2 HOME & GARDEN, DAILY COURIER, Grants Pass, Oregon • THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2013 Gardening for the future Restoration efforts seek to revive endangered

The Western lily, occidentale, above, and Gentner’s fritillaria, Fritillaria gentneri, right, are among the plants growers are trying to revive in the area, the topic of a recent talk at the Native Society of Oregon. People may have unwittingly destroyed plants such as them on their private property.

he lily is said to symbolize purity, “That’s one of the few native plants innocence and goodness. The that we can definitely assign the reduction TGreeks linked it to Hera, wife of in numbers and threat to overcollection, Zeus and the goddess of marriage and which isn’t really very common. Once peo- childbirth. ple became concerned about it, it did Folklore adds that a dream about lilies recover from the overcollection. while they’re in bloom will lead to mar- “And then now, of course, it’s threat- riage, happiness and wealth. ened by the same thing as all plants in On the U.S. West Coast, the history of Oregon, which is habitat loss and habitat Lilium occidentale is more like a night- degradation due to weeds and hydrological mare — a lily so bewitching that people alterations, that kind of thing,” Amsberry nearly loved it to death. says. “Way back in the 1800s, Carl Purdy, who She tells a similar story about another was a grower, collected many member of the lily family, Fritillaria gen- from the coast, the Western lily found tneri, Gentner’s fritillaria, also on the along the coast,” recounts Kelly Amsberry, Department of Agriculture’s list of endan- a botanist with the Oregon Department of gered species from loss of habitat and Agriculture. competition from weeds, which can rob “It’s a beautiful, big lily, and it was just them of moisture and sunlight. overcollected. Once people saw that Carl “No one knows what explains plant rari- Purdy had it, they would go out and collect Western lilies thrive at the Plant Materials Center, a program with the federal it out of the . CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 Natural Resources Conservation Center in Corvallis. Photo By Jordan Brown. Future of some Oregon plants in doubt Plants on the Oregon ■ Sexton Mountain mariposa lily ■ Big-flowered wooly meadow- ■ Howell’s spectacular thelypody Department of Agriculture’s list of ■ Golden paintbrush foam See information on plants that 29 endangered species include: ■ White rock larkspur ■ Macfarlane's four o'clock are threatened, listed or under con- ■ Pink sandverbena ■ Peacock larkspur ■ Rough popcornflower sideration on the website ■ Northern wormwood ■ Willamette daisy ■ Snake River goldenweed www.oregon.gov/oda/plant/conserv ■ Crinite mariposa lily ■ Grimy ivesia ■ Spalding’s campion ation/pages/statelist.aspx Sexton Big-flowered wooly Mountain Macfarlane’s meadowfoam mariposa four o’clock lily

Northern wormwood Crinite mariposa lily Snake River goldenweed