Riotous Rarities- Wildflowers and Plants of the Inland Northwest

Some of the rare plants I was privileged enough to see while I lived in southwest Idaho near Boise. The habitat most of these plants are in is some of the fastest disappearing in the West. Shrub-steppe and badlands. Fires, over-grazing, erosion, and OHV use are some of the major threats facing most of these plants.

The photos at the beginning of this video were not shot by me but by someone in the Idaho Native Plant Society. It shows an Allium aaseae (Aase's Onion) population that was in danger of being extripated by the continuing expansions of the Boise Landfill. The Idaho Native Plant Society in collaboration with the Idaho Botanical Gardens in Boise dug up these plants and planted them in the Idaho Botanical Gardens newest exhibit on native plants.

At 1:29 there is a shot of a meadow that has been partially destroyed by off-road enthusiasts. This meadow has (had) one of the only existent 5 populations on earth of the rarest plant in Idaho- Carex aboriginum.

Another major threat to native plants is over-grazing and fire. Fire in sagebrush, unlike in forests, is not a naturally occurring event- and can devistate native communities in the shrub-steppe that are not adapted to survive such quick fire regimes.

Photos by Thayne
Music by Colorado Playboys, All That I Can Take, 12-09-2006, Little Church in the Pines, Boulder, CO

Category:

Education

Tags:

• rare
• plants
• idaho
• southwest
• wildflowers
• endemic
• endangered
• threatened
• species
• flora
• botany
• conservation