Virginia Natural Heritage E-News Conserving Virginia’s Biodiversity through Inventory, Protection and Stewardship Spring 2001 NATURESERVE www.natureserve.org Honorable Phillip Puckett, Terry Porter of Mullican LAUNCHED BY ABI AND NATURAL Lumber Company, Elbert Mosteller, and Chris HERITAGE NETWORK Ludwig. It was one small step for ABI (Association for Biodiversity Information) and the Natural Heritage FIRST PHASE OF VIRGINIA NATURAL Network, and one giant leap for the field of COMMUNITY CLASSIFICATION biodiversity information as ABI publicly launched COMPLETED the NatureServe website. The eagerly-awaited online Natural Heritage ecologists have completed the first conservation resource provides authoritative installment of a planned series of reports that will conservation information in a searchable database for present a comprehensive classification of natural more than 50,000 plants, animals, and ecological communities in Virginia. The first approximation communities of the United States and Canada. In a provides an updated version of the state classification brief story that included a color graphic of the which conceptually defines and describes 120 broad NatureServe home page, Science magazine (Sept. 22, ecological community groups in the Commonwealth. 2000) described NatureServe as "a 25-year trove of It provides a standard for community nomenclature, field data on the plants and animals of the United as well as information useful to the field States and Canada.” The site is already receiving identification of communities and the prioritization of more than 1,000 unique visits per day. To view the conservation sites. Future installments will develop site and provide user feedback, go to the classification and description of community types www.natureserve.org. This website is a great within each of the ecological community groups. example of something that the Natural Heritage The report can be viewed and printed at Network can accomplish by working together. http://www.dcr.state.va.us/dnh/rare.htm. 30th STATE NATURAL AREA PRESERVE CHESAPEAKE AND VIRGINIA BEACH DEDICATED CONSERVATION PLAN DCR held a ceremony in Cleveland, Russell County to dedicate the 30th State Natural Area Preserve. The 501 acre preserve was acquired with funds from the 1992 Park and Natural Areas Bond. Cleveland Barrens was discovered in 1995-96 by Chris Ludwig, Natural Heritage Chief Biologist and contains the globally rare Dolomite Barren community, 13 rare plants, and three known rare animals. The Nature Natural Heritage prepared a Conservation Plan for Conservancy assisted in the site’s protection. the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission to Speakers included the Honorable David Brickley, assist with the NOAA-sponsored Southern Watershed Bill Kittrell, Director-TNC Clinch Valley Program, Management Program (SWAMP). SWAMP seeks to the Honorable Clarence “Bud” Phillips, the protect and enhance the natural resources, sensitive lands, and water supplies of the southern watersheds Virginia Natural Heritage E-News Spring 2001 1 of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach while maintaining Virginia Chapter of the Audubon Society used a balance with economic development opportunities. chapter funds and private gifts as well as a grant from The Conservation Plan provides a science-based the Virginia Land Conservation Fund to purchase the foundation for conserving the area’s biological 254 acre site from Lancaster County, which had resources, and integrates with three other SWAMP originally proposed to develop an industrial park on components: an Agriculture Plan, a Multiple Benefits the site. The natural area contains a mature Conservation Plan (addressing wetlands mitigation bottomland hardwood forest. The dedication issues), and a Rural Area Preservation Program. ceremony was highlighted by presentations from Mr. Henry Bashore and Mr. Tom Teeples of the Northern The Conservation Plan addresses the social and Neck Audubon and DCR Director David Brickley economic benefits of retaining intact natural and Secretary of Natural Resources John Paul ecosystems and open-space as integrated components Woodley. More than forty friends of Hickory of the community. The Conservation Plan presents a Hollow attended the ceremony. set of options for landscape level conservation that provide increasing levels of natural resource CAT PONDS PLACED ON VIRGINIA conservation. REGISTRY OF NATURAL AREAS Cat Ponds in Isle of Wight County has 14 rare CONSERVATION LANDS PROJECT species and communities including one rare natural Under a recent charge to be the official repository for community, seven rare plant species, a rare the Commonwealth’s “Conservation Lands Data damselfly, four rare amphibians, and the state Layer”, Natural Heritage staff have been busy endangered