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BEN # 184
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No. 184 February 19, 1998
aceska@victoria.tc.ca Victoria, B.C.
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Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2
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MACOUN'S MEADOW-FOAM AND LAWN BURWEED
From: Briony Penn <penn&gunn@saltspring.com> originally
published in Gulf Islands Driftwood Feb. 11, 1998, p. 7.
[Prologue: Briony Penn's article describes a fight between a
rare endemic species, Macoun's meadow-foam (Limnanthes macounii)
and an aggressive introduced species, lawn burweed (Soliva
sessilis). Both species met in Ruckle Park on Saltspring Island
in southwestern British Columbia. Ruckle Park is the only
locality of Macoun's meadow-foam on Saltspring Island; another
locality we knew of disappeared under a sun deck that an owner
of the property built over the vernal pool where meadow-foam
used to grow. - Thanks to Briony Penn and to the Gulf Island
Driftwood for the permission to post the article on BEN. - AC]
Once upon a time there were two plants each exquisite in their
own right: Macoun's meadow-foam and the lawn burweed. Both these
plants had adapted to a very unusual sort of place: a place
where the competition was weak, the aspect was sunny but the
water present. Of course there are few places in the world where
all three needs are met and, like many of us, the meadow-foam
found itself a haven in the sunny, mossy rock outcrops of the
Straits of Georgia where water gently seeped through its roots.
There it grew happily co-existing with the odd deer and human
browsing out the more vigorous competitors such as camas and
fool's onion.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the world at approximately the
same latitude the burweed found its niche in the sunny rocky
outcrops of South America where wandering llamas grazed away the
competition. Both plants had many similarities in features; a
reflection of their modest natures. They both liked to stick
close to the ground and laze around in the sun, catching the
rays with their ephemeral leaves.
The one vital difference between the two exquisites was that the
burweed had developed a rather robust manner of distributing its
seed. Its seed case had a sharp pointed spine that did rather
well at embedding itself in the tough old hide of the pampas
deer and moving itself to the next sunny outcrop. The more
improvident meadow-foam had acquired the particular affliction
affecting all long term dwellers of the Gulf Islands, an in-
ability to worry about tomorrow, and its seed was hopelessly
provincial.
This wasn't a problem for thousands of years and may well have
continued not to be a problem for many more except that increas-
ing numbers of exquisite groups of humans arrived in the Straits
who were also looking for places where the competition was weak,
the aspect sunny and the water present. One by one the meadow-
foam colonies were inadvertently wiped out and by the end of the
twentieth century, meadow-foam was reduced to a handful of
scattered colonies, each no larger than a picnic table. Several
colonies were in Ruckle Park.
Meanwhile, burweed was doing rather better. It had inadvertently
become a major player in the changing world that included such
improvident activities as ecotourism and golf. Energetic back-
packers with thick woolly socks and tough young hides, on the
search for pampas deer and adventure, were obvious substitutes
for the deer and the sharp pointed spines of the seeds ensured
their safe passage to the homes of the backpackers in the north-
ern latitudes.
Some burweeds found their way to golf courses in Arizona where
enormous machines and golfers removed the plant competition,
sprinklers provided the water and the sun shone daily. Others
migrated in the backpacks all the way to Ruckle Park, the first
such found in Canada, and took up residence within seeding
distance of the meadow-foam.
Now everyone knows that Gulf Islanders, such as the exquisite
meadow-foam, are no match for competition, even such weak com-
petition as the exquisite burweed, and Ruckle Park in the last
year has become the stage for an international drama. The
meadow-foam is on the endangered list and the burweed has become
the latest arrival in a long line of threats to its existence,
alongside the exquisite broom, ivy and makers of golf courses.
Now for the moral of the tale.
In regular fairy tales, there is a good and a bad and the good
wins every time. In this fairy tale, there is no good or bad
there is simply 'seemingly improvident' and 'inadvertently
opportunistic' and a storyteller who has a certain empathy for
underdogs and maintaining a diversity of approaches to life. Who
is to know whether the hopeless quality of improvidence during
one millennium might not be the enduring quality in another
millennia. Could Macoun's meadow-foam become the lawn burweed in
another time? The only way to know is to try and do what one
can. It has been at our hands that the meadow-foam has all but
disappeared and it can only be our hands that pluck the ex-
quisite burweed from amongst the meadow-foam. It is task that it
splendidly reflective. You crawl on your knees on a sunny rocky
outcrop with water gently seeping under your knees trying to
decide if what you are about to pluck is the rarest organism in
Canada- rarer than the blue whale - or a hardy little traveler
that only a moment ago was caught amongst the coarse hairs of a
pampas deer. It is a time of learning as you must confront the
slight and subtle differences between species and the contradic-
tions within yourself about one's role in the biosphere. And
once you have done it, I promise you, you will never look at the
world in the same way again.
