Saving the RarestDonald A. FalkFrancis R. Thibodeau

By cultivating endangered native plants a nationwide network of botanicalgardens and arboreta hopes to produce stock that can be used to reestablishendangered plants in the wild once their natural habitats have beenrehabilitated

Like many desert plants, Agave arizonicawas in serious decline during the 1960s. Bythe middle of the decade it had been reducedto two known localities with only a handfulof plants. Despite attempts to protect theremaining individuals, the species-whichtends to grow in populations of very lowdensities-continued to suffer from grazingand collecting and was apparently on theroad to extinction. In 1968, staff membersof the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix,Arizona, took an interest in the species.Working primarily with bulbils and tissuecultures, they managed to establish a culti-vated stand from which scores of plants havesince been propagated for distribution andreplanting in the wild. The Garden has alsoplayed a key role in pubhc education andhas worked cooperatively with the nationalFish and Wildlife Service to help locate andmanage the remaining wild populations.Thirty-one clonal populations are now

known from a one hundred-square-milearea. Agave arizonica was officially listed asa protected endangered species in 1984,

Opposite: Drawmg of Franklima alatamaha Marsh.,Frankhnia, or the Franklm tree, by Charles EdwardFaxon (1846-1918). Frankhnia is beheved to be exunctm the mld but is mdely cultivated m botamcal gar-dens and elsewhere Many dramngs by Faxon, bothpreviously pubhshed and unpubhshed, appear m thisissue of Amoldia. Most are from materials in the Ar-chives of the Arnold Arboretum.

which should enhance its chances for recov-

ery.A dramatic intervention, perhaps, but not

so unusual as one might think, for in recentyears botanical gardens and arboreta in theUnited States and abroad have become in-

creasingly active in protecting and conserv-ing native species of plants. Conservation israpidly becoming a mission of many gardensand arboreta, alongside their traditional mis-sions of display, research, and education. Incoming decades, botanical gardens and ar-boreta should become vital for the conser-vation and understanding of the world’s ra-rest plants.

The Problem of Extinction

The tragic extinction of species worldwide,which is primarily a consequence of wide-spread destruction of habitat in the Tropics,is now well recognized (Myers, 1979).Human-induced extinction of species is nothmited to the Tropics, however, but is hap-pening in every nation on earth. In theUnited States alone at least three thousandspecies of higher plants are believed to beendangered or threatened with extinction,

-

roughly fifteen percent of the nation’s entireflora (Prance and Elias, 1977; Ayensu andDeFilipps, 1978). Agencies of the FederalGovernment charged with protecting thesespecies-most notably the Office of Endan-

4

gered Species in the Fish and Wildlife Ser-vice-operate on severely limited budgetsand simply do not have the means to eval-uate the status of the thousands of plant taxathat have been proposed under the terms ofthe Endangered Species Act (Anonymous,1984a). Moreover, very few taxa-one

hundred as of this writing-have survivedthe administrative procedure for officiallylisting a taxon as "endangered" under theprovisions of the Act (Anonymous, 1984b),though they may have such status understate laws. In fact, however, plants do notreceive the same degree of protection thatanimals do because the law regards them aspart of the property on which they grow andhence may be privately owned. Thus, underthe current formulation of the Act, the saleand interstate transport of endangered plantsis restricted, but the destruction or takingof wild individuals from private land tech-nically is not. The Act’s primary effect is toprevent the use of Federal funds for projectsthat would destroy or alter the habitats ofendangered taxa. In this context, when thepresence of rare plants might hold up com-mercial-development projects, it is not un-usual for wild populations of rare plants tobe destroyed before anyone can protect theirhabitats permanently. Other Federal agen-cies (such as the Forest Service, Park Service,and Bureau of Land Management) cooperatewith the Office of Endangered Species bylaw-but they, too, have competing de-mands for their budgets and for the land theycontrol, especially since Congress is not

uniformly friendly to the protection of en-dangered species when there is a conflict.Outside of the Federal Government, a singleprivate conservation organization-The Na-ture Conservancy-has been almost solelyresponsible for the vast majority of natural-habitat acquisition in the nation. The Con-servancy has managed to protect more thantwo million acres of prime natural habitatin over three thousand locations across the

