Carlquistia muirii (Muir's tarplant)

By Duncan Bell, SoCal Rare Plant Treasure Hunt Field Botanist


Presumably in the year 1875 a man named John Muir was clambering around a large mountain range called the Sierra Nevada in an area known as Yosemite Valley and came across a plant he did not recognize. Mr. Muir made a collection of this plant and sent it to a man named John Redfield who would in turn send it to a man named Asa Gray who would recognize it as a new species and name it for Mr. Muir. Obviously this plant had been around for hundreds of years but this would be the first time that it was found and taken in by the arms of science. So what’s the story behind the naming of this plant?



Sherwin Carlquist (Wikipedia)

 The Genus Carlquistia is named for botanist Sherwin Carlquist who is a California native and was a professor at multiple universities here in California, but did most of his field work internationally. This Genus was described by California’s great and busy bee botanist Bruce Baldwin who has been doing a lot of genetic work on the Composite family.



John Muir sitting by stream
(John Muir National Historic Site)

The species muirii is named for iconic California resident and really the world founder of the conservation movement John Muir. This species was described by Asa Gray based on a specimen that was first collected by John Muir. Asa Gray was one the most important botanists for North America as he would study and describe hundreds of new species. Gray worked as professor of natural history at Harvard University and was in continuous correspondence with Muir as Muir would continually send him plant specimens from the west.

As the years would go by other botanists found other populations of Carlquistia muirii. In total there are 21 known populations. C. muirii is a California endemic and is a California Native Plant Society California Rare Plant Rank 1B.3. It is found within the national parks and national forests of the Sierra Nevada with one population known from BLM land but within a wilderness area.



Climbing towards Church Dome. (photo by Duncan S. Bell)

If you choose to visit any of these populations you need a good amount of time as most are far from any road and you need a strong sense of adventure as this plant likes to grow on steep exposed rocky slopes and cliff faces often growing in very little soil with pine duff. It is the sort of plant that John Muir would describe as “the noblest plant mountaineers I ever saw” for they grow in inhospitable out of reach places.


Steep rocky slopes and cliffs were Carquistia muirii grows.
Plant can be seen at bottom right. (photo by Duncan S. Bell)

 I decided I would like to see this plant in its natural habitat and decided on a population that had not been visited in over 30 years that was found on Church Dome within the Domeland wilderness in Sequoia National Forest first found by explorer and botanist extaordinaire Jim Shevock. The record on the California Natural Diversity Database for this population states that this population is best reached from the east side of Church Dome. I was spending the next three days in the area by myself with no cell phone reception or radio and as I got closer to the base of the east side of the dome I decided that it would be suicide to climb up that way so I headed for the center and later headed east where the scrambling was more manageable. I’m glad I made my approach in this manner as I found Shevocks population as well as a few others further to the west. The trip was a success.



Carlquistia muirii growing out of cliff face.
(photo by Duncan S. Bell)

 I spent the entire afternoon and evening clambering around Church Dome taking notes and GPS points and just as the sun was setting I made it off the cliffs and back into the forest below to make camp for the night.
People remember John Muir most frequently as the founder of our conservation programs and our national parks and often forget that he was highly interested in the word of botany and made actual plant collections that are in herbaria today. He may not have made a lot of collections and some of his location data for the collections was very minimal but in his writing one can find his passion for the plant world. One of my favorite written pieces from Muir revealing his botanical curiosity was from a letter he had written to his close friend Jeanne Carr describing the vast wildflowers of California:


Carquistia muirii is a mat-forming rhizomatous plant that is
often found growing out of rock cracks (photo by Duncan S. Bell)

“All one sea of golden and purple bloom so deep and dense that in walking through it you would press more than a hundred flowers at every step. In this flower-bed, five hundred miles long I used to camp by just lying down wherever the night overtook me, and the flowers closed over me as if I had sunk beneath the waters of a lake; the radiant heads of the compositae touching each other, ray to ray, shone above me like the thickest star-cluster of the sky; and in the morning, I sometimes found plants that were new to me looking me in the face, so that my botanical studies would begin before I got up.”



