Intermountain Regional Herbarium Network

This document describes the Native Plant Materials Policy adopted by the United States Forest Service in 2008. A Strategic Framework for implementing the Policy is detailed. 

The Nursery Manual for Native Plants - A Guide for Tribal Nurseries covers all aspects of managing a native plant nursery, from initial planning through crop production to establishing trials to improve nursery productivity into the future. 

The efforts to control invasive tree species and revegetate riparian areas along New Mexico’s rivers and streams have led to important “lessons learned” based on both successful and failed projects. The information in this technical note is intended to concisely address the concerns that you should consider when planning and developing riparian revegetation projects.

• Provide guidelines for a comprehensive bioengineering strategy;
• Incorporate design elements that impart site stability and resilience;
• Include project recommendations that minimize risk during periods of vulnerability;
• Increase understanding of how to properly apply bioengineering and revegetation techniques;
• Provide background resources on the combined forces of water and gravity as they pertain to bioengineered structures; and
• Create a searchable Revegetation Matrix for the primary native restoration species useful for flood recovery and other riparian areas throughout Colorado.

This publication from Weld County provides photos of native annual plant species commonly misidentified. 

The Native Plant YellowPages includes a list of vendors carrying ecotypic (i.e., locally adapted) native plants for flood-recovery, in the form of seed and container stock, as well as a comprehensive list of seed vendors and nurseries who sell native plants for Colorado.

This groundbreaking new publication from the Society for Ecological Restoration provides updated and expanded guidance on the practice of ecological restoration, clarifies the breadth of ecological restoration and allied environmental repair activities, and includes ideas and input from a diverse international group of restoration scientists and practitioners.

The purpose of the Stream Stewardship and Recovery Handbook is to create an educational resource for private landowners to better understand their streamside properties in the context of the larger watershed, what they can do to practice good stream stewardship and when/how they should engage outside help for stewardship or recovery projects.

Revegetation Strategies and Technology Development for Restoration of Xeric Tamarix Infestation Sites 

The Great Basin Native Plant Project has posted presentations from its diverse Webinar Series on its website; topics range from seed collection to pollinators to genetic diversity. 

Bringing Birds Home is a manual that describes how to proactively improve riparian habitat for bird species in Mesa County, Colorado.  

This guide was made possible by a grant from the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and was produced by RiversEdge West, with help from the Grand Valley Audubon Society, Tucson Audubon Society, and Audubon Arizona.

A prescription for drug-free rivers: uptake of pharmaceuticals by a widespread streamside willow

Carmen Franks, David Pearce, Stewart Rood

Abstract:

Following human excretion and limited removal with wastewater treatment, pharmaceuticals are accumulating in rivers worldwide. These chemicals can challenge the health of fish and aquatic organisms and since rivers provide drinking water sources, there is concern for cumulative exposure to humans. In this study, we discovered that sandbar willow (Salix exigua), a predominant riparian shrub along streams throughout North America, has the capacity to quickly remove pharmaceuticals from aqueous solutions. Our study tracked [3 H]- or [14C]-labeled substances including 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2), a synthetic estrogen in oral contraceptives; the antihypertensive, diltiazem (DTZ); and the anti-anxiety drug, diazepam (DZP); and for comparison, atrazine (ATZ), a root-absorbed herbicide. In growth chambers, willow saplings removed 40–80% of the substances from solutions in 24 h. Following uptake, the EE2 and DTZ were retained within the roots, while DZP and ATZ were partly passed on to the shoots. The absorbed EE2 was unextractable and apparently bound to the root tissue, while DTZ, DZP, and ATZ remained largely soluble (extractable). The uptake and translocation of the pharmaceuticals, reflected in the transpiration stream and root concentration factors, were reasonably predicted from their physicochemical properties, including octanol-water partitioning coefficients. These findings suggest the removal of pharmaceuticals as an unrecognized ecosystem service provided by riparian vegetation and especially the inundation tolerant sandbar willow. This encourages the conservation of riparian willows that line riverbanks, to remove pharmaceuticals and other contaminants. This phytoremediation also encourages the preservation of complex, braided channels and islands, which increase the extent of stream shorelines and riparian willows.