country.Meanwhile, extinction accelerates. Com-

mercial, industrial, and agricultural "de-

velopment" continues to destroy tens ofthousands of acres yearly; much of this landis logged, mined, or converted for recrea-tional uses, even though it technically re-mains "protected" under the jurisdiction ofa Federal or state agency, such as the Bureauof Land Management. Other sources of dan-ger are more subtle but no less insidious.Elias (1977) estimates that twenty-two per-cent of the flora of the United States consistsof naturalized species, many of which (Lyth-rum salicaria, the common purple loose-

Calochortus obispoensis Lemmon, the San Lms man-posa, a candidate for legal protection under the En-dangered Species Act. Further information on mldpopulations of this species is needed before it can beofficially hsted, however. This drawmg, by C. E. Faxon,is from the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum.

5

Iris tenuis S. Wats., the Clackamas ms, drawn by C.E. Faxon. Native to northwestern Oregon, this speciesis no longer a candidate for hsung under the Endan-gered Species Act because it has "proven to be moreabundant or widespread than was previously behevedandlor [isJ not sub~ect to anyidenuflable threat." Taxaof this type are said by the Fish and Wildhfe Sezmceto be in "Category 3C

"

strife, for example) compete with nativeplants and may hterally crowd them out ofexistence. Native species have suffered fromsuch introduced diseases as Dutch elm dis-ease and chestnut blight, against which theyhave no resistance.

In the face of such multifarious threats to

species diversity, it is essential that everyavailable resource be mobilized. In recent

years, botanical gardens and arboreta havebecome important new members of theconservation community. Although theirenormous potential to intervene in speciesextinction has only begun to be realized,there are many hopeful signs that they willbe increasingly active in the preservation ofendangered plant species.

The Increasing Importance of BotanicalGardens and Arboreta

Recently, Dr. Peter Ashton, Director of theArnold Arboretum, noted that botamcal gar-dens and arboreta should view themselvesas "basic resources" in conservation and re-search. He notes (Ashton, 1984) that

botanic gardens have an opportumty, mdeed anobligation which is open to them alone, to bridgebetween the traditional concerns of systematicbiology and the retummg needs of agriculture,forestry, and medicine for the exploration andconservation of biological diversity.

Others-Schultes (1983), Lucas (1984), andSynge and Townsend (1979), for example-have similarly noted the potential im-

portance of gardens for research on and con-servation of endangered species. The rolesgardens and arboreta can play are by andlarge extensions of their traditional areas ofexpertise in plant collecting, propagation,cultivation, and research. A sampling of ac-tivity in United States botanical gardens il-lustrates the diverse functions that gardensare already developing as they concentrateincreasingly on work with endangered na-tive plants.

6

Cultivating Rare and Endangered Plants

Where botanical gardens truly excel is in thepropagation and cultivation of plants. Gar-dens and arboreta in this country have had

many decades of experience in propagatingand cultivating rare and fastidious species.Although they traditionally have appliedtheir skills primarily to horticultural vari-eties and exotics, many gardens and arboretahave begun turning their skills to the con-servation of rare native taxa (Huckins, 1983).For instance, a recent survey of botanical

Elliottia racemosa Muhlenb. ex Elliott, the Georgiaplume, a member of the Encaceae. A deciduous shrubthat reaches twenty feet m height, this is the onlyspecies m the genus. It ~s natme to eastern Georgiaand southern South Carolma The Fish and WildhfeSermce has placed Elliottia racemosa m Category 3CThe drawing, which is by C E. Faxon, is from theArchives of the Arnold Arboretum.

gardens and arboreta in the United Statesrevealed that at least sixty-eight of them arecurrently raising some regionally or nation-ally rare native taxa. It is an encouraging

sign that these institutions are dispersedamong all regions of the continental UnitedStates and Hawaii and that they includemany of the newer, smaller gardens as wellas the more established institutions. Yet de-

spite these encouraging signs, fewer thanone in ten of the taxa that are endangeredin this country are m cultivation anywhere(Brumback, 1981). ~.There are a few bright spots on the map.