Carlquistia muirii inflorescence
(photo by Duncan S. Bell)

I’m very happy I was able to re-find this historic population of Carlquistia muirii and spend some time with a plant that was named for two great California botanists.   –Duncan S. Bell

Adding to the Life-List

By Duncan Bell, SoCal Rare Plant Treasure Hunt Field Botanist

A “life-list” is a term used by birders, botanist, entomologists and other groups of the natural sciences to refer to a list of all the different species they have identified. You will occasionally hear someone in the field say “That’s a lifer!” which means they have identified a species for the very first time and can then add it to their life-list if they choose to.

One of my favorite things I love about taking volunteers out to the desert is not just showing them rare plants but introducing them to common plants as well. Often every plant we come across is a “lifer” for them. It’s always fun to watch them fall in love for the first time with some of my old favorites such as Desert Calico (Loeseliastrum matthewsii) with its flowers like little faces looking back at you, Frost Mat (Achyronychia cooperii) with its star fish like branches, Parachute plant (Atrichoseris platyphylla) with its beautifully bizarre succulent leaves, and Ghost Flower (Mohavea confertiflora) which often grows with and mimics Blazing Star (Mentzelia involcrata) and takes advantage of its pollinators.

I personally don’t keep a life-list but I admit that I will occasionally shout out “That’s a lifer!” on occasion when I find something new and exciting. I have been exploring the plants of our great California deserts for about three years now and it always surprises me how many species I come across that are life-list species for me. I’m really starting to believe that our California deserts are so botanically diverse that one can spend a lifetime exploring them and still always find something new and different.

Just in the past few months I have come across over two dozen life-list species all of which are CNPS California rare plant ranked plants. I thought it would be great to share a few photos and finds with everyone.

Grusonia parishii (Cactaceae) [CNPS CRPR 2.2] is commonly known as “dead cactus” and for good reason, it actually looks like it’s dead. I was very excited when I came across this species this year but was immediately concerned as it appeared that the plant we found was just a dried up dead shell. I gave it a little prod and found it turgid and very much alive, thank goodness.

Physalis lobata (Solanaceae) [CNPS CRPR 2.3] commonly called “lobed ground cherry” was a lucky find out at the Sheephole mountains as it appears to be dependent on those patchy and uncommon late summer rains which this area was lucky to have received last year.

Ipomopsis tenuifolia (Polemoniaceae) [CNPS CRPR 2.3] commonly known as “slenderleaf skyrocket” is found in the southwest corner of the Colorado desert growing in granitic soils among boulders in the Jacumba mountains. Very showy.

Wislizenia refracta ssp. palmeri (Cleomaceae) [CNPS CRPR 2.2] commonly known as “Palmers jackass clover” is only known from a few populations in California. This one was found while out on a sunrise hike across the Palen sand dunes.

Enceliopsis covillei (Asteraceae) [CNPS CRPR 1B.2] commonly known as the “Panamint daisy” as they are only found in the Panamint mountains. We returned to the type locality which is where this species was first collected during the Death Valley Expedition 121 years ago. Also, you may not know this but this is the large daisy that adorns the CNPS logo.

Mentzelia hirsutissima (Loasaceae) [CNPS CRPR 2.3] commonly known as “hairy stickleaf”. We went looking for this species at several locations last year with no luck. Third times the charm? This was found this year just a few miles north of the U.S./Mexico border.

Linanthus maculatus (Polemoniaceae) [CNPS CRPR 1B.2] commonly known as the “Little San Bernardino Mtns. Linanthus” but no longer only known from the Little San Bernardino mountains as the populations are now known from near the town of Ocotillo in Imperial county and unique as they are all missing their spots. This species is a true “belly plant” as you must get down onto your belly to observe them as they are so small; on average they are about the size of a penny. Unfortunately these cute little guys are threatened by the Ocotillo Express wind project that has begun bulldozing the area.

Selaginella eremophila (Selaginellaceae) [CNPS CRPR 2.2] commonly known as “desert spikemoss” may not be the cutest plant but I had never seen it before and was very excited when I found it growing in amongst the boulders I was climbing.

These are just a few of the “lifers” I found this year and hopefully I will find some time to post more at a later date. If you would like to add a rare plant to your life-list or just go looking for rare plants in general then feel free to contact someone at CNPS and they can direct you on how to do so. This is also a good time to remind everyone that rare plants are rare for a reason and any collecting of rare plants without a special permit is absolutely illegal. One of the best rules to follow is to take only photographs and leave only footprints. And try to leave as few footprints as possible. And watch out for those “belly plants”!