Ruckle is the only known site of lawn burweed that it has been
found in British Columbia to date and it is possible at this
stage to first-thank it for being so exquisite-then remove it
with a respectful pluck.
[Epilogue: A similar fight is being staged between Macoun's
meadow-foam and subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum) on
Rocky Point near Victoria. Subterranean clover has similar
ecology as Macoun's meadow-foam and lawn burweed and is native
to Mediterranean Europe. - AC]
GALIUM PARISIENSE - NEW SPECIES FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA & CANADA
From Adolf & Oluna Ceska c/o <aceska@victoria.tc.ca>
When we were going through our old unidentified collections, we
came across the following specimen of wall bedstraw, Galium
parisiense L. (Rubiaceae): Lasqueti Island, Trematon Mtn. 49
deg. 28.2' N. 124 deg. 16.8' W. elev. 300 m; A. & O. Ceska (#
25,659), June 14, 1989 (V, UBC). Galium parisiense has not been
previously reported from British Columbia and Canada.
This is an annual species of bedstraw, with short (5-8 cm)
stems. Its minute leaves (in whorls of 4-5) are reflexed
downwards and have scabrous margins. The tiny flowers are
bisexual and tetramerous. This species is an introduction that
originated in the Mediterranean Europe. In western North America
it is known from California, Oregon and Washington.
On Lasqueti Island this species occurs in thick patches along
the path in a periodically wet area at the bottom of a rocky
ravine just below the top of Trematon Mountain.
NEW BOOK: MACROLICHENS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
McCune, B. & L. Geiser. 1997. Macrolichens of the Pacific
Northwest. Oregon State University, Corvallis. xiv + 386 p.
ISBN 0-87071-394-9 [soft cover]
Order from:
Oregon State University Press,
101 Waldo Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331-6407
Credit card orders by phone: 541-737-3166; fax 541-737-3170
email: osupress@ccmail.orst.edu
Cost: US$25.95
In Canada the book is distributed by the UBC Press:
UBC Press, University of British Columbia
6344 Memorial Road, Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z2
Phone: 604-822-5959 Fax: 800-668-0821
E-mail: orders@ubcpress.ubc.ca
The Canadian price is CND$35.95.
This guide includes keys to 92 genera about 460 species of
macrolichens (foliose, fruticose and the larger squamulose
forms) that are known (or can be expected) in Oregon and
Washington. Individual species treatments with colour
photographs & numerous line drawings are provided for 210
species, mostly those that are found in forested ecosystems
(USDA Forest Service was a partner in this publication). Each
treatment contains species description, air pollution sen-
sitivity, range, substrate, habitat, and notes that give
references to similar or closely related species. The introduc-
tory chapter explains essential morphological terms and the
glossary at the end of the book explains and illustrates all
additional terms used in the book. The nomenclature is dealt
with in a table that lists all names and their synonyms. This
table is a must: the generic concept in lichens has changes
since my salad days, when I learned Hypogymnia physodes as
Parmelia. This guide nicely complement the guide to the "Lichens
of California" by Hale & Cole, published in 1989, and it extends
user-friendly lichens manuals northward to the Canadian border.
The book is superbly illustrated with photographs by Sylvia &
Stephen Sharnoff and with very good line drawings by Alexander
Mikulin. BEN readers know Sylvia and Stephen Sharnoff as col-
laborators in Dr. Erwin Brodo's book on lichens of North America
to be produced by the Canadian Museum of Nature and published by
the Yale University Press. See their article on lichens in the
February 1997 issue of the National Geographic and visit their
web page at the following URL:
http://www.lichen.com
Critical comments? Keys may be too technical for the audience of
this guide, but we will learn. I missed the scale in the
photographs. A small 1 cm bar in a corner would greatly improve
the interpretation of colour pictures. Without this scale Pel-
tigera venosa looks to me more like Peltigera horizontalis. In
the keys the authors used a bold type to mark the name of
species that received full treatment. The authors missed this
coding in the first group of keys to the genera - should I use a
yellow highlighter?
All parties involved in this publication should be congratulated
for an excellent work. Our thanks should also go to the USDA
Forest Service whose contribution made this book relatively
inexpensive.
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