Getting LOCO in JOCO

In our latest conservation research news, we recently took a trip to Josephine County to monitor Lomatium cookii, common name, Cook’s desert parsley. We had a wonderful group of 6 volunteers who worked very hard to help us complete all of the monitoring of this sensitive species that is endemic to a few areas in Josephine County. Thanks to all our volunteers for their hard work! Some days were hot, but we had a swimming hole on the Illinois River to jump into at the end of the day to cool us off!

Our work involved observing differences in population dynamics over time as well as accounting for growth of the species as a whole. At the Rough And Ready site we conducted a population census where our crew and volunteers counted over 2,000 plants! We are also grateful to the Siskiyou Field Institute for their accommodations, and a special visit from John Wayne himself who is known to frequent the ranch.

johnwayne is da boss
Denise, Emma, [John Wayne], Connor, Sara, and Ceci (from left). Photo credit: Brod McLaughlin

We completed all our monitoring goals and had time to visit a nearby fen with a healthy population of Darlingtonia californica, or the California pitcher plant. It was a great tangent in the work week when we were all a little Lomatium-ed out!

LOCO flower 1
A healthy example of Lomatium cookii. Photo credit: Cecilia Welch

Stay tuned for future posts on Kincaid’s lupine monitoring and a trip to Willapa Bay!

Dream Team 2015