The Plant Press THE ARIZONA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY Volume 42, Number 2 Winter 2019 In this Issue 1 Vegetation Changes in the Finger Rock Canyon Drainage, Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona, Since 1984 11 Giant Reed in the Yoeme World of Sonora and Arizona 16 Stone Grids and the Archaeology of Agave Cultivation in the Safford Valley, Arizona 20 Effects of Fire and Reseeding on Sonoran Desert Plant Community Composition The mouth of Finger Rock Canyon (Mount Kimball is not visible in the photo). 24 Hexalectris Rafinesque (Orchidaceae) — Crested Coral Root Orchids in Arizona Vegetation Changes in the Finger Rock 27 Vegetation Response to Landscape Conservation in Canyon Drainage, Santa Catalina the Sky Islands 32 Preliminary Flora of the Sierra Mountains, Arizona Since 1984 Chivato, Sonora, Mexico by C. David Bertelsen1 Photos by the author. Plus 38 Where, a Game for Arizona The Finger Rock Canyon drainage is located in the front range of the Santa Catalina Plant Nuts Mountains north of Tucson, Arizona. My study area, shown in Figure 1, is approximately 1,100 acres and constitutes about 0.06% of the mountain range. I have explored approximately 80 With Regular Features acres on foot, including the trail, three and one-half miles of the canyon bottom, and several 2 President’s Note side drainages. I first hiked to the top of Mt. Kimball in 1981 and fell in love with the canyon because of the changing vegetation over the elevation gradient of 4,158 feet. I was intrigued by 10 Who’s Who at AZNPS how plant flowering varies with elevation and decided I wanted to learn more. I developed a 22 Book Review: Guide to the protocol for what I initially thought would be a study of two or three years, and in January Plants of Arizona’s White Mts. 1984, I began collecting data on each of the five miles. Essentially I have five one-mile-long 39 Spotlight on a Native Plant transects (Figure 1). continued page 3 ©2019 Arizona Native Plant Society. All rights reserved. 1School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721. [email protected] President’s Note by Douglas Ripley [email protected] As another year nears its end, I wish to thank all our members, year’s conference was jointly sponsored by the Gila Watershed Board members, chapter officers, and committee members for Partnership of Arizona. Thirteen speakers made presentations their support of, and participation in, the Arizona Native Plant covering a wide range of topics relative to the meeting theme Society. It is only through their conscientious contributions “Exploring the Botanical Diversity, Ecology, and History of that we can hope to achieve our mission to promote Arizona’s Native Flora.” The second day of the conference knowledge, appreciation, conservation, and restoration of offered three interesting local field trips. Arizona native plants and their habitats. Conservation and Restoration Activities: Thanks to the I’m obviously a little biased, but I think we can honestly say efforts of the AZNPS Conservation Committee led by John that we made a very good effort to achieve our mission’s goals Scheuring as well as by several individual chapters, the AZNPS in 2019. Some of our specific accomplishments include: has undertaken numerous important projects to enhance and Website Revision and Update: Developing and bringing restore native plant habitats in several parts of the state. online our new, revised, and updated website. If you have not Education Opportunities: The Society continued to offer done so already, please check it out give us any suggestions for several botanical identification workshops throughout the year. its improvement. The Plant Press and Happenings: Through our two formal Botany 2019 Conference: Held at the Eastern Arizona College publications, we offer a forum for the discussion of current on 31 August–1 September, the conference was attended by issues in Southwestern native plant conservation and other over 100 people representing every AZNPS chapter as well as topics of interest to our readers. participants from California, New Mexico, and Colorado. This Chapter Monthly Meetings and Field Trips: These ongoing activities continue to provide a great deal of enjoyment and education for our members. The annual extended Who’s Who at AZNPS field/workshop trip to the Chiricahua Mountains, sponsored by BOARD OF DIRECTORS the Tucson and Cochise chapters, was held again this year on 21-23 September for a record of 48 participants. Kara Barron Director, Upper Gila Chapter President [email protected] Fiscal Soundness: We have continued to run the Society in a Jessie Byrd Director, Tucson Chapter President [email protected] financially responsible way, maintaining a prudent reserve. Francesca Claverie Director, Santa Cruz Chapter President Membership dues are by far our most important funding [email protected] source. Our principal expenses are the cost of publishing The Wendy Hodgson Director, Education & Outreach Committee Chair