chicken turtle. The landowner has been building a geographic information system (GIS) data awarded a plaque and certificate for placing his layer for all the public and privately protected property on the Department of Conservation and conservation lands in Virginia. The GIS layer Recreation’s Virginia Registry of Natural Areas. contains boundaries and information on all local government, state, and federal protected lands, and lands owned or held in easement by private non- profit conservation organizations that contain natural habitat. Within the year the data will be available over a publicly accessible internet site. CEDARS NATURAL AREA PRESERVE ADDITIONS DCR added 274.5 acres to the Cedars Natural Area Preserve in Lee County. The new additions contain Cat Ponds, Isle of Wight County exemplary prairie glades, one of three sites in the world for the Running glade clover, and a suite of other rare plants. The total acreage for The Cedars NEW SMALL WHORLED POGONIA Natural Area Preserve will now be 531 acres. OCCURRENCE FOUND AT QUANTICO MARINE CORPS BASE Surveys for the rare orchid small whorled pogonia (Isotria medeoloides) (G2G3/S2) were conducted in 2000 by Natural Heritage field botanists in selected timber compartments at Quantico Marine Corps Base. The survey resulted in the finding of one new occurrence. This species has been listed as Threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act Running glade clover (Trifolium calcaricum) and endangered under the Virginia Endangered Plant (G1/S1) and Insect Species Act. Twelve occurrences of this species have previously been found on the Base. HICKORY HOLLOW DEDICATED INTO Small whorled pogonia is an orchid found in the NATURAL AREA PRESERVE SYSTEM eastern and midwestern US and Ontario, Canada in The Hickory Hollow Natural Area in Lancaster second or third growth hardwood forests. County has been formally dedicated as Virginia's 29th Natural Area Preserve. The Northern Neck of Virginia Natural Heritage E-News Spring 2001 2 ENDANGERED PLANT LOCATED IN amaranth (Amaranthus pumilus) was submitted to the ALLEGHANY COUNTY U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. No new populations Three occurrences of shale-barren rockcress (Arabis of either of these species were found in 2000. serotina) were located in Alleghany County by Seabeach amaranth has not been found in Virginia Natural Heritage field botanists. This plant is listed since 1972. Endangered under both the federal Endangered Species Act and the Virginia Endangered Plant and WESTVACO NATURAL HERITAGE Insect Species Act. All occurrences were located on INVENTORY the James River District of the George Washington Thanks to The Nature Conservancy and Westvaco National Forest during a shale barren inventory for Corporation, the Division of Natural Heritage is the U.S. Forest Service. Two of the occurrences currently conducting an inventory of Westvaco’s were located along Blue Suck Run southwest of Virginia land holdings. The inventory is a result of a Longdale Furnace and the third along Johns Run west five-year cooperative agreement between TNC and of Covington. The largest occurrence was comprised Westvaco. Survey sites in the Virginia Piedmont of 11 flowering individuals and 19 rosettes. and Mountains have been selected using Westvaco’s comprehensive GIS information. The inventory will HISTORICAL SENSITIVE JOINT-VETCH focus on ecologically significant communities, along POPULATION REDISCOVERED with botanical and zoological work. Highlights of A population of the federally threatened plant species the 2000 field season included two new populations sensitive joint-vetch (Aeschynomene virginica) of the federally endangered smooth coneflower (G2/S2), last documented in 1939 along Back River (Echinacea laevigata) in Amherst County, thanks to at Colonial National Historical Park, was the assistance of a local naturalist. Smooth rediscovered in 2000 by a Natural Heritage field coneflower is known from Virginia, North Carolina, botanist. Sensitive joint-vetch is a member of the pea South Carolina, and Georgia. Surveys during the family found in fresh to slightly brackish tidal winter of 2000-2001 have documented new marshes from New Jersey to North Carolina. community occurrences including an Ultramafic Eighteen populations are extant in Virginia. The Woodland, a Basic- Oak Hickory Forest, a Piedmont Colonial NHP population, once apparently along the Hardpan Forest, and an Eastern Hemlock Forest. Back River channel and unsuccessfully searched for Inventory work is now focused on the mountain over the last decade, is currently found in an interior holdings of Westvaco. marsh location associated with the edge of an old road through the marsh that leads to a former ferry MELICA NITENS FOUND AT PATTERSON landing. The survey was conducted