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The large-flowered woolly meadowfoam is indeed a “woolly” plant — its stems and leaves are sparsely covered with short, fuzzy plant-fur, and its flowers, especially the sepals, sport a dense coat of hairs. These hairs, called “trichomes,” come in handy in the meadowfoam’s southwestern Oregon home, helping reflect the sun’s rays and limiting water loss during the plant’s short spring growing period in its vernal pool habitat. But trichomes can’t limit the meadowfoam’s dramatic loss of habitat: Jackson County’s human population explosion has given this comically named plant a less-than-amusing prognosis.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PRoTECTION STATUS: Endangered
YEAR LISTED: 2002
CRITICAL HABITAT: None
RECOVERY PLAN: Draft 2006
RANGE: The Agate Desert in southwestern Oregon’s Jackson County
THREATS: Industrial, commercial, and residential development; road and power-line construction and maintenance; hydrologic alteration; livestock grazing; agricultural conversion; weed competition; mowing; and roadside spraying
POPULATION TREND: Because the meadowfoam is an annual plant — germinating, growing, blossoming, and setting seed all in a few months time — large fluctuations in year-to-year plant numbers are typical and make population trends difficult to determine. However, biologists know that a number of consecutive drought years could possibly eliminate some populations of this meadowfoam, and with global warming looming, this puts the plant in additional jeopardy. As of 2002, the large-flowered woolly meadowfoam was believed to live in only about 15 sites in Jackson County. While some populations have shown local increases in abundance, the plant’s overall range had declined by roughly 50 percent to date.
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SAVING THE LARGE-FLOWERED WOOLLY MEADOWFOAM
The large-flowered woolly meadowfoam and Cook’s lomatium, two species that only live in seasonally wet areas in a small portion of southwestern Oregon, are in increasing danger as more and more of their habitat is lost — eaten away by so many threats it’s difficult to name them all. While the largest meadowfoam populations are located within Jackson County’s protected Agate Desert Preserve, alteration of land adjacent to the Preserve disrupts its hydrologic processes and degrades the habitat it provides; in addition, lack of protective fencing fails to keep out off-road vehicles and earth-moving equipment. The meadowfoam’s vernal pool habitat, formerly widespread south of the Rogue River, has now been almost completely eliminated — and none of what’s left is undisturbed.
In 2002, 10 years after the Center and allies sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to list about 500 imperiled species — including the large-flowered woolly meadowfoam— the Service declared both the meadowfoam and the Cook’s lomatium to be endangered under the Endangered Species Act. But at the time of listing, the Service failed to designate critical habitat for either plant — claiming that “funding restraints” made it impossible. Finally, as a result of a Center lawsuit, the Service agreed in 2008 that it would finalize a critical habitat designation for the large-flowered woolly meadowfoam and Cook's lomatium by 2010.
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Contact:
Ileene Anderson
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