November-December 2002 Sego Lily Newsletter, Utah Native Plant Society

8/9/2019 November-December 2002 Sego Lily Newsletter, Utah Native Plant Society

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VOLUME 25, ISSUE 6

NOV/DEC 2002

2002002Contents

You can save a tree, reduce waste, and give moremoney to UNPS programs at no extra cost to you! Toogood to be true? Not at all! Simply elect to receive theSego Lily in electronic format only. This saves usprinting and mailing costs, and every penny savedis a penny we can devote to the core programs ofUNPSto education and research promoting theconservation of native plants.

For example, our grant-in-aid program has re-centlyawardedgrants to sup-port surveys ofthreatened native plants in the CapitolReef National Park area, tamarisk removal in Di-nosaur National Monument, research on whatmakes yellow starthistle such a threatening inva-sive weed, and more. Additionally, we have con-

tributed to weed eradication programs, local resto-ration efforts, and publication costs of educationalbrochures. But all of this takes money and our re-sources are stretched thin. We dont want to raisedues again, so help us the cost-free way. Visit theweb site to sign up today for electronic only deliv-ery! Newsletters will be archived electronically soyou will always have access to them, or print themout yourself.

NOV/DEC 2002

Special Sego Lily Internet

Offer for all Members!

Special Sego Lily Internet Offer for all Mem-bers

Letter Calling for Equal Protection of Plants

UNPS Annual Members Meeting

Summary of Great Basin Nation Park FieldTrip

Events and Chapter News

NOV/DEC 2002


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PAGE 2 VO LU ME 25 , IS SUE 6

The Utah Native Plant Society is signatory to the following open letter which is a part of the Equal Protection forPlants Campaign initiated by the California Native Plant Society. This letter has been included as in the appendix of a2002 publication referenced below.

Open Letter calling for Equal Protection for Plants under the Federal Endangered Species Act, June 24, 1999

Plants and animals contribute equally to the stability, health, and functions of the ecosystems on which we alldepend for survival. However, plants and animals are not treated equally under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

Federally listed plant species are among the rarest and most imperiled species in our nation. But althoughthe Federal Endangered Species Act prohibits the unauthorized destruction or even harm of Federally listed animalseverywhere they occur, it allows many listed plants to be killed, without limit, on non-Federal lands, except in re-stricted circumstances.* In fact, some plant species can be knowingly driven to extinction without violating the FederalAct.

Lesser protection for plants is unsupportable biologically. It disregards our current understanding that plantsand animals are inextricably intertwined in the structure and functioning of healthy ecosystems.

Unless plant species are protected from extinction as vigorously as animals, efforts to conserve biologicaldiversity will inevitably fail. Plants and animals depend upon each other for food, habitat, indeed for their very sur-vival. We cannot arbitrarily pick only one kingdom to protect. Ecosystems cannot survive with only one group or theother.

For these reasons, the undersigned organizations urge that the Federal Endangered Species Act beamended to provide the same protection for plants that it currently provides for animals through all of its policies, pro-grams, and penalties.

Signed (as of June 20, 2002),1. National Parks and Conservation Association, Washington DC

2. Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC3. American Lands Alliance, Washington DC

4. Endangered Habitats League, San Diego, CA5. Endangered Species Coalition, Washington DC

6. Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, Sacramento, CA7. Pacific Rivers Council, Portland, Or

8. California Botanical Society, Sacramento, CA9. Oregon Natural Resources Council Action, Eugene, OR

10. Sequoia Forest Alliance, Weldon, CA11. Safe Alternatives for our Forest Environment, Hayfork, CA

12. Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers, Missoula MT13. Forest Issues Group, Grass Valley, CA

14. Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation, Georgetown, CA

15. Whidbey Environmental Action Network, Seattle, WA16. Oregon Natural Desert Association, Portland, OR

17. Grassroots Environmental Effectiveness Network, Washington DC18. Center for Biological Diversity, Tuscon, AZ

19. Society for Conservation Biology20. Student Environmental Action Coalition, Normal Il

21. Defenders of Wildlife, Washington DC22. John Wesley Powell Audubon Society, Normal IL

23. US PIRG, Washington DC24. Florida Native Plant Society

25. Native Plant Society of Oregon

Letter Calling for Equal Protection of Plants


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PAGE 3VOLUME 25, ISSUE 6

UNPS ANNUAL MEMBERS MEETING!