Among the largest collections in the conti-nental United States is that of the NorthCarolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill,which maintains in cultivation thirty-eightprotected taxa, including three Federallylisted species and candidates for listing suchas Shortia galacifolia. Another significantcollection is that of the Garden in the Woodsin Framingham, Massachusetts, which cur-rently has more than two hundred fifty spec-imens of plants representing eighteen re-

gionally or nationally endangered taxa. TheDesert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Ari-

zona, cultivates thirty rare native taxa, sev-enteen of which are either listed or proposedfor listing on the Federal Government’s"List of Endangered Plant Species." RanchoSanta Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont,California, conserves upwards of one

hundred rare or threatened native plants, in-cluding major collections of Arctostaphylos(manzanita), Ceanothus, and Dudleya (live-forever). In Hawaii, the Waimea Arboretumcurrently cultivates over three hundred taxathat are rare or endemic to the HawaiianIslands. Other gardens that cultivate threat-ened or endangered species include the StateArboretum of Utah in Salt Lake City; BokTower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida; theDenver Botanic Gardens; the University ofNebraska Statewide Arboretum; and the SanAntonio Botanical Center.

7

Numbers are not the whole picture, of

course; in some cases, botanical gardens areactually growing the last living individualsof a species that has been extirpated fromthe wild. The Fairchild Tropical Garden inMiami maintains specimens of Goetzia ele-gans from Puerto Rico, a species that hasbeen reduced to one plant in the wild. Theplant appears to be self-incompatible, so theplants at the Garden (which were propagatedfrom root cuttings) may soon be the onlyremaining living individuals of the species.The Fairchild also cultivates Amyris balsa-minifera, a plant once found in the subtrop-ical hummocks of southern Florida. All ofthe wild United States populations have dis-appeared, though the species is still rela-

tively common in Central America andSouth America.

Franklinia

The best known example of the cultivationof a species no longer found in the wild is,of course, Frankhnia alatamaha. The spe-cies was observed by John and William Bar-tram along the Alatamaha River in Georgiain 1765 but never elsewhere. The last personto see the plant in the wild, Dr. Moses Mar-shall, revisited the site in 1790 and foundFranklima to be locally plentiful over anarea of two to three acres. It has not beenseen in the wild since and is presumed tohave been extirpated. It has found an alter-native niche, however, as a cultivated orna-mental and is now widely grown. All livingspecimens are descendants of the materialcollected in 1790 by Marshall (Barnhart,1933; Harper and Leeds, 1937).

Predictably, some of the most successfulwork with endangered species has been doneby gardens that have given native plantshigh pnority in their accessions and collec-tions policies. The staff of the Garden in theWoods in Massachusetts, for example, isable to maintain the Garden’s collection of

rare species as part of an overall accessionspolicy that emphasizes native plants of theNortheast, particularly New England. TheGarden’s collection currently includes pop-ulations of Trollius laxus (spreading globe-flower), Helonias bullata (swamp pink), Sa-batia kennedyana (Plymouth gentian), andseveral unusual species of Sarracenia

(pitcher plants). The Garden also maintainsspecies from other regions, such as Echina-cea tennesseensis (Tennessee coneflower)and Shortia galacifolia (Oconee bells).

Camassia cusickm S Wats., a species native to north-eastern Oregon and to Idaho. It is m Category 3C.Drawmg by C. E. Faxon.

8

A diagram illustratmg the several categones of rare (and extmct) plants.