Plant Press and Happenings, our comprehensive insurance [email protected] policy, website hosting and maintenance fees, and the salary for Diane Kelly State Treasurer [email protected] our part-time Society Administrator. Ries Lindley Director, State Secretary, Co-Editor, The Plant Press [email protected] As I have said many times, we are continually seeking individuals to play an active part in managing and helping to Valerie Morrill Director, Yuma Chapter President [email protected] run the Society. Such individuals can provide some new Kirstin Olmon Phillips Director, Flagstaff Chapter perspectives on our operations and ideas for new initiatives. [email protected] Our Board of Directors is confirmed every three years. The next Doug Ripley State President, Co-Editor, The Plant Press, Board election will be held in March 2020. It would be Cochise Chapter President [email protected] wonderful if we could encourage new people to run for a Board Lisa Rivera Director, Phoenix Chapter President position. Serving as a Chapter officer is also a great way to get [email protected] involved. I hope you will consider one of these opportunities. Andrew Salywon Director at Large [email protected] We hope you will enjoy this issue of The Plant Press, which, in John Scheuring Director at Large, Conservation Committee Chair addition to our regular features, offers seven different articles [email protected] based on presentations at our Botany 2019 Conference. AZNPS COLLABORATORS We extend all our best wishes for an enjoyable holiday season and look forward to seeing you at future AZ Native Plant Patricia Sanchez AZNPS Administrator [email protected] Society activities in the New Year. Shelley Silva Happenings Editor [email protected] a Julie St. John The Plant Press Layout Editor [email protected] 2 The Plant Press Arizona Native Plant Society Winter 2019 Vegetation Changes in the Finger Rock Canyon Drainage continued To date, 615 plant taxa, including ferns and spikemosses, have been identified. It is remarkable that about 45% of the known taxa of the Santa Catalina Mountains (Verrier 2018) are found in this small area. I monitor the 599 gymnosperms and angiosperms, plus 222 vertebrate taxa, recording species diversity by trail mile. Looking for vertebrates actually helps me see tiny flowers because as I keep changing my focus, I see more. A database record is a taxon (in “flower” for plants) on a mile and on a date. Each record may represent a single flower or vertebrate of a given species. Viable pollen (on anthers for angiosperms or airborne in the case of gymnosperms) is the Figure 1. The Finger Rock Canyon drainage. The trail is the white line, with numbers primary determinant of “flowering.” Given the size indicating the end of each mile. The vegetative associations in the drainage are of the study area and the time it takes to complete a Desert Scrub (DS), Riparian Scrub (RS), Scrub Grassland (SG), Oak Woodland (OW), Oak-pine Woodland (OPW), and Pine Forest (PF). The inset shows the location of survey, abundance cannot be measured, but it is the area in the Santa Catalina Mountains, the solid line indicating the Santa assessed through continuous, long-term Catalina Ranger District of the Coronado National Forest. Source: Jeff Belmat and observation. The database currently includes Theresa Crimmins based on data supplied by the author. 181,213 flowering records and 82,610 vertebrate records, collected during 1,713 surveys. A more detailed description of the study area, methodology, and flora may be found in Bertelsen (2018). Area Climate Absent weather stations in the canyon, Parameter- elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) data is the best available source to characterize the climate of the study area. PRISM provides monthly climatic data interpolated from point station data for the continental United States (Daly et al. 2008). Among the many factors included in the interpolations is elevation. Although data is available from 1885 onward, data for the study area prior to 1930 has limited value because few weather stations existed in the vicinity of the canyon prior to that time (Michael A. Crimmins, personal communication, 2017). In late 2006, I installed three rain gauges near the bottom, middle, and top of the drainage and have collected monthly data since 2007 (except for 2013 when I was unable to check the gauges regularly). The gauges correlate well with the PRISM data (r = 0.89, 0.89, 0.85 respectively). continued next page Figure 2. Anomalies in temperature in degrees Fahrenheit (upper) and precipitation in inches (lower) in the study area, 1984-2018. 0 = the 1930-2018 average for this area. Source: Bertelsen (2018). www.aznativeplantsociety.org The Plant Press Arizona Native Plant Society 3 Vegetation Changes in the Finger Rock Canyon Drainage continued Figure 2 shows the average annual temperature and total systematic observation, I can make some educated guesses, precipitation anomalies for the study area from 1984–2018.