Authors: Anna A. Shera, Hisham El Waera, Eduardo Gonzáleza,b, Robert Andersona, Annie L. Henrya, Robert Biedrona, PengPeng Yuea

This report includes a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the vegetation response to a single watershed-scale restoration effort that includes 40 sites along the Dolores River from 2010-2014.

Developed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, this guide provides a simple key to help identify common willows, cottonwoods, alder, birch and dogwood. 

This Colorado State University website provides information on a suite of poisonous plants. 

This 1-page handout describes the differences between invasive Russian olive and native silverleaf buffaloberry. Photos of distinctive characteristics are provided. 

This document describes the biology and management implications of reed canary grass, a rhizomatous perennial grass that is currently found in all but six of the lower 48 states.  

The Native Seed Network is a resource for both the restoration community and the native seed industry, providing powerful search tools and information on all aspects of native seed.

This document offers resources for selecting native plant species and appropriate seed sources to revegetate degraded lands in the state and region.

This paper describes way that the state of California could benefit from enacting goals in the National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration. 

This article describes the benefit of using a diverse suite of species in restoration activities and the research that is being conducted to breed plants for desirable seed production and planting traits. 

National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration 2015-2020 is designed to provide a more coordinated approach among tribal, state, federal, local and private entities, including commercial growers, to restoring plant communities. 

This document discusses riparian restoration lessons learned by the Dolores River Restoration Partnership over the last five years. Working across two states, four Bureau of Land Management offices, and five counties, the Partnership has had a number of successes, total failures, and projects somewhere in the middle. 

The document is organized into key revegetation components, including:

• Passive versus active revegetation
• Site selection
• Species size and selection
• Planting and seeding
• Maintenance 

This Natural Resources Conservation Service document describes proper techniques for planting cottonwoods and willows. 

This document discusses riparian restoration lessons learned by the Dolores River Restoration Partnership over the last five years. Working across two states, four Bureau of Land Management offices, and five counties, the Partnership has had a number of successes, total failures, and projects somewhere in the middle. 

The document is organized into key revegetation components, including:

• Passive versus active revegetation
• Site selection
• Species size and selection
• Planting and seeding
• Maintenance 

This document by Wildhorse Riverworks describes how to use live cuttings in revegetation projects.

This publication describes the long-stem planting methods utilized in Australia. Techniques for a variety of ecosystems are described. 

This PowerPoint presentation from the Natural Resources Conservation Service was presented in Moab and Escalante, Utah in 2011. The presentation covers: what, when, and where to plant; effective planting methods; suggested planting equipment; survival results; and suggested publications. 

The purpose of this Technical Note is to provide guidance for the design and implementation of conservation plantings to enhance habitat for pollinators including: bees, wasps, butterflies, moths and hummingbirds. Plant species included in this document are adapted to the Intermountain West; encompassing southern Idaho, eastern Oregon, northern Nevada and northern Utah.

Interest in bees has grown dramatically in recent years in light of several studies that have reported widespread declines in bees and other pollinators. Investigating declines in wild bees can be difficult, however, due to the lack of faunal surveys that provide baseline data of bee richness and diversity. Protected lands such as national monuments and national parks can provide unique opportunities to learn about and monitor bee populations dynamics in a natural setting because the opportunity for large-scale changes to the landscape are reduced compared to unprotected lands. Here we report on a 4-year study of bees in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), found in southern Utah, USA. Using opportunistic collecting and a series of standardized plots, we collected bees throughout the six-month flowering season for four consecutive years. In total, 660 bee species are now known from the area, across 55 genera, and including 49 new species. Two genera not previously known to occur in the state of Utah were discovered, as well as 16 new species records for the state. Bees include ground-nesters, cavity- and twig-nesters, cleptoparasites, narrow specialists, generalists, solitary, and social species. The bee fauna reached peak diversity each spring, but also experienced a second peak in diversity in late summer, following monsoonal rains. The majority of GSENM’s bees are highly localized, occurring in only a few locations throughout the monument, and often in low abundance, but consistently across the four years. Only a few species are widespread and super-abundant. Certain flowering plants appear to be inordinately attractive to the bees in GSENM, including several invasive species. GSENM protects one of the richest bee faunas in the west; the large elevational gradient, incredible number of flowering plants, and the mosaic of habitats are all likely contributors to this rich assemblage of bees.