Another excellent example of commit-ment to threatened native plants is the newTransition Zone Horticultural Institute in

Flagstaff, Arizona, which operates The Ar-boretum at Flagstaff. The Institute’s charterspecifically commits the Arboretum to thecultivation and conservation of rare and en-

dangered taxa from its region whenever pos-sible. As a result, the Institute has been ableto acquire a collection that includes severalendangered species of Pediocactus, Cow-ania, and Sclerocactus.Waimea Arboretum and Botanical Garden

in Hawaii has stated in its accessions policythat a "primary role" will be to cultivateendangered plant species and to distributethem widely. It is committed to workingwith national and international conserva-tion efforts. Another important Hawaiiangarden is the Pacific Tropical Botanical Gar-den, which has been chartered by the UnitedStates Congress to work toward the conser-vation of endangered plants. Other largerand more established institutions, such asthe Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis,

have recognized conservation as a priorityand are beginning to integrate endangeredspecies into their permanent collections.A particular application of the skill of gar-

dens in cultivation is the transplanting ofwild plants into a cultivated setting as partof an emergency "plant-rescue" program.The plant-rescue program at the North Car-olina Botanical Garden has operated for overfifteen years and is among the oldest in the

country, sending staff and volunteers to doz-ens of sites threatened with imminent de-struction. The program is designed to pre-serve plants when all attempts to protecttheir habitats have failed. One recent seriesof expeditions managed to transplant overtwenty-five hundred plants of Shortia gala-ci f olia from a site slated for recreational de-velopment-ironically, the construction of ahiking path-by a power company. An ex-cursion to another, isolated Shortia site wasalso successful even though the team had tobe ferried to the site by motorboat. Othercollecting trips have yielded living materialof Camassia scilloides, Trillium pusillum,

9

and Kalmia cuneata. Plants are transportedeither bare-rooted or m blocks of soil andare reestablished in the Garden. In everycase, collectors obtained permission fromthe landowner to enter a site and to remove

plants. Efforts to secure permanent protec-tion for plants in their natural habitatscontinue.

Rescue operations are not always success-ful, even when arrangements seem secure.For mstance, the Berry Botanic Garden wasscheduled to collect seeds and plants fromthe largest remaining population of Loma-tium bradshawii, which was situated in acity park in Eugene, Oregon. Unfortunately,the Parks Department’s grounds crew wasnot informed of the arrangement and mowedthe entire population before the fruits

ripened.Species that are rare in the wild are not

necessarily difficult to raise in cultivation.Many are rare simply because their poorabilities to compete restrict them to a nar-row range of habitat types in the wild. If the

necessary habitat is threatened, then thespecies is threatened. An example is Sabatiakennedyana (Plymouth gentian), which

grows on the sandy margins of ponds onCape Cod, Massachusetts. Given the properconditions under cultivation and unimpededby other species, the plant thrives. A recenttransplant experiment in England revealedthat, of a group of very rare plants, only athird were unusually difficult to raise, whileanother third were actually weedy (Cranstonand Valentme, 1983)!

Horticultural Value

Genetic conservation is not the only reasonfor raising endangered plants. Many of themare stunningly beautiful as well. While someendangered taxa are not especially attrac-tive, Dr. Linda R. McMahan of the Centerfor Plant Conservation (formerly of theWorld Wildlife Fund-U.S.) estimates that

C. E. Faxon’s dramng of Cypnpedium cahfomicum A.Gray, the Cahforma lady’s-shpper Nauve to Cahfomiaand Oregon, Cypnpedmm cahfomicum is also m Cat-egory 3C.

fully two-thirds of the endangered speciesnative to the United States belong to generaof proven horticultural merit. Among themare endangered lilies, larkspurs, orchids,roses, rhododendrons, heathers, asters, col-umbines, violets, meadowbeauties, phloxes,daisies, sunflowers, and gentians, as well asoaks, hollies, birches, pines, cypresses, andmany cacti.With a few notable exceptions, the color

and form of native species in the garden tendto be subtle and understated rather than

showy. One would not pit Hydrastis cana-densis (goldenseal) against the latest gener-

