The scenery of the greater San Francisco Peaks volcanic system comes at a grand scale. But it might include some tiny residents. They include glistening, rock-bound ferns, cupped yellow flowers, small succulents, stalks lined with Victorian collars, and delicate violet flowers. These rare plants are small, grow in difficult terrain, and some haven’t been seen in decades.
In 2020, the Arizona Flora Finders made it their mission to find them. More than 100 Citizen scientists trained in person and online in plant identification and location. With help from Forest Service botanists, they spent nearly 800 hours searching large areas that often lacked detailed historical location data.
Despite the odds, almost two-thirds of the target species were found in more than 80 separate locations. These include a moonwort thought to be extinct in the region, a milkweed not collected since 1979, and a new location for a fern endemic to Sedona. New finds are reported to the Arizona Natural Heritage program, while herbarium specimens collected as samples are housed in the McDougall Herbarium at the Museum of Northern Arizona.
Changing landscapes transformed by wildfires, and biological quirks like inconsistent blooming years, mean the group is still on the hunt. Unfortunately, funding for the Arizona Floral Finders has ended, and future funding is uncertain.
But programs like this help land agencies improve rare species management at an efficient cost. Seed collections in turn support long-term sustainability efforts, guaranteeing these rare species are not lost to history again.
This episode of Earth Notes was written by Amber Jones, and produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.
