Wild About Conservation Action

What is that?

I’m barely five meters down the path when a small yellow flower catches my eye. The prairie landscape in southern Alberta is dotted with different species of little yellow daisies, as though evolution is laughing at naturalist’s attempts at identification. But this one was not something I’d seen before. 

The lemon-yellow flower resembles hawksbeard (Crepis sp) and the pointed seedhead is similar to goat’s beard (Tragopogon sp) but the pieces didn’t form any flower I knew. After snapping a number of photos to help with future identification, I continued on my way.

There’s a thrill that comes from finding a new plant; a moment of recognition that the world is vast and even places we know well still have secrets to offer. It’s the excitement of discovery that keeps me coming back to familiar places and seeking out new ones. The question “what will I see today that I haven’t seen before?” has a thousand answers, each one different from the day before.

Back home, I set out to identify my mystery plant. I have to confess that I cheated and instead of a scientific key, I uploaded my photos to iNaturalist and let the algorithm offer suggestions. In this case, it proved to be the right strategy as it turned out that the plant in question was nowhere to be found in my trusty Flora of Alberta.

iNaturalist is one of the best known and most widely used citizen science platforms. Because it captures millions of nature history observations from around the world, it offers a unique dataset for scientists. iNaturalist data has been included in numerous research projects and citizen scientists are encouraged to think of themselves as contributing to scientific knowledge even if they never see the end result. Observations posted to iNaturalist can reach a provincial, national, or even global network of scientists.

After carefully verifying my photos against the sample pictures in iNaturalist, I was fairly confident of my identification. Scorzonera laciniata, commonly known as Mediterranean Serpent-Root or Cut-leaf Viper’s Grass, is an introduced species that is managed as an invasive weed in the southwestern United States. 

My excitement dimming, I posted my photos to iNaturalist before checking for other observations in Alberta. My discovery was the first for Lethbridge and one of the first in Alberta (I just missed out on being the first in the province by a matter of days as other naturalists reported observations from Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park.) The thrill of finding a new species had been fully replaced by alarm at the thought of a new invasive species moving into our local ecosystems. Which is how I found myself, a couple of weeks later, pulling handfuls of Scorzonera in an attempt to control its spread.

Invasive plants can take over natural ecosystems, displacing native plants. Often these invaders are not eaten by local herbivores and do not provide benefits to native wildlife. Invasive plants are quick to form monocultures, pushing out native species and disrupting habitats.

Invasive species are adaptable and establish themselves quickly in new environments. But even with that adaptability, the seeds for a new population like the one I spotted had to come from somewhere. So, how did Scorzonera get to Lethbridge?

There are a couple of possibilities. First, it’s possible that this plant may be more widespread than we realize. The discovery of three distinct populations in the same week suggests that there are more Scorzonera plants waiting to be found. Secondly, the plants I encountered are in an area that is an outfall for one of our municipal storm drains. It’s possible that someone unknowingly brought seeds home on their vehicle, where they washed into the coulees, seeding themselves as soon as they found suitable habitat.

There’s another question that this experience raised for me. This plant is not hidden in a difficult to access location. It’s spreading happily on both sides of a metre-wide, well-traveled, park path. Judging by the extent of the spread, it has been there for several years. So why did no one discover it before now?

I think the answer is that there are not enough people with a strong knowledge of native plants. Part of this goes beyond knowing all the plants (which is an impossibility) but to the ability to notice an unfamiliar plant and to have the curiosity to try to discover what it is. This is a complex problem that speaks to the need to engage people’s curiosity about the natural world and to help them build their confidence in understanding it. 

While it’s tempting to think that posting photos to iNaturalist will result in a new scientific breakthrough, the reality is that on-the-ground conservation work is just as important. Volunteer efforts to hand pull Scorzonera and reduce its spread will happen over the next few years. Maybe one day a botanist will include my iNaturalist observation in a scientific paper, but in the meantime it’s just as satisfying to work to eradicate the plant I discovered.