10

ation of Holland’s tulips, for instance. Con-sequently, in botanical gardens the mostsuccessful horticultural applications oftenare those that integrate plantings of nativespecies into their natural settings. At theGarden in the Woods, for example, natural-istic plantings are maintained in a diversityof habitats, including acid- and limestone-woodland, pine-barren, meadow, bog, andpond environments. Another example is theUnited States National Arboretum in Wash-

ington, D.C., where over twenty nationallyrare species are grown in Fern Valley, whichis maintained as a natural woodland. Simi-

larly, the Holden Arboretum in Mentor,Ohio, works with some thirty-six endan-gered plants in seventeen representativehabitat plantings, including woodland,stream- or marsh-border, prairie, and wet-meadow plantings. The North Carolina Bo-tanical Garden maintains collections in sev-eral habitat types typical of the southeasternmountains and coastal plain. The Desert Bo-tanical Garden in Phoenix integrates its

rare-species plantings into a variety of Son-oran Desert habitat types, including a shal-low alkaline plain and a rocky outcrop,where the plants are kept alongside otherspecies associated with them in the wild. Inthese settings, native plants (including thosethat are endangered) can be best appreciatedfor their natural aesthetic virtues.

Seed StorageBesides raising plants in greenhouses andout-of-doors, botanical gardens can maintainliving plant material in storage facilities,such as low-temperature seed banks. An ex-

. ample is the Rare and Endangered Seed Bankat the Berry Botanic Garden in Portland, Or-egon. Initiated in 1982, the Seed Bank cur-rently includes seeds of over one hundredrare and endangered species found in Ore-gon. Curator Julie Kierstead observes that

the goal is "to preserve a representative ge-netic sample of each endangered species inOregon as insurance against extinction ofthe species in the wild." Collecting for thefacility is done by Garden staff and volun-teers, and emphasizes species that are

clearly endangered m the wild but that havenot yet been accorded formal protection un-der the Endangered Species Act. Specimensare stored at minus 18 Celsius (0 Fahrenheit)in sealed glass vials in which the relativehumidity is kept below five percent. Amongthe plants currently in storage are species ofLomatium, Arabis, Astragalus, Lewisia, andLilium. Viability trials are conducted peri-odically to determine how long the seedsremain alive, and their rates of germination.Because many specimens may be kept eas-ily, seed storage provides perhaps the sim-plest means for gardens to maintain ade-

Lonicera hirsuta Eat., the hairy honeysuckle, whichranges from Quebec to Pennsylvania and west to Ne-braska. It is hsted as endangered m Massachusetts bythe Massachusetts Division of Fishenes and Wildlifebut does not appear on the Federal hst. Dramng by C.E. Faxon.

11 1

quate populations of plants, making it

possible to preserve a greater cross-sectionof the genetic diversity of each species. Thecost per species can be quite low also, es-pecially if the garden is able to use an exist-ing facility that has been made available forthe purpose.The United States Department of Agri-

culture, which operates the largest seed-

storage facilities in the United States, hasbegun to work on the conservation of seedsof endangered American plants. The Depart-ment’s interest arises in part because manynative species belong to genera with impor-tant food, fiber, oil, or horticultural species.But the Department’s mandate is even

broader than this, encompassing conserva-tion work through the Forest Service and theAgricultural Research Service. The NationalPlant Germplasm System, which includesthe National Seed Storage Laboratory in FortCollins, Colorado, along with several otherfacilities nationwide, is now conductingtrial storage of rare species through the Cen-ter for Plant Conservation. Readers inter-ested in details about current seed-storagework should refer to the review article byHolden and Williams (1984).

Research

In its 1978 report, Conservation of Germ-plasm Resources, the National ResearchCouncil of the National Academy of Sci-ences concluded that one of the most im-

portant facets of a botanic garden’s involve-ment with endangered plant species is theopportunity to perform significant research(Committee on Germplasm Resources,1978). Many of the rarest and most unusualspecies in the United States are virtuallyunstudied beyond basic botanical descrip-tion, because of the difficulty of workingwith populations in the wild. It is hardlypossible to study thoroughly a species’s bio-

chemistry, for instance, when there are onlya dozen individuals left in the wild. Dr.

