Rare Plant Monitoring Program Table Of Contents 3 Thank You, Volunteers 4 Editor’s Corner 6 The 2020 Year In Review 11 Rare Species Monitoring In Urban Areas 13 2020 Species Of The Year Recap 18 2021 Species of the Year 22 iNaturalist: Tips And Tricks 25 RPMP Volunteer Makes A Big Save 27 Field Notes And Photos Cover photo: RPMP volunteers Ben Bomkamp and Kerstyn Perrett found new populations of purple milkweed, one of Wisconsin’s rarest milkweeds. Photo Credit: Ben Bomkamp & Kerstyn Perrett The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) provides equal opportunity in its employment, programs, services and functions under an Affirmative Action Plan. If you have any questions, please write to the Equal Opportunity Office, Department of Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240. This publication is available in an alternative format (large print, Braille, audiotape. etc.) upon request. Please call 608-261-6449 for more information. The Rare Plant Monitoring Program (RPMP) Report is an annual publication of DNR’s Natural Heritage Conservation Program. Editor: Kevin Doyle Graphic Design: Bailey Nehls This program is supported with funds from the Natural Resources State of Wisconsin Foundation’s Wisconsin Rare Plant Preservation Fund and DNR’s Department of Natural Resources Endangered Resources Fund. Box 7921 Madison, WI 53707 Thank You, Volunteers All of these volunteers conducted one or more plant surveys in 2020: Derek Anderson Jan Axelson Mike Baker Debbie Konkel Mary Bartkowiak Jesse Koyen Beth Bartoli Mark Lange Mary Kay Baum Susan Lehnhardt Cindy Becker Kristi Lund Danielle Bell Chelsey Lundeen Liz Birkhauser Kay McClelland Christine Bohn Jason Miller Ben Bomkamp Kerstyn Perrett Vanessa Brotskev Bethney Pickhardt Dan Buckler Corey Raimond Tara Buehler Jon Rigden Aaron Carlson George Riggin Ryan Clemo James Riser Dave Czoschke Joseph Rohrer Fred Dike Michaela Rosenthal Paul Doxsee Gwendolyn Rouse Don Evans John Scholze Mary Ann Feist Michael Sinclaur Thomas Ganfield Jeffery Steele Greg Gardner Ann Stoda Nathan Gingerich Emily Stone Ben Grady Juniper Sundance Paul Hlina Phil Sylla Eric Howe Nancy Thomas Ben Johnston Lucas Turpin Amanda Weise Ellie Williams Arwyn Yarwood Mary Zaander 3 Photo Credit: James Riser Editor’s Corner Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt we were all getting a taste of what it feels like to be a rare plant. Suddenly the world around us had changed, bringing incredible stress and altering basic things like how we get food and interact with others. In a way, the pandemic has given me a deeper sense of connection to and compassion for native plants and animals. Although it may be easy to see this pandemic as only one symptom of the stress humans have put on the natural world, it’s also an opportunity to look to the natural world for hope, for examples of how to adapt and persevere. Purple milkweed, for example, prefers lush prairies and oak woodlands but occasionally shows up on road edges and along trails. Instead of discarding these populations as of lesser conservation value, maybe we should marvel at their ability to endure in a difficult environment. As the months wore on, just like a rare plant persevering in a degraded roadside prairie, we’ve figured out ways to adapt to the conditions that have changed around us. In the end, the Rare Plant Monitoring Program’s volunteers submitted roughly the same number of reports as they did before the pandemic, which I was not expecting. It’s a credit to the commitment you have to plant conservation and is truly inspiring. In this report, you’ll find stories about a few highlights from the rare plant monitoring world. Volunteers found new populations of super rare orchids. They rediscovered rare plants in places not seen for decades and, in one case, in over a century. Some volunteers even traveled hundreds of miles while others found rare plants in their own city. You’ll also hear from RPMP volunteers about the benefits of iNaturalist, one of the world’s most popular nature apps, beyond just rare plant observations. Michaela Rosenthal, a land steward with Milwaukee’s Urban Ecology Center and an RPMP volunteer, reveals the opportunities for rare plant monitoring and conservation in urban areas. As Michaela writes, “In urban spaces, there is a prevalence of built structures and impervious surfaces, habitat loss, noise, heat and artificial light. I am here to tell you that despite those characteristics, diverse life can and does prosper.” The stressors put on rare plants in Milwaukee and other places may make them easy to give up on, but given the circumstances of 2020, maybe they can be a source of insight and hope. Thank you for all the work you have done for rare plant conservation in Wisconsin! Kevin Doyle Rare Plant Monitoring Program Coordinator 4 The 2020 