New World Pot Luck Dinner &

Election of Directors

Bill King will present Stalking the Wild

Penstemon of Southern Utah

Friday November 22, 2002, 6:30 pm

Sugarhouse Garden Center, 1602 E 2100 SSalt Lake City

For more info call Bill 801-582-0432

26. Texas Committee on Natural Resources (TCONR)27. Washington Native Plant Society

28. Southern California Botanists29. Indiana Native Plant and Wildflower Society

30. The Wilderness Society, Washington DC31. The Sierra Club, Washington DC

32. Friends of Georgia, Inc., Stone Mountain, GA33. North Carolina Wild Flower Preservation Society

34. Botanical Society of America35. Society for Conservation Biology, Missouri Chapter

36. T&E Inc., Cortaro, Arizona37. Utah Native Plant Society

*Section 9 (a) (1) of the ESA (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.) gives animals full protection from destructionwithin the United States or the territorial sea of the United States or upon the high seas. But Section 9 (a) (2) (B)of the ESA prohibits destruction of Federally listed plant species only on areas under Federal jurisdiction. Plantsalso cannot be killed in knowing violation of state law, while trespassing, or in violation of Section 7 of the ESAwhich governs Federal agency actions.

Therefore, listed plants are only protected (1) on Federal lands or during activities that are funded, permit-ted, or carried out by a Federal agency and are therefore under Federal jurisdiction, or (2) in the unlikely event thatit can be proved that they are destroyed in knowing violation of state law or during trespassing. Logging, housingdevelopment, mining, and other activities may all kill unlimited numbers of Federally listed plants, even cause ex-tinction of a species, as long as the destruction does not meet these conditions.

The foregoing was excerpted from an appendix in the following publication: Roberson, E.B. 2002. Barriers to Na-tive Plant Conservation in the United States: funding, staffing, law. Native Plant Conservation Campaign, Califor-nia Native Plant Society, Sacramento, CA and Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson, AZ

For more information contact the Native Plant Conservation Campaign c/o California Native Plant Society, 1722 J.St., Suite 17, Sacramento CA 95814. Emily B. Roberson, Ph.D., Project Director. Phone: 415.970.0394. Fax:916.447.2727. [email protected]. Web: www.cnps.org, www.biologicaldiversity.org


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August 10-11, 2002

David Wallace, Cache UNPS

I couldnt resist the chance for a field-trip to Great Basin National Park. Itsbeen too long since I visited this won-derful place, and it was my last op-portunity for an outing before schoolstarted. Things turned out even bet-ter than expected, with good weather,

great company, and an outstandingnatural experience.

Bill King,UNPS Conserva-tion CommitteeChairman, organ-ized the event asa joint activitywith the WasatchRock Garden So-

ciety. Billemailed a me-ticulous set ofinstructions, withtravel and ac-commodation in-formation anddetails about theplanned activi-ties. The tripwas bound to be

a success withsuch carefulplanning! Thir-teen people par-ticipated: BeaMayes, ParkCity; Bob and Judy Johnson, Kaysville; JeffBrimley, Bountiful; Thel and Wendy Noyes,Layton; Richard Jonas, Salt Lake City; Nancy

Summary of Great Basin National Park Field Trip

Forest, Salt Lake; Dick Van Reyper, Park

City; Kees Jan van Zwienen, Alblasserdam,Netherlands; Dave Wallace, Logan; and Billand Cathy King, Salt Lake City.

Its a long drive from Logan,

and it was late Friday night when Ifinally arrived at the 10,000 ft. ele-vation Wheeler Peak Campground.There were no available campsites,but fortunately Bill and Cathy leftenough room to park behind theircar. Most of the participantscamped here, a good way to avoidthe valley heat and to get a headstart on high-elevation acclimatiza-tion.

The next morning everyonemet for a hike to the famous bristle-cone pine forest. Interpretive signsalong the trail explained how re-

searchers use an incremental borer to deter-mine the age of the trees, and the age wasprovided for several individual trees. Most of

Looking toward Wheelr Peak and the rock glacier

Standing next to a 3200 year-old bristlecone


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the group continued up the trail to the rockglacier at the base of Wheeler Peak.

This area is famous as the location of the old-est living tree, a 5000 year-old bristlecone

pine known as Prometheus. In 1964, a re-searcher cut the tree down and sliced it intopieces to get an accurate count of the rings.The U.S. ParkService doesntadvertise thelocation, but the1965 journalarticle showswhere it is1.

It was arough scrambleover the boul-ders, but wefound Prome-theus withouttoo much trou-ble. The stumpand otherpieces looked

much the sameas when I lastsaw them in1989, but therewas evidence ofsome recent(but minor) sou-venir collecting.Its depressingto see these pathetic remains, when we couldhave been admiring the oldest living tree on

earth instead.

After the hike, we all met back at thecampground for a potluck dinner. The nextmorning, several of us hiked to the nearbylakes. There was evidence of a spectaculardisplay of Parrys Primrose along the creek,but it was too late in the season (maybe well

come back in July next time?). We alsostopped at the visitors center before leavingthe Park. In past years, a slab from Prome-theus was mounted anonymously and incon-spicuously a wall. It was a pleasant surpriseto see it prominently displayed as the show-

piece of the centers main exhibit.