Thomas S. Elias of Rancho Santa Ana Bo-tanic Garden observes (Elias, 1977) that "thethreatened and endangered species are oneof the poorest-known assemblages of plantsin the U.S. Little is known about their nat-ural history, their reproductive mechanismsor their life cycles." As a response to thisproblem, he suggests that botanic gardensand arboreta can play a major role in thepreservation of endangered species by as-suming "a leadership role in the study of thenatural history and life cycle of such endan-gered plant groups as the cacti, orchids, cy-cads, some of the attractive wild flowers,and others."

Rhododendron maximum L., the great laurel, or rose-bay, a species hsted m Massachusetts as threatened.Like Lomcera hirsuta, it does not appear on the Federalhst. Drawing by C. E. Faxon.

12

Only recently has the role of experimentalcultivation in relation to habitat conserva-tion been recognized in the United States.Frequently, habitat managers have to baserecovery and management plans on inade-quate data about the species in their care.Consequently, the wild populations of a spe-cies may continue to decline, despite con-tinued efforts at preservation. Particularly inthe case of very rare species, research is fur-ther hindered by the inaccessibility of the

Monardella leucocephala A. Gray, the Merced monar-della, which was native to Merced and Stamslauscounties m Cahforma but which now appears to beextmct m the mld. The Fish and Wildlife Service hasplaced Monardella leucocephala In Category 1, whichmeans that enough information is available to justifygiving it immediate protection under the EndangeredSpecies Act This drawmg is by Adel Hagar of theCenter for Plant Conservation and is used tmth herpermission.

populations and by the necessity to avoiddamaging any of the wild individuals. Dr.Robert E. Cook, Director of Cornell Planta-tions at Cornell University in Ithaca, NewYork, explains (Cook, 1984):Many recovery plans fall to place sufficient em-phasis on critical components of the natural his-tory of all life stages of a species. Furthermore,because individuals of endangered species are rareand irreplaceable, experimental manipulations areseldom feasible, and recovery procedures cannotbe tested. We believe that the preservation of en-

dangered plants depends upon an understandmgof the population biology of each species.

By bringing plants into cultivation, a gardenmay then propagate a large number of ex-pendable individuals that can be subjectedto types of experimental treatment never de-sirable-or even possible-in the wild. Gar-dens can thus make a valuable contributionto species management, especially by pro-viding data on environmental tolerances,growth requirements, physiology, and lifehistories. When coupled with field studiesof population dynamics, pollinators, and as-sociated species in the wild, for example, thedata can begin to suggest the best line ofmanagement. Garden-based ex situ researchis increasingly being joined with fieldworkat institutions such as Cornell and theCenter for Conservation Biology at Stanford,to provide a solid scientific footing forconservation.

Many gardens, of course, are already par-ticipating in research on the biology of en-dangered plants. In many cases, simply at-tempting to cultivate a species will requireresearch, since so few of the plants have everbeen cultivated. The normal range of factorsthat can be manipulated-soil composition,moisture, pH, sunlight, fertilization, strati-fication, and so on-constitutes an impor-tant contribution to understanding the bi-ology of the species. As William E.

Brumback, propagator at the Garden in theWoods, observes (Brumback, 1983):

13

Propagation research can provide important m-sights into a species’ behavior m the wild. Forinstance, what might account for a species’ easeof propagation and cultivation m the controlledenvironment of a botamcal garden while the wildpopulations continue to decline? For each species,the answer lies in the long-term study of the spe-cies’ biology, but propagation research can supplyvaluable mformation regarding the potential suc-cess of the species under "ideal" conditions m thewild.

A notable example of such research is cur-rently being conducted by Brian Parsons andTom Yates at the Holden Arboretum on

Trollius laxus (spreading globeflower) undercontract to the Ohio Department of NaturalResources (ODNR). Holden is investigatingthe cultural requirements of the species inthe Arboretum. ODNR is using their rec-ommendations to manage the remainingwild populations of Trollius in Ohio. Simi-larly, the Transition Zone Horticultural In-stitute in Flagstaff, Arizona, and ComellPlantations, among other gardens, are work-ing under contract with the Fish and Wild-life Service to help develop more accurateand effective "recovery plans" for an in-

creasing number of endangered species.

