2 separate pages, please include introductory information, methods, and
budget information that state the intended purpose of the funding in overall project plans.

Please send completed applications to:

Wyoming Native Plant Society
PO Box 2500
Laramie, WY 82073

Deadline for applications: 28 January 2005.

11

Gardeners’ Guide: Natives vs. Imposters

Fall is a great time to plant trees, shrubs and
many perennials. But have you ever visited the garden
center and wondered which plants were native and good
for wildlife, and which ones were problematic invasive
exotics?

The talented staff at eNature and National
Wildlife Federation have created a new field guide to
native and invasive plants. Unlike other native/ invasive
guides, this guide focuses on plants that are commonly
found at garden centers or in plant catalogs so it's
relevant to the home gardener.

The plant guides are searchable by state and
the native list can then be sub-divided according to plant
type (for example, evergreen shrubs, wildflowers, vines
or aquatic plants). Each plant has a color photo and a
full field guide description as well.

This guide is going to be an invaluable resource
to anyone wanting to garden in an environmentally-
friendly way and is a much needed resource to backyard
wildlife habitat enthusiasts. Check it out!
httD://enature.com/native invasive/natives.asp .

The Wyoming Native Plant Society, established in
1981, is a non-profit organization dedicated to
encouraging the appreciation and conservation of the
native flora and plant communities of Wyoming. The
Society promotes education and research on native
plants of the state through its newsletter, field trips, and
annual student scholarship award. Membership is open
to individuals, families, or organizations with an interest
in Wyoming’s flora. Members receive Castilleja, the
Society’s quarterly newsletter, and may take part in all
of the Society’s programs and projects,
including the annual meeting/field trip held each
summer. Dues are $7.50 annually. To join or renew,
return this form to:

Wyoming Native Plant Society
P.O. Box 2500
Laramie, WY 82073

Name: _
Address:

$7.50 Regular Membership

$15.00 Scholarship Supporting Member

($7.50 goes to the annual scholarship fund)

1