When the 5000year-old tree wascut down in 1964,bristlecone pineswere known asPinus aristata. In1970, D.K. Baileynamed the Great

Basin bristleconepine Pinus lon-gaeva, to distin-guish it from theRocky Mountainbristlecone pine,still known as P.aristata2. P. lon-gaeva is geo-graphically sepa-rate, and it has sig-

nificant morphologi-cal differences.The most obviousdifference is theneedles. P.aristata usually haswhite exudations ofresin on the nee-dles, yet the nee-dles ofP. longaeva

are shiny and green. You can usually seethis dandruff on the needles of the P.aristata bristlecone pines found in the nurs-ery trade.

Scientists named the 5000 year-oldtree Prometheus several years before itwas cut down, and we now know it was 2000years older than any other tree in the area.In 1964, an incremental borer was used to

Location of WPN-114, from the 1965 journal article


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help find the oldest tree at Wheeler Peak.When the researcher encountered difficulty ac-curately establishing its age, he successfully pe-titioned theForest Ser-vice to cutdown the

tree hecalled WPN-114. Hegreatly un-derstates thesignificanceof this actionin his 1965

journal arti-cle: To fa-cilitate com-

pilation of along-termtree-ringchronologyfor the Wheeler Peak area, one of the lar-ger living bristlecone pines was sectioned.

Ive often condemned the perpetra-tor of this unfortunate deed, but there areother cases where researchers havecollected unique specimens in the name

of science. Michael P. Cohen inA Gardenof Bristlecones claims a benefit resultedfrom the felling of Prometheus. Cohensays the scientific discoveries were lesspowerful as arguments for reserving bristle-cone groves than the controversy sur-rounding the cutting of WPN-114 becausethat event was used by writers to attack theForest Service and to plead for preserva-tion. In other words, the cutting of Prome-theus helped to preserve the bristlecone

pines and to establish Great Basin NationalPark.

References:

Currey, Donald R. An Ancient BristleconePine Stand in Eastern Nevada Ecology, 46(1965): 564-66

1. Bailey, D.K. Phytogeography and Tax-onomy of Pinus Subsection Balfourianae.

Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden57 (1970) 210-49

Cohen, Michael

P.A Garden ofBristlecones:Tales of Changein the Great Ba-sin. Reno: Uni-versity of Ne-vada Press,1998

Pondering the remains

Admiring a magnificent tree


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Events and Chapter News

Inspired by Nature talk at

Red Butte Gardens

Marcia Tatroe will give a talk on Friday, No-

vember 1, 2002 at Red Butte Gardens at 7PM. Her lecture is entitled "Inspired by Na-ture - Gardens that reflect the Intermoun-tain Beauty" Marcia is a horticulturist, de-signer and author from Denver Colorado.$5 for UNPS members $7 for nonmembers.

USUEcology Center

Seminars

All seminars will beheld in the Natural Re-sources BuildingRoom 105, Utah StateUniversity. Each

speaker will give twoseminars: Wednes-day: 6-7PM, Thurs-day: 3-4PM.

For a complete list of seminar titles and ab-stracts, please see the website

(www.usu.edu/ecology/eco-cntr.htm)

November 20-21, 2002: Jayne Belnap, U.S.Geological Survey, Moab, Utah.

December 4-5, 2002: Steve Polasky, De-partment of Ecological/Environmental Eco-nomics, University of Michigan

January 15-16, 2003: Nancy Grimm, De-partment of Biology, Arizona State University

Bristlecone pine and prairie on top of LDS conference center


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Utah PERMIT No.327

UNPSUtah Native Plant SocietyP.O. Box 520041Salt Lake City, UT 84152-0041

For more information about theUtah Native Plant Society call:

Bill King: 582-0432Susan Garvin: 356-5108Larry Meyer: 272-3275Or write to: [email protected]

Many thanks to Xmission forsponsoring the Utah NativePlant Society website.

Please direct all suggestions,articles and events for thenewsletter to Paula Mohadjerat [email protected]. Thedeadline for next issue isDecember 13.

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Lily to the above individual.

Please enclose a check, payable toUtah NativePlant Society and send it to:

MembershipUtah Native Plant SocietyP.O.Box 520041Salt Lake City, Utah 84152-0041

UTAH NATIVE PLANT SOCIETYPresident: Susan MeyerPresident Elect: Larry MeyerTreasurer: Ben FranklinSecretary: Therese MeyerNewsletter Editor: Paula Mohadjer

CHAPTER PRESIDENTSCache: Tami ColemanCanyonlands: Kara Dohrenwend &

Sarah HeffronCentral Utah ChapterMountain: Abby Moore

Price: Mike HubbardSalt Lake: Mindy WheelerSouthern Utah: Mike EmpeyUtah Valley: Phil Allen

COMMITTEESHorticulture: Susan MeyerConservation: Bill KingEducation: Mindy WheelerInvasive Species: Phil AllenCommunications: Paula Mohadjer

Utah Native Plant Society Membership and Information

Check out ourwebsite!

www.unps.org

Bitsy Schultz

Utah LadyfingerAstragalus utahensis

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November-December 2002 Sego Lily Newsletter, Utah Native Plant Society