Newsletter

Spring 2002

Prairie Restoration on the Smith Prairie Reserve
By Steve Byler, Prairie Restoration Ecologist

Exciting developments are taking place in the prairie restoration program at Au Sable's Pacific Rim campus and Smith Prairie Reserve. In August 2001 we received a $10,000 grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This funding was earmarked for restoring ecosystems of special importance to Washington State.

The Smith Prairie Reserve contains a rare prairie remnant is considered to be the best remaining example of coastal lowland glacial outwash prairie in the Northern Puget Sound. Now only a handful of acres remain of the prairie ecosystem that once covered several thousand acres on Whidbey Island. Au Sable Institute is grateful for the opportunity to be stewards of this unique and special place.

What follows is a brief reflective journal to describe the prairie restoration work that we have been doing on Smith Prairie.

Henderson's shooting star (Dodecatheon hendersonii) just prior to bloom and blooming.

May 14, 2001. In my first season of observing the Smith Prairie, common camas (Cammasia quamash) is the flower that I long to see. And here it is. Delicate blue flowers, six petals, eight inches tall, many places forming a sea of blue. Merriweather Lewis on his grand expedition commented on the seas created by this flower. Swaying oceans of blue. In his time it was a common plant through out the west. Likely its widespread geography was the result of its bulb's importance as food for native peoples. Common camas was not to be mistaken with white camas (Zigadenus venenosus), also aptly named death camas.

Hyacinth brodiaea, Brodiaea hyacinthina

May 26, 2001. May is also the time for conducting vegetation surveys, as the prairie is in bloom more than any other time of year. Today we are joined by several local botanists for a field day to identify plants and describe the vegetation.

June 6, 2001. The first blooms on the prairie occurred months ago, the flower petals have dropped, and now the seed capsules are ripening. The first seeds to collect are of spring gold (Lomatium utriculatum). Collecting these seeds involves stooping low to the ground and clipping off the tiny umbels.

July 2, 2001. Camas again. In a field adjacent to the Smith Prairie reserve, it grows like when Merriweather Lewis first saw it. It is a sea, but by this time of the summer the blue flowers have disappeared, and the brown seed capsules are ready to harvest. Armed with permission of the owner, scissors and paper bags, two of us fill a wheelbarrow with seed capsules. After cleaning and processing the seed, what filled the wheelbarrow has been condensed to the size of a tupperware container. Yet this amount is probably more camas seed than has ever been collected on Whidbey Island before.

September 14, 2001. All those seeds we harvested this summer now need to be cleaned. Cleaning is the process of separating the seed from the bits and pieces of stem and seed capsules that were all collected together. We have screens of various sizes that collect the chaff on top of the screen, and pass the seeds below.

October 3, 2001. The prairie eagerly waits for fire to return to the ecosystem. Fire is a natural component to prairies. Without it, woody plants start to take over. Perhaps next year we will apply this technique? Prescribed burns are a political process as well as an ecological one. So we will wait for the right conditions: wind direction and speed, humidity, temperature, fuel moisture, and just as important the local political climate and the acceptance by adjacent landowners.

November 10, 2001. On this Saturday workday, an army of volunteers have turned out to take advantage of a crisp and sunny fall day. We are cutting nootka rose (Rosa nutkana) and snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus). While these are native shrubs, they are invasive to the prairie. The shrubs form dense stands and shade out the native prairie plants.

January 30, 2002. The sun is out and the greenhouse is toasty warm. Little sprigs of green are emerging from the pots we planted a few weeks ago. Roemer's fescue (Festuca idahoensis roemeri) is growing well, along with showy fleabane (Erigeron speciosus) and spike-like goldenrod (Solidago spathulata). We will have to experiment with other species - spring gold (Lomatium utriculatum) and chocolate lily (Fritillaria lanceolata) - to identify the right growing conditions.

February 18, 2002. Golden Indian paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) is just beginning to bloom on Ebey's Prairie, just a few miles west of Smith Prairie. It is one of the first prairie plants to bloom in the spring. Seeing the bright wands waving in the breeze fills us with anticipation of another spring on the prairie.

Chocolate Lily, Fritillaria lanceolata

April 12, 2002. Our hard work of shrub-clearing is paying off. We are beginning to see the emergence of prairie plants in the cleared areas on the remnant. We notice several species, two in particular - common camas (Cammasia quamash) and chocolate lily (Fritillaria lanceolata). This is extremely exciting for the volunteers working here again today. The shrubs that were cleared were well established, possibly existing there for a hundred years or more since the prairie burning ceased. We were hoping that the bulbs and seeds of prairie plants still existed, and now our hopes are confirmed.

Looking ahead to the coming months, the prairie restoration program will continue with a variety of activities, changing with the turn of the seasons. Propagating plants will be an important theme this summer, as we prepare for our first prairie restoration planting this coming fall. One of our largest goals for the summer is to raise money and build a greenhouse. A greenhouse will enable the restoration program to propagate a large number of plants, and thus restore a large area of prairie each year.

Our upcoming calendar includes volunteer days on June 15 and July 20, and on May 18 we offer "Camas Days". This annual event is a time to celebrate the prairie in bloom, with guided prairie walks, good food and music, and an inspirational talk by Au Sable Institute Director, Dr. Cal DeWitt. We hope to see you there.

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