Category: Flora

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Ute Ladies’ Tresses – Utah Orchids

Ute Ladies' Tresses at the Mendon Meadow Preserve, Bear River Land Conservancy, Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer
Ute Ladies’ Tresses, Spiranthes diluvialis, at the Mendon Meadow Preserve
Bear River Land Conservancy
Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer

The Mendon Meadow Preserve, Bear River Land Conservancy Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer The Mendon Meadow Preserve
Bear River Land Conservancy
Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer

Bumblebee on Ute Ladies' Tresses at the Mendon Meadow Preserve, Bear River Land Conservancy Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer Bumblebee on Ute Ladies’ Tresses at the Mendon Meadow Preserve
Bear River Land Conservancy
Courtesy & © Mark Brunson, Photographer

It’s a warm summer evening on the west side of Cache Valley, where a small group of volunteers has gathered beside a green pasture. We hear the rattling bugle calls of sandhill cranes in the distance. A Swainson’s hawk scolds us as it circles overhead. As we walk into the field, our steps disturb dragonflies and leopard frogs. But we’re not here for the wildlife. We’re after something rarer: orchids!

Wait, what? Orchids? You mean those delicate tropical plants with colorful blossoms that city folks grow in humid greenhouses? Well, yes actually. It turns out that orchids grow on almost every type of land surface across the globe, including some in Utah.

The orchid we’re seeking has drawn the attention of the federal government. You see, while the orchid family has nearly 28,000 species worldwide, many of those are rare. The one we’re looking for, called Ute Ladies’-tresses, is on the federal Threatened Species list, which gives it legal protection from human impacts until it’s no longer at risk of disappearing.

In Cache County, Ute Ladies’-tresses are guarded by the Bear River Land Conservancy, a nonprofit whose mission is to protect open space and working farms and ranches in northern Utah. After orchids were found in a pasture near the small town of Mendon, the Conservancy received funding to purchase and manage the land in ways that could help the orchids to thrive, and to provide data to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about how the population is doing.

That’s why we volunteers are gathered in a pasture on a Friday evening. Our job is to carefully walk the property, looking for blossoms. When one of us sees an orchid in bloom, we mark the spot with a bamboo plant stake. Then someone trails along behind them – usually that’s me – and records the location using a global positioning system. By taking these GPS measurements, we not only count how many plants have flowered that year, but we also map their locations to learn where we might be losing or gaining orchids over time.

Ute Ladies’-tresses has narrow leaves, hard to distinguish from the surrounding grasses and sedges and rushes. But then it sends up 1-5 flower stalks, up to a foot high. Each stalk has numerous small white flowers arranged in a graceful spiral. The plant likes to grow on solid ground that floods at some point in the year – a streambed that’s dry except during spring runoff, or a flood-irrigated pasture like the one in Mendon. At our site, the first flowers emerge around Pioneer Day, and new ones continue to appear till about Labor Day.

Monitoring this population since 2013, we’ve learned a lot about Ute Ladies’-tresses. One key finding is that flower numbers fluctuate widely from year to year. Our highest count was nearly 2,000 flowering specimens in 2017. But in the very dry summer of 2021, we counted fewer than 30. That year was scary if you’re trying to protect a rare plant, But these orchids live for several years, flowering only when conditions are right, and last year we found more than 1,400.

You see, even if a plant is rare, that doesn’t have to mean it’s fragile. Some rare plants are, to be sure, but Ute Ladies’-tresses is resilient. In fact, last fall the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing the species from the Threatened list. One reason they feel they can do so is the continued protection it gets from groups like Bear River Land Conservancy. And so I look forward to many more August evenings in a Mendon meadow, sharing time with this lovely orchid.

I’m Mark Brunson, and I’m wild about Utah’s rare plants.

Credits:

Images Courtesy & Copyright Mark Brunson, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver, https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections and J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin. https://upr.org/
Text: Mark Brunson,
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah pieces authored by Mark Brunson

Ute Ladies’ Tresses in Wet Pasture, Bear River Land Conservancy, https://www.bearriverlandconservancy.org/mendon-meadows

Ute Ladies’ Tresses, Utah Species, Fieldguide, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, State of Utah, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=spiranthes%20diluvialis

Species Profile for Ute ladies’-tresses (Spiranthes diluvialis), US Fish & Wildlife Service, https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/species/2159

Delmatier, Charmaine, Ute Lady’s Tresses (Spiranthes diluvialis), Plant of the Week, USDA Forest Service, 2016, US Department of Agriculture(USDA), https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/spiranthes_diluvialis.shtml

St. John, Loren, Ogle, Dan, USDA NRCS, Ute Lady’s Tresses Spiranthes diluvialis Sheviak, Natural Resources Conservation Service, US Department of Agriculture(USDA), https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_spdi6.pdf

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Squirrel Tales

Evergreen Cone Scales, Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes
Evergreen Cone Scales
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes

Nature Rings, Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes Nature Rings
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes

The recent snows have made the sledding hill at Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the campus of Utah State University a popular place, but without snow, children flock at recess to the wild area under the oak trees to harvest acorns. I’ve invited one of these students, a seven-year-old first grader named Lila, to explain this phenomenon:

“You get an acorn and you rub the pointy bottom part and keep doing it for a bit and then you can put it on whatever finger it fits on and it turns into a nature ring.”

