July 16, 2024 Chapter Meeting

Posted on May 30, 2024

Tuesday, July 16, 7:00 PM: Jesse Duff-Woodruff. Plants Endemic to the Kaibab
National Forest

August 20, 2024 Chapter Meeting @ 7 p.m.

Posted on May 30, 2024

Zane Robertson. Rumex thoneurus
Rumex orthoneurus is an herbaceous riparian perennial within the Polygonaceae or Buckwheat family native to Arizona and is a Forest Service sensitive species. One of the issues regarding the “threatened” status of R. orthoneurus is the taxonomic istinctions between R. orthoneurus and closely
related species, such as R. densiflorus, R. pycnanthus, and R. occidentalis. My research focuses on using ribosomal RNA extracted from herbarium specimens, GenBank sequences, and other historic records to provide insight on the identity of R. orthoneurus and better inform conservation efforts.
Zane Robertson is a Plant Biology and Conservation M.S. graduate of Arizona State University. His interest lies in rare plant conservation and molecular biology, and his thesis focuses on combining historic and molecular techniques to clarify the identity of the rare plant Rumex orthoneurus. He is
from Mukilteo, Washington State, where he first gained interest in plant biology while volunteering at the community garden. He graduated from Everett Community College within the Ocean Research College Academy program, where he gained an interest in research and the principles of conservation within the natural world. During his time at Montana State University, he studied wheat breeding and tested a quantitative trait loci (QTL) from spring wheat varieties to identify the effect of the QTL on different traits. He is currently working as a Conservation and Land Management Program (CLM) Intern with the U.S. Forest Service at Tonto National Forest and Chicago Botanical Garden.

Fall 2023 Chapter Meetings

Posted on Aug 24, 2023

Regular evening programs are presented on the third Tuesday of the month, March through October, at 7:00 PM via Zoom. Some of the meetings have been recorded and can be viewed the Flagstaff Chapter’s Facebook or at The Arizona Native Plant Society. For details about upcoming meetings, please see our email distribution list (naris123@cs.com), Facebook page, or AZNPS.com. Field trips are typically held the weekend following the evening presentation. Watch the email distribution list for information about upcoming field trips.

Tuesday, September 19, 7:00 PM: Andrew Salywon. Using Trained Dogs to Detect Endangered Spiranthes delitescens
The objective of this work is to determine the ability of detection dogs to identify the presence of Spiranthes delitescens. If successful, the use of detection dogs would be a powerful tool to aid future surveys to relocate historical populations or discover previously undocumented populations of Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses. Utilizing trained dogs and their powerful sense of smell can greatly aid conservationists by making plant surveying much more efficient, thus requiring less human effort and resources. Spiranthes delitescens have recently been observed in small numbers at only one of four historically documented sites.

Tuesday, October 17, 7:00 PM:

Lane Butler. Assessment and Status of Rumex orthoneurus, a Rare and Vulnerable Forest Service Conservation Agreement Species on the Tonto National Forest

This talk will tell the story of Rumex orthoneurus on the Tonto National Forest from the late seventies to the present. How have populations changed? How has management changed? What actions have been taken to conserve the species under Conservation Agreements? What is the species status today and what does its future look like? Lane will address these questions and more.
Lane Butler is currently working on several rare and endangered plant conservation grants at the Desert
Botanical Garden. She enjoys hunting for (and finding!) rare plants, especially flowering Arizona hedgehog cacti on the Tonto National Forest. In 2015, she earned her Master of Science at ASU in Plant Conservation Biology in the riparian plant community ecology lab. Her project emphasized the relationships of plant and butterfly abundance and diversity to stream-flow permanence along Sonoran Desert streams.