White River Beardtongue by Bob Berwyn Guest ColumnistThis article is reprinted with permission from the Colorado Independent: http://www.coloradoindependent .com/147490/rare-colorado-wildflowers-survive-30-years-of-bureaucratic-bumblingFRISCO — Pity the poor White River beardtongue, (Penstemon scariosus var. albifluvis) growing only in a few scattered clumps on crumbly oil-shale bluffs in Northwest Colorado . If there ever was a safe haven for a plant, Read More …
Category: Conservation Corner
Winter 2017: Conserving Colorado’s Native Plants by Conserving Colorado’s Habitats by Linda Smith
Conserve Colorado’s Native Plants by Conserving Colorado’s HabitatsBy Linda Smith, Member of the CoNPS Conservation CommitteeSo …. conserving habitats ? Where, and how, can CoNPS fit into this? We don’t have a paid staff member or lobbyist roaming the halls of Capitol buildings in Denver or Washington DC, advocating for the native plants or habitats Read More …
Fall 2016: Conifers at the Crossroads by Renee Galeano-Popp
Conifers at the Crossroadsby Renee Galeano-PoppIt’s a long story. Some say it all started with the colonists and the Pine Tree Riot of 1772 in New England. But first let’s talk about white pines. White pines are in the Strobus subgenus of Pinus and are characteristically 5-needled. White pines include Bristlecone (P. aristata), Limber (P. Read More …
Spring 2016: Agencies and Organizations in Colorado Conserving Native Plants by Jessica Smith
This article is intended as a guide to some of the agencies and organizations which conserve Colorado’s native plants and landscapes. The list of participants in conservation in Colorado is large and diverse, and covering the full range is not possible in this article. Native plants are preserved, in part, by the holding of open Read More …
Winter 2016: Stream Restoration after the 2013 Floods by Mo Ewing
Stream Restoration after the 2013 Floodsby Mo EwingOn September 16, 2015 the Denver Post carried an article entitled, “Big Thompson restoration to start soon” (Johnson 2015). It has been two years since the historic floods of 2013. Roads and infrastructure projects are almost complete and now work is beginning to “bring the river back”. The Read More …
Summer 2015: The Phenological Adventures of Mo Ewing
Adopt-a-Trail Program: or the Phenological Adventures of Mo EwingA few years ago Linda Smith hatched the idea of creating an “Adopt-a-Trail Program. The idea was that we would organize volunteers to go out on their favorite trail and collect information for the bloom times of the plants they saw. It wasn’t a very rigorous scientific Read More …
Spring 2015: The Mosquito Range Heritage Initiative’s Rare Alpine Plant Project by Ginni Greer
In 2014, I had the opportunity to search for Eutrema penlandii on Mt. Evans with a number of botanists and Colorado Native Plant Society members. When speaking with them, I realized that most of the ‘alpine native plant community’ know nothing about the efforts being carried out in the Mosquito Range to locate and GPS Read More …
Fall 2014: Thoughts on the Sequester and the U.S. Forest Service by Mo Ewing
Conservation Corner: Thoughts on the Sequester and the U.S. Forest ServiceMo Ewing, Conservation ChairLast fall when we were in the middle of the sequester issue in the U.S. Congress, I wondered what it was like to be on the receiving end of all those budget cuts. So I came up with the idea of interviewing Read More …
Spring 2014: Members Support Stronger Advocacy Efforts by Mo Ewing
Members Support Stronger Advocacy Efforts by Mo EwingLast fall, at the urging of some members of CoNPS, the Board implemented a survey of our members to determine if they supported the Society increasing our advocacy efforts for native plants. Our mission states:“The Colorado Native Plant Society is dedicated to furthering the knowledge, appreciation andconservation of Read More …
Winter 2014: Writing a Flora, the Story of Jennifer Ackerfield by Mo Ewing
In March 2015 Jennifer Ackerfield will publish the first complete Flora of Colorado since Harold Harrington’s 1964 Manual of Plants of Colorado. Her 800+ page book will contain 3,322 taxa (species, subspecies and varieties), 912 color photos, most of which she took herself, and descriptions and distribution maps of every species. Jennifer is 39 years Read More …
Fall 2013: Conservation Corner: Oil, Gas, Native Plants and US by Mo Ewing
Conservation Corner: Oil, Gas, Native Plants and US by Mo Ewing“On March 2013, “Citing what he calls “overwhelming support”, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet introduced a bill seeking to limit oil and gas development in the 221,000-acre Thompson Divide area south of Glenwood Springs.”1 And then on June 25, 2013 in a different part of Colorado, Read More …
Summer 2013: How Plants Survive Winters by Mo Ewing
How Plants Survive the Cold Temperatures of Winterby Mo EwingArticles for a column called, “Conservation Corner” probably should be about some conservation issue like oil and gas development in the Pawnee Grasslands. But it is spring! Perhaps we will take on the Pawnee Grasslands in the next issue. But for now as new spring buds Read More …
Spring 2013: The Mount Evans Project by Mo Ewing
The Mount Evans Conservation Projectby Mo EwingFrom his collecting visits in the 1950s, to an article he wrote in Aquilegia in August 1991, to the present day, Bill Weber has been a champion for Summit Lake on Mount Evans. In 1965 Bill nominated Summit Lake for designation as a National Natural Landmark because it was Read More …
Winter 2013: Notes from Nantucket: Glaciers and Plants by Mo Ewing
Each fall I spend a couple of weeks on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. Nantucket could not be more different from Colorado, but I am always interested in discovering similarities as well as the obvious differences. In the October 2011 issue of Aquilegia (2011 v35 no3), I wrote about why it is possible to find two Read More …