Spring has sprung!
Spring is officially here, and while it does not feel like it has in Rich County, the Working Lands Conservation field crew is excited about it! The snow is starting to melt, the grass is turning green and pretty soon, flowers will start to bloom. So today we wanted to share with you some of the beautiful plants that we see out on our rangelands.
To most people, rangelands are barren and dry places with little vegetation. But once you look closely, you can find that these places are actually home to many plant species. We spend a lot of time studying these plants every summer and find beauty in these high desert rangelands. The little plants that grow here have to be tough to survive with little water and blistering hot summers. We want to highlight some of our personal favorites!
Our normal field work usually involves riparian plants, but last summer we had the opportunity to explore the upland areas while adding sage grouse markers to the newly installed fences. That is when we ran into this plant: starveling milkvetch. Astragalus jejunus is considered a vulnerable plant species. It only lives on dry, barren hill slopes in sagebrush communities. Its interesting seed pods make this one a crew favorite.
Another favorite from the upland slopes is the sego lily. Calochortus nuttallii is the Utah state flower. Unlike the starveling milkvetch, the sego lily is abundant throughout the state. Near our sites, you can find one blooming under almost every sagebrush bush come July. The Native Americans taught the Mormon pioneers to eat the bulb-like roots when they were low on food. Stay tuned to our Instagram page for some taste testing this upcoming field season.
One flower that is found along the riparian areas is the alpine shooting star. Dodecatheon alpinum is an early bloomer that we have found on only one of our study sites, making it a rare find for us. It has a wide range across many western states at high elevation and relies very heavily on bees for pollination. The unique star-shaped flower head makes this a fun find for the crew.
Another common flower found all across the sagebrush steppe is silver lupine. Lupinus argenteus is a nitrogen fixer, meaning that it stores nitrogen for the ecosystem. Warning! That trait makes this plant toxic to both humans and the livestock that utilize the range. It thrives on well-drained, poor, sandy soils, so this area is the perfect habitat for silver lupine to grow in.
These flowers generally make up a smaller portion of our study areas. And this is just a small list of some of the flowers that we find on an average field day. Our sites are largely composed of grasses, sedges, rushes and some other forbs. All of these plants are important forage for cattle, but forbs are especially important for sage grouse. We want to monitor the plant species composition of our study sites to make sure that there is available forage for the cattle, sage grouse, and other wildlife that use these rangelands.