Research Grant Reports
Know Your Thistles!
Let’s touch on a prickly kind of subject. Know your thistles before you kill them! When I was a young kid, I clearly remember my beloved Welsh pony eating thistle heads while I was riding him. From my vantage point I could see his soft lips stretch away from his teeth...
The “Currant” Situation
Some of the first early blooming native flowers in Colorado include shrubs in the Currant family. It is middle April as I write this, and strong wind whips with intensity across the San Luis Valley. As the soil continues to warm, the roots of perennial native plants...
2022 Mission Grant Recipients
Mission Grant Recipients The spring 2022 Mission Grant has been awarded to two recipients who are undertaking exciting projects to support native plantings with a public education component. The first award will support the Manitou Seed Library, an educational and...
2022 Myrna Steinkamp Grant Award Winners
2022 Myrna Steinkamp Grant Award Winners Tiffany Gentry, Master’s student, University of Colorado Denver; “Inferring the phylogeny of Eutrema penlandii to inform conservation measures and understand the biogeographical history of the Rocky Mountains.” $1000 Deannah...
Soil: It’s So Much More Than Dirt
All orchids, including this Colorado native orchid, Coralroot, Corrallorhiza maculata, are completely dependent on mycorrhizal fungi to begin their life cycle and and this reliance continues to varying degrees throughout their life. Photo credit: SPD Unseen, unheard,...
2022 Alice Eastwood Scholarship Awarded
2022 Alice Eastwood Scholarship Recipient: Miles Moore (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder). $950. Miles is an amateur botanist, a research technician with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, and a senior at the University of...
2022 John Marr Grant Recipients
In 2022 CoNPS awarded four John Marr Grants Kathryn Dawdy, Master’s student at Chicago Botanic Garden and Northwestern University; “The effects of advanced plant phenology on herbivory and plant demography.” $1000 Audrey Spencer, PhD student at University of Colorado...
CoNPS Comments on Land Dispute Between Developer and Town of Twin Lakes
On May 11, 2022 CoNPS was asked by the a land development company called Angel View to evaluate the effects of a water diversion on some fens on their property. Angel View was in a dispute with the town of Twin Lakes, which had diverted a stream, located in Forest...
Spring Comes to Joder Ranch
Purple partners: Pulsatilla nuttalliana, commonly known as Pasqueflowers. Often found in colonies one of the first showy blooms in spring.The first flowers of the year always bring a boost of exhileration, don’t they? And when spring comes to Joder Ranch lucky...
The Gambel Oak
The leaves of Gambel oak are pinnately lobed at least halfway to the midrib, and are rounded. The lower leaf surface has stellate hairs, with five or fewer arms. Fall colors are vibrant!It’s no gamble at all with the Gambel oak, Quercus gambelii, which is Colorado’s...