Quest for the Panamint Daisy

Exactly 121 years plus one day since Coville's 1891 hike into the Panamint Mountains and described the huge, rugged Panamint daisy, the Southern California Rare Plant Treasure Hunters made a second attempt to verify the occurence of the iconic rarity.

A very dry year was exacerbated by 95-degree early morning heat, as the Enceliopsis seekers marched across the 2-mile stretch of valley floor to the canyon's mouth, and were greeted with a sweet sliver of swiftly moving snow melt flowing through the aluvium.

Once soaked in H20 salvation, the seekers continued another mile, until the canyon gave way to nearly impassable combinations of boulders, slots and shale walls. They stopped to rest and assess, and finally determined this year's conditions were too extreme for both the daisy and its would-be finders.

Hoisting their packs and turning shoulders against disappointment, a distant flash of golden radiance caught a botanist's eye. Cameras whiplashed, counters counted, rulers ruled and rejoicers beamed. Though scavenged by desperate insects, partial petals of happiness fluttered in the the noon-day sun, and for this 121-year nano second of botanical history, the Panamint daisy lives on.

(by Kim Clark)
 



It should be noted that most populations of the extremely rare Panamint daisy are located and protected inside Death Valley National Park, where collecting reduces genetic diversity, seed production and future populations, and carries a $5,000 fine. The collection noted above did not include a whole plant, was one in 121 years, outside the park boundaries, under legal permit by a qualified botanist as an herbarium specimen to forward conservation and preservation. If you ever have the pleasure of gazing upon this beautiful creature, please take only pictures. A permit is always required to collect plants on public lands, and permission should be sought and granted on private lands. Happy Botanizing!

The Castle Mountains Rare Plant Treasure Hunt - whoot!!!
by Kim Clark

Once off interstate 15 and heading for Castle Mountainss, the Joshua tree woodland (with silver cholla and blackbush understory) spread far and wide, becoming so dense you couldn't see the space in between. The old and stately Joshua trees sported every bizarre configuration imaginable, while the young shot up in naive-green enthusiasm. Not bad for a low-rain year. The 4,200 ft. elevation evaded the low-land heat, and we had the pleasure of botanizing in mid-70s temps with occasional gusty breezes.

Walking a transect across the banks of a wide seasonal wash, club cholla (Grusonia parishii) was our first find. Scattered amongst an old mining-days midden heap, the matted, sprawling cholla looked as dead as described in books, but was firmly rooted and awaiting rains before daring any show of life.

Down the canyon and into the next wash, we were quickly rewarded for our efforts with several showy finds of Pinto beardtounge (Penstemon bicolor) against dramatic outcroppings of rhyolite and basalt. The most enthusiastic specimen was over 3 feet tall.
We stumbled upon the tiny Tragia ramosa, which stung the tips of our unsuspecting fingers as we collected. Several motionless desert horned lizards and a darting collard lizard engaged our cameras on the scenic hike back to camp. 

The desert sun set on our decant feast of fresh cold fruits, cheeses, rosemary bread and dips, avocado and cucumber salad, zesty limed-rice with green onions and cilantro, various proteins and a pear-blueberry galette. Our wine parings toasted the moonrise over Hart peak, as we oriented to the early evening planets and the north star. Later we took shelter under our rain flies, in an effort to avoid an all-night interrogation from an insistent full moon.

Early enough the next morning we headed for the Nevada border, and hiked southwest back into a promising California canyon. The rocks were entirely distracting with geode-like formations, concretions, basalt, worked obsidian flakes, Apache tears and all manner of sparkling gems strewn in our path, making the going much slower than anticipated. Unlike the customary crunch sound of desert hiking, a variety of chiseled stones tumbled and tinkled like melodious wind chimes as we made our way up canyon. 

A fortunate bend in the wash yielded several hoped-for finds of Plains flax (Linum puberulum), Red four o'clocks (Mirabiulis coccinea) and many more hot-pink Penstemons.

We hiked to the headwall, and wondered at the barrel cactus, some with red spines, others with golden, the coyote skull, and the heavily fruit-laden juniper dotting the landscape.