They trade them and then squirrel the rings away in their lockers. Sometimes they stop to notice the squirrels scolding above them in the trees, and one day I sat with them to appreciate a noisy one. Nibbling away, its eight black claws rotated the little nugget it was holding. Standing erect so I could see the whitish belly fur and bushy tail, it kept me in its sights as I sketched its silhouette and details in my nature journal.

The Natural History Museum of Utah sponsored another Squirrel Fest during the first week of December, and I should have been better prepared to identify it so I could participate in that project during the same month as the Christmas Bird Count. The NHMU website reports that more than 900 Utah citizen scientists watched for and collected data on fox squirrels and other squirrels in 2023. I know now that my squirrel wasn’t a fox squirrel native to the eastern U.S. Those critters are moving in. Actually, they have been spreading throughout northern Utah since 2011. I know mine was probably not that target species because the fox squirrel is larger and has a bright yellow or orange belly and a long, very bushy tail.

Here’s another story. One June afternoon last summer in the Cache National Forest, I stumbled upon a massive pile of evidence that squirrels had been busy, having stashed their food finds and then unpacking them. The pile of evergreen cone scale leftovers was over three feet tall. I had seen middens at the base of trees before, but never had I seen a pile this incredible. Even though it was a snow pile that the cone scales covered, the insulation slowing the melt, it was still monstrous.

As most of the students on the first day launching my first ever university writing class described themselves as writers with words like decent, ok, alright, unpolished, and mediocre, I thought about that pile of potential. They have stories, piles of stories to tell and teach, squirreled away maybe, but ready to thaw.

Just like Kate DiCamillo’s superpowered squirrel Ulysses in her children’s novel Flora and Ulysses, we all have stories to write. DiCamillo wrote, “He would write and write. He would make wonderful things happen. Some of it would be true. All of it would be true. Well….Most of it would be true.”

This year on January 21 we celebrate Squirrel Appreciation Day. But whether you watch and write about squirrels or anything else, we think it is time for you to get writing stories just as magical as nature rings made of acorns at recess.

For Wild About Utah, I’m Shannon Rhodes, and I am Lila Hoggan.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
Text:     Shannon Rhodes and Lila Hoggan, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah Pieces by Shannon Rhodes, https://wildaboututah.org/author/shannon-rhodes/

DiCamillo, Kate. Flora and Ulysses. 2013. Candlewick Press. https://www.candlewick.com/cat.asp?mode=book&isbn=0763687642

Greene, Jack. Intelligent Tree Squirrels. Wild About Utah, Oct. 17, 2022. https://wildaboututah.org/intelligent-tree-squirrels/

Larese-Casanova, Mark. Nutcrackers and Squirrels: Farmers of the Forest. Wild About Utah, Aug. 26, 2013. https://wildaboututah.org/nutcrackers-squirrels-farmers-forests/

Natural History Museum of Utah. Utah Fox Squirrels. https://nhmu.utah.edu/citizen-science/utah-fox-squirrels

Strand, Holly. Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Wild About Utah, Nov. 26, 2009. https://wildaboututah.org/rocky-the-flying-squirrel/

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Cattail and Teasel

Cattail and Teasel: Josie's Nature Log Page. Used by Permission. Photo Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Josie’s Nature Log Page
Used by Permission
Photo Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Teasel in Bloom with Bumble Bee Photo Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer Teasel in Bloom with Bumble Bee
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Cattail and Teasel in Bloom Photo Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer Cattail and Teasel in Bloom
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Dried Teasel Photo Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer Dried Teasel
Photo Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

For many, this is the season transition between summer and back to school. This month, along with the generous gifts of caramel apples, whiteboard markers, and number 2 pencils, a child handed me a green notebook and a request. One of the greatest compliments a teacher could possibly receive, in my opinion, from a student having never been on any of my class lists, is an invitation to make a writing dialogue journal, a pen pal exchange with no grades or due dates attached. Today her entry concludes with, “Also I drew a picture of you and me in pencil.” I withdraw from the notebook’s back flap a flattering illustration of flowers, smiles, and sun rays, grab my colored pencils, and head outside to write.

