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So I work with Natural Heritage Inventory

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in Vermont Fish & Wildlife,

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and I work a lot with rare plants

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and mapping and monitoring
them in our database

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across and within the
boundaries of Vermont.

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And we're gonna be talking today about,

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specifically, about trends
that we see in rare plants,

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particularly around our
historical extirpated

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(SH / SX designation).

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We'll talk about that