Editors Note: This article was originally published on NCW Life here. It was published on 8/20/2024 and is by Jefferson Robbins. Seeing as how this article highlights a rare plant in our region, we feel sharing it is appropriate. Read on for details.
On an intermittently rainy Wednesday in June, David Wilderman presided over a team of scientists, students, volunteers and wildflower enthusiasts to pursue a rare Cascades wildflower.
The Wenatchee Mountains checker-mallow grows only in central Chelan County, in a narrow range of meadows along Blewett Pass. Every year, scientists and volunteers from the Washington Department of Natural Resources, the University of Washington, the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies fan out to count the number of checker-mallows sprouting in their native range, and monitor the species’ health.
Wilderman, natural areas program ecologist with DNR, said the plant species — Sidalcea oregana var. calva, a distinct lineage from the many other Northwestern checker-mallows — may have evolved due to isolation of the Wenatchee Mountains meadows.
“The thought is that they weren’t very heavily glaciated,” Wilderman said. “Back when the main glaciers, the continental glaciers, didn’t come quite as far south, there weren’t many what are called alpine glaciers. So plant species like the one, the Wenatchee Mountains checker-mallow, kind of survived in this little island of habitat through the glaciation.”
The plant grows up to two feet tall, with pink flowers and three-inch leaves. Camas Meadows, the site of the June count, lies within its home range. The annual count marks each stand of checker-mallow with a landscape flag, allowing for easy tallying and warning hikers where not to tread.
“It’s kind of like a treasure hunt,” said Andrea Cummins, volunteer coordinator with the University of Washington’s Rare Plant Care and Conservation office. “So we’re all walking through sometimes thick brush. But when you see one, it’s really rewarding. And there’s not a lot of them — there’s a reason it’s rare.”
Aside from its rarity, the checker-mallow holds an important place in the Wenatchee Cascades microbiome.
“There’s a lot of really important pollinator connections,” Cummins said. “And it’s something that we’re working really hard at, both through monitoring as well as outplanting introduction work.”
Prior local efforts at monitoring the species received the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Recovery Champions recognition, an award that honors protection and recovery efforts for wild plant and animal species.
Chelan County’s Natural Resources office plans a major hydrology project in Camas Meadows, hoping to restore streamflows and improve moisture conditions for native plants like the checker-mallow. The survey, which Wilderman says tagged 3,140 individual plants in three search areas, will help the county avoid disturbing the established plant populations during that work.
Efforts to plant new Wenatchee Mountains checker-mallows in their native range are ongoing, but cultivating it in a greenhouse can prove challenging, Cummins said: “It has some pretty significant requirements that we’re still just learning about because, again, it’s so rare and we know so little about it.”
For more information on Camas Meadows, check out our guidebook post on this area. Please make sure to stay on designated paths and do not go off trail to avoid damage to this fragile ecosystem and its inhabitants. Do NOT pick the flowers, plants etc. in this