Terry Tempest Williams honors a similar marshy invitation, begging us to enter the wonders of the wetlands, in her book “Between Cattails” with exquisite Peter Parnall illustrations. Amid snails and scuds, damselflies and waterlilies, red-winged blackbirds and mosquito tumblers, I am drawn to the familiar cattails. Having just spent some lazy summer days reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants,” I now know that one can appreciate a cattail for its cucumber-tasting pith and protein-packed pollen, its gel that can soothe sunburns, and its fluff that can be used as tinder to light a fire or as soft yet absorbent layers in bedding. She taught me that “one of the words for cattail in the Potawatomi language …. means ‘we wrap the baby in it.’” When she takes students outside, she lets the plants teach them.

Many children I teach can identify cattails, but as I take my Josie journal out to the marsh to compose my writing response, I find another familiar plant that I cannot name. Quickly I realize that it has pale purple flowers; I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in any color other than brown. Once again I find how unaware I have been, and a simple plant guide check reveals the name Dipsacus fullonum, or common teasel. It is an invasive tall plant with a spiky thistle-like flower head and more spiky spears growing up around it. Small dense flowers, from 250 to over a thousand of them, each blossom for only one day. I had only ever noticed it after its biennial life cycle: flowering, dying, then persisting as a dried stem and flower head the next season. Dipsacus comes from a Greek word meaning “thirst,” referring to the leaf cups at the stalk that collect rainwater and catch insects. Sometimes listed as noxious species, this non-native plant was brought from Europe and valued for teasing wool. Today I see bees are drawn to them, and next year finches and other seed-loving birds will visit.

Turning her drawing into my nature journal for this day’s outing, I add my plant perspective. I add some silver to the brown in my teasel-y hair and purple flowers to her shirt. She wrote that “writing makes me feel in my element” and when I take writing outside and really take time to notice the details, I couldn’t agree more.

I’m Shannon Rhodes, and I am wild about Utah.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Nature journal entry used with permission from Josie Dorsch and her parent Breanna Studenka, All Rights Reserved
Audio: Crickets Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
    Birds: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Text: Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah Pieces by Shannon Rhodes, https://wildaboututah.org/author/shannon-rhodes/

iNaturalist. Wild Teasel. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/56002-Dipsacus-fullonum

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. 2013. https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/

National Park Service. Exotic Species: Common Teasel. https://www.nps.gov/articles/common-teasel.htm

Tilley, Derek. Commonly Occurring Wetland Plant Species for Idaho and Utah NRCS Wetlands Delineators. March 2019. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/plantmaterials/idpmctn13441.pdf

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Common Teasel. https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/plants/common-teasel

Williams, Terry Tempest. Between Cattails. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1985. https://www.terrytempestwilliams.com/

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Spring Dandelion Power

Dandelions, Courtesy & Copyright Patrick Kelly
Morning for the spring dandelion is gentle and calm
The world is no longer a struggle but instead a serendipitous balm
Your yellow buds open upon you, sneaking between others some pink, some white
More colors even still in the waxing new day’s light
 Spring Dandelion Power
There is no better time for the dandelion than when spring has sprung
The leaves are fresh green and so is the fresh dung
Birds do sing high up in the stretching yawning trees
Staking their turf, edges, and new nesting eaves
 
Spring when sprung well sizzles with waking signs
Of kin abloom drawn with straight growing lines
One end towards sun, the other down towards the deep
Until some roots build taps, and others go on the creep
 
The days are now joyous choruses of neighbor raucous crocuses
Avian acrobats whirling spinning diving like ferocious locusts
Shades of toothed green batten down the laden earth
Soaking and drinking and filling to fullest milky girth
 
And as the sun sets on each new spring day
I am reminded of the new presence by the heat that stays
Radiating, glowing, even after the moon has shown
Continuing the journey of growth and what has grown
 
It is amazing to think that each year the world mends
Its browns in all hues to life in all bends
From sails to seeds to germ and blossom
Dandelion life is both humble and awesome
 
So this spring when sprung look out your window or door
Remember that life gives always life more and more
If in doubt, don’t wait: be like the dandelion flower
Thriving in cracks and interrupting silly lawns with unrelenting blissful dandelion power
 
I’m Patrick Kelly, and I’m Wild About Utah
 
Credits:

Images: Courtesy & © Patrick Kelly
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/
Text:    Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://www.logannature.org
Included Links: Patrick Kelly & Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Posts by Patrick Kelly

Stokes Nature Center, https://www.logannature.org/

Brain McCann, Roslynn, Dandelion, Friend or Foe?, Wild About Utah, Apr 4, 2016, https://wildaboututah.org/dandelion-friend-foe/

Greene, Jack, Pioneer Day Edible Native Plants 2016, Wild About Utah, Jul 18, 2016, https://wildaboututah.org/pioneer-day-edible-native-plants-2016/