Year in Review 2020 was a different kind of year. Despite the difficult understandably hesitant to travel much or were circumstances of a global pandemic, plants emerged busy tackling projects around the house or garden. from the ground, grew leaves, flowered and set seed. Others saw rare plant monitoring as well-suited for In other words, the work of a rare plant monitor a pandemic because it lends itself to working alone continued. and outside. With the state practicing social distancing for most Monitors submitted 265 rare plant reports in 2020, of the spring, online training replaced in-person which is a real success for a year that presented so training sessions in 2020. Monitors were unable to many obstacles. This total included 58 reports of new survey until mid-June, leaving many early-season populations and 207 reports providing status updates bloomers unobserved. Once the DNR resumed on known populations. citizen science projects, some volunteers were Here are some of the highlights that brightened our year. RPMP volunteers Mary Bartkowiak and Chelsey Lundeen It was getting late in the afternoon, so Chelsey and Mary set out into a white cedar swamp near Crandon to search for decided to slowly head back to their car while remaining calypso orchid (Calypso bulbosa). In recent years, dozens of vigilant. surveys for the state-threatened plant failed, including many just the year before near where Mary and Chelsey were headed. “As we were nearing the end of the cedar swamp, we spotted the beautiful shade of purple of this new population,” Chelsey But Chelsey had seen some plants in this spot in 2017 while recalls. “And then we both busted out into a happy dance!” working as a private contractor and was optimistic. At that time, she found a patch of eight orchids and another lone stem not Adds Mary: far away. “I heard Chelsey gasp and noticed the elusive shade of violet we’d When they returned in 2020, the two volunteers found the been searching for. I can say that it sterile surviving leaf of that single plant but no signs of the was one fantastic day! Any spring larger population, typical for a species once scattered across day wandering in a cedar swamp northern Wisconsin but now in decline. in northern Wisconsin is a day well spent.” About Calypso Orchid Probably fewer than five calypso populations remain in Wisconsin, which is why the population Chelsea and Mary found is such a bright spot. Warming Chelsey Lundeen temperatures, the overabundance of deer and habitat loss could all be factors of the decline, along with the species’ reproductive strategy. Pollinated by bumble bees, calypso’s very charismatic flower doesn’t have any nectar or tons of pollen. Its appearance tricks bumble bees into thinking there will be a great reward. The bees quickly figure out what’s going on, leaving a pretty small window for calypso to reproduce successfully, and pollination often fails. On top of that, calypso is tiny and doesn’t occur in huge populations, so it probably relies on a diversity of other plants to lure bumble bees to the area. If those plants are browsed by deer or rabbits or decline for other reasons, calypso could be affected, providing one more example of how connected things are in the natural world. 5 Four longtime volunteers found new populations of the state-endangered purple milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens). Purple milkweed is found in two distinct habitats in Wisconsin: wet-mesic prairies in the southeast and oak woodlands in the west. Eric Howe found one of the wetland ecotypes in Kenosha County, while Cindy Becker, Ben Bomkamp and Kerstyn Perrett found new populations of the upland ecotype. Two of these new populations were on property recently bought by Ben and Kerstyn. Besides looking for rare plants, the couple spends a significant amount of time on habitat restoration projects, so it seems like this piece of land has fallen into the right hands. Mary Ann Feist revisted a hairy meadow parsnip population (Thaspium chapmanii) in Crawford County this year. This endangered state plant is known from only three sites in Wisconsin, so getting this update is important to understanding its overall status. Mary Ann, an expert in the carrot family, was just the person to do it. Unfortunately, the population was only half as big as it was 20 years ago. Joe Rohrer spent some time in Taylor County this summer looking for rare ferns. He searched for four populations and found three. These populations haven’t been seen since the late 1990s, but fortunately, they were roughly the same size or even bigger as they were back then. Of course, thanks to Joe, we have much better locational information now. Cities aren’t usually hotbeds for rare plants, but Jeff Steele, Dan Buckler and Michaela Rosenthal found the exception to that rule this year.