Happy botanizers ended the afternoon with a revival of the previous night's feast, then headed for gas and the 4.5 hour drive home. Volunteers are the nicest people in the world; there because they want to be, bringing their lively spirits, good humor, and their own personal experiences testifying to the endless enjoyment of our irreplaceable native ecosystems and bio-regions. In between the laughter and good times, we learned a lot and deepened our relationships with the precious California desert.

San Gabriel Story

Jane Strong, member of the San Gabriel Mountains Chapter, recent winner of our Grand Prize, sent in a nice little write up on the chapter's project: 

"In doing the Rare Plant Treasure Hunt for the second year in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, I'm struck by how things change and how things stay the same.

Take road conditions, for example. Last year, 2010, it was a detour around the burn area adding more miles and more driving time required to reach the study area. This year, it was two washouts closing the road miles before the usual starting point necessitating a 7-mile snowshoe journey. However, another road opened up on the south side of the mountains in late March. Now only a 4-mile trek up-and-over the main ridge along a narrow, windy, poorly maintained trail was needed to get there. Poor road conditions are always with us, but the reasons for them change.

But the flowers don't wait for the snow and ice to melt or the road to open to bloom. The new routes led to new discoveries! We recorded eight rare species not seen last year.

The most thrilling new find is Fritillaria pinetorum, the stunning pine fritillary, CA Rare Plant Rank 4.3 found along the trail from Crystal Lake (see above photo by Kathryn LaShure). More mountain finds: Eriogonum kennedyi var. alpigenum, southern alpine buckwheat, 1B.3, Heuchera abramsii, Abram's alumroot, 4.3, and Monardella cinerea, gray monardellla, 4.3.

We explored new territory in the Station burn area and found the beautiful San Gabriel Mountains sunflower, Hulsea vestita ssp. gabrielensis, CA Rare Plant Rank 4.3, thriving in the newly exposed ground along Santa Clara Divide Road. Last year we found another species of Hulsea, heterochroma, red-rayed hulsea, not so rare, in the 2002 Curve Fire area. So two burn areas of different ages have two different species of Hulsea as fire followers. Fires are always with us, but the fire following species change.

More Awards and Honorable Mentions

Volunteer Hour Award
The award for most volunteer hours completed goes to both Jane Tirrell for 491 hours and Walt Fidler for 394 hours. These San Gabriel Chapter members visited the Lily Springs study site almost weekly throughout the season.

Honorable Mentions:

The East Bay Chapter put a twist on the Rare Plant Treasure Hunt with their Adopt-a-Rare-Plant Program. In this program’s first year, over thirty volunteers committed to surveying for certain rare plants throughout the East Bay Chapter’s area. Data are still coming in from East Bay, and we are excited to see their results!

Partner Recognition Awards:

Our partner, George Butterworth, working for the DFG, George submitted over 20 survey forms for rare plants in the Carrizo Plain.

And the Desert Survivors Club. Members of the club helped organize, lead and participate in several treasure hunts in the Mojave Desert, many of them traveling from the Sacramento and the East Bay! 

Thank you all for your dedication!

Essay Winner

From John McRae: Lewisia kelloggii. Photographer uncertain

Looking for Lewisia: a Treasure in the Klamath Mountains near Orleans

June 25, 2011

by Carol Ralph

We turned off Highway 96 south of Orleans onto Forest Service roads and rumbled up the steep, forested slopes, leaving behind the smooth, quiet ride of pavement, the sinuous but gentle Klamath River valley, and the comfort of a cell phone signal. Dust, bumps, loose gravel, steep drops by narrow roads are standard fare even on well maintained Forest Service roads. The security of having the most recent Six Rivers National Forest map was eroded by the knowledge that roads on the map could have been blocked, intentionally or accidentally, or roads Forest Service doesn't want used were simply not shown on the map but were still obvious on the ground. The map's campground symbols floated ambiguously in the steep, twisted landscape, indicating only vaguely where the patch of level ground with picnic tables and fire ring were. Security in this country comes from having plenty of water, overnight provisions, at least one spare tire, and tools. Did I mention it is steep? This was wild country, penetrated by fearless bulldozer drivers during the road-building frenzy in the 1970's. Wild, steep, and grand.

In this mountain vastness 15 of us were headed to see a 2-inch tall, 1-inch diameter rock garden flower that blooms for a few weeks in only one place in the entire Klamath Ranges. Armed with good maps and photos provided by the Forest Service botanists we still needed the guidance of Kirk Terrill, the sharp-eyed naturalist who spotted this flower and knew that he hadn't seen it anywhere else in all his years working for the Forest Service in these mountains. It was in the only stand of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) he knew of in these mountains, at about 4,000 ft elevation, between Slate Creek Butte and Cedar Camp. Last year Forest Service botanists determined this flower to be Lewisia kelloggii, previously known only from the Sierra Nevada. Sure enough, there it was, dazzling white pinwheel flowers squeezing above the pebbles of a gentle, rocky, serpentine ridge patched with Huckleberry oak (Quercus vacciniifolia) and manzanita (Arctostaphylos viscida?) and dotted with lodgepole pine. It didn't match the photos we had to help our search image. The photos showed a rosette of leaves, similar to those of Siskiyou lewisia (a.k.a. cliff maids, Lewisia cotyledon). We were looking at flowers with only stubs of leaves below them. Some herbivore--deer? jack-rabbit? caterpillar?-- had enjoyed the small resources of this deep-rooted plant. The flowers had the gland-toothed sepals that define this species. We noted a small, yellow-flowered lomatium, later diagnosed as Lomatium tracyi, growing in the same area, and the stonecrop Sedum laxum ssp heckneri. 

The Forest Service contingent of our group stayed at this site to collect samples for DNA analysis by a Forest Service lab and to scout the full extent of the population. The rest of us drove a short ways to a knoll with a weather station just south of Mud Spring, which had shown promise in aerial photos as habitat similar to where the L. kelloggii was. In reality, it was different--steeper, no lodgepole, a different lomatium, a different sedum. No Lewisia. After establishing camp at Cedar Camp about a mile away, we walked a road-trail to Mosquito Lake, through more rocky and shrubby pine woodland. No Lewisia.

As evening approached we shared a picnic dinner at Cedar Camp, named for incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens), not Port Orford-cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana). Then some of us departed, while 7 camped for the night in the fresh mountain air among the cedar and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Early next morning our Rare Plant Chair, Dave Imper, who has a good sense of direction, discovered that the Lewisia site was 15 minutes away by walking down an old road from Cedar Camp. Our goal for the day was to drive through Louse Camp to Onion Mountain, which has rocky balds that might host Lewisia kelloggii. This road had clearly not received Forest Service attention since the late departure of winter. We dodged rocks and trees on the road. With good teamwork and a scavanged timber we even moved a boulder about the size of a VW bug (well maybe a doghouse) enough to squeeze through a rock fall. We made it to Louse Camp, a lovely refuge under big trees by Bluff Creek, for lunch. Faced with a long uphill across a scree slope that had released lots of rocks onto the road, we abandoned our plan, reversed course, and headed out east to the G-O Road and down to Orleans.

How many botanists does it take to move a boulder? The smart one is watching for falling rocks. We moved the rock Gary is studying. Photo by the author.

This expedition was organized by our chapter and by the Forest Service as a Rare Plant Treasure Hunt, a program started by state CNPS rare plant botanists. We found our treasure in only one place, a known place, so we helped document the extremely restricted extent of this population. We didn't contribute much to the burning questions rare plant biologists face continually: Why only here? and how did it get here? The DNA analysis might clarify a little by suggesting to which other population this L. kelloggii is most closely related

As a road tour of our wild mountains we were more successful. Besides the grandeur we saw spots and corners of beauty and interest: pockets of rhododendron's (Rhododendron macrophyllum) fresh pink flowers or mountain dogwood's (Cornus nuttallii) glowing white; a population of Dicentra formosa ssp. oregana (a rare bleeding heart), expanded from 3 to 50 plants over 27 years; elegant ruffles of Iris tenuissima and I. tenax ssp. klamathensis; white spears of blooming beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax); intriguing, ghostly stems of spotted and western coralroots (Corallorhiza maculata and mertensiana). We discovered places we can recommend others visit: Cedar Camp, Mosquito Lake, Louse Camp. A pre-trip campout by a few of us also tested E-Ne-Nuk Campground along highway 96, and the Bluff Creek Historic Trail, both on the list for future outings. The route followed on our chapter's Lily Heaven field trip winds through these mountains. For the slightly adventurous this area in Six Rivers National Forest offers good botanizing.