Oreonana purpurascens Shevock ~ Constance, the purple mountain parsley. Endemic to Tulare County, Califorma,this species is m Category 2-i.e., it is a candidate for protection under the terms of the Endangered Species Act, butmore information about it mll be required before it can be proposed for hsung. This drawmg was done by AmyEisenberg and is used mth her permission. Copynght © 1981 by Amy Eisenberg.

14

Conservation of Habitat andReintroduction: Closing the Circle

In the long run success in the gardens willbe a hollow victory if it does not enhanceefforts to conserve species in their nativehabitats. Many of the instances cited in thisarticle are the result of close cooperationamong botanical gardens and agencies thatmanage natural habitats. Much of the co-

operation naturally revolves around the gar-dens’s ability to perform or assist in re-

search. By learning more about plants incultivation, habitat managers can make more-informed choices about populations in thewild.

Trifolium bolanden A. Gray, Bolander’s clover, a rareclover known only from a few scattered locahties fromYosemite National Park south to Sierra National For-est, California. Like Oreonana purpurascens, Tnfoliumbolanden is m Category 2 Dramng by Amy Eisenberg.Copynght © 1981 by Amy Eisenberg. Used throughthe courtesy of the artist.

One area where gardens have been partic-ularly active is in the reconstruction of hab-itat types and the reconstruction of damagedhabitats. An instance is the Prairie Resto-ration Project at the University of Wiscon-sin. The Project, directed by Dr. William Jor-dan, has included both scientific study andexperimental re-creation of northern-prairietypes. The University also publishes Resto-ration and Management Notes, a semian-nual journal devoted to the reconstructionof damaged habitats. A recent instance of agarden’s role involved the restoration of apopulation of Hudsonia tomentosa that hadbeen nearly destroyed by off-road vehicleson land in Vermont owned by The NatureConservancy. The Conservancy arranged forthe propagation in a commercial greenhouseof cuttings taken from the site. The result-ing material was rooted and then trans-

planted in the original location, thus helpingto reestablish the population.

Conclusion

Plant extinction is a complex phenomenon,sharing the same kind of interaction be-tween economic and biological processesthat is characteristic of all critical environ-mental issues. The conservation of speciescannot realistically be divorced from the na-tional conservation strategy. It will requirethe full range of resources available to pre-vent species extinction from reaching mas-sive proportions in this country. The stakesare too high for us to allow plants of uniquebiological character, potential economic

utility, and rare beauty to be lost. ProfessorRichard Evans Schultes of the Harvard Bo-tanical Museum recently noted that, "Amassive effort is urgently needed to ensurethe survival of endangered species"(Schultes, 1983). It is a hopeful sign that theconsiderable resources of botanical gardensand arboreta are being mobilized to this

purpose.

15

Brodiaea msigms ( Jeps J Niehaus, the Kaweah bro-diaea, which is native to Cahforma It is m the Fishand Wildhfe Sermce’s Category 1. Drawmg by AmyEisenberg. Copynght © 1980 by Amy Eisenberg. Usedthrough the courtesy of the artist

References

’

Anonymous. 1984a. Two Arizona plants listed as en-dangered. Endangered Species Techmcal Bulle-un, Volume 9, Number 6, page 8.

Anonymous. 1984b. Seven plants m southern U.S. pro-posed for listing. Endangered Species TechmcalBulletm, Volume 9, Number 12, pages 1, 6, 7 and10.

Ashton, Peter S. 1984. Botamc gardens and experimen-tal grounds. Pages 39-46 in: V. H. Heywood andD. M. Moore, editors, Current Concepts in PlantTaxonomy. London and Orlando, Florida: Aca-demic Press. xv + 432 pages.

Ayensu, Edward S., and Robert A. DeFilipps. 1978. En-dangered and Threatened Plants of the UmtedStates. Washington, D.C.: Smithsoman Institu-tion. xv + 403 pages.

Barnhart, John Hendley. 1933. Frankhma alatamaha.Addisoma, Volume 18, Number 1, pages 13 and14.

Brumback, William E. 1981. Endangered Plant SpeciesPrograms for Botamc Gardens with Examplesfrom North Amencan Insututions. UnpubhshedMaster’s thesis, Longwood Program m Ornamen-tal Horticulture, University of Delaware. [A sur-vey currently being conducted by the Center forPlant Conservation has confirmed Brumback’s

findings. Initial data from the survey mdicatethat fewer than ten percent of the endangeredspecies m the Umted States currently are m cul-tivation. ]

Brumback, William E. 1983. Propagatmg endangeredplants: Theory and pracace. Wild Flower Notesand News, Volume 1, Spring issue, page 4.

Committee on Germplasm Resources. 1978. Conser-

vation of Germplasm Resources An Imperative.Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sci-ences. ix + 118 pages.

Cook, Robert E. 1984. Endangered Plant Species: AProgram for Presentation. Ithaca, New York:Comell Plantations, Comell University. 6 pages.

Cranston, D. M., and D. H. Valentme. 1983. Transplantexperiments on rare plant species from UpperTeesdale. Biological Conservation, Volume 26,Number 2, pages 175-191.

Elias, Thomas S. 1977. An overview. Pages 13-16 m:Ghillean T. Prance and Thomas S. Elias, editors,Extinction Is Forever. Proceedings of a confer-ence. Bronx, New York: New York BotanicalGarden. vi + 437 pages.

Harper, Francis, and Arthur N. Leeds. 1937. A supple-mentary chapter on Fzankhma alatamaha. Bar-toma, Number 19, pages 1-13.

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Holden, John H. W., and J. T. Williams, editors. 1984.Crop Genetic Resources: Conservation eJ Eval-uation. London and Boston: Allen & Unwm.

xvi + 296 pages.Huckms, Charles A., editor. 1983. Prel1mmary Direc-

tory of Lmng Plant Collections of North Amer-ica. Swarthmore, Pennsylvama: American As-sociatron of Botamcal Gardens and Arboreta.vi + 73 pages.

Lucas, Grenmlle. 1984. Plants: A kingdom at nsk.IUCN Bulletm, Volume 15, Numbers 1-3, pages1, 10, and 11.

Myers, Norman. 1979. The Smkmg Ark: A New Lookat the Problem of Disappearmg Species. Oxfordand New York: Pergamon Press. vm + 307 pages.

Prance, Ghillean T., and Thomas S. Elias, editors. 1977.Extinction Is Forever. Proceedmgs of a confer-ence. Bronx, New York: New York Botanical

Garden. vi + 437 pages.Schultes, Richard Evans. 1983. Botamcal Museums and

Gardens and Their Role in Conservation ofGerm Plasm. Occasional Paper 2. Kuala Lumpur:Institmt Penyelidikan Minyak Kelapa Sawit Ma-laysia [Palm Oil Institute of Malaysia]. n + 19pages.

Synge, Hugh, and Harry Townsend, editors. 1979. Sur-mval or Extmcuon. Proceedmgs of a conference.Kew, England: Bentham-Moxon Trust, Royal Bo-tanic Gardens. ix + 250 pages.

Donald A. Falk and Francis R. Thibodeau, Director ofAdministration and Director of Science, respectively, ofThe Center for Plant Conservation, cofounded theCenter m 1984.

Regions established by the Center for Plant Conservation on the basis of the major biogeographic regions of theUmted States. Several cooperating arboreta and botanical gardens (eighteen m all) work with the Center, concen-tratmg on species native to them respective regions The cooperatmg institutions are the Arnold Arboretum ("1 " onthe map), Berry Botanic Garden (2), Bok Tower Gardens (3), Denver Botamc Gardens (4), Desert Botamcal Garden(5), Fairchild Tropical Garden (6), Garden in the Woods (7), Holden Arboretum (8), Missouri Botanical Garden (9),Nebraska Statemde Arboretum (10), New York Botanical Garden (11), North Carolma Botanical Garden (12), PacificTropical Botanical Garden (13), Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (14), San Antomo Botanical Gardens (15), StateArboretum of Utah (16), The Arboretum at Flagstaff (17), and Waimea Arboretum and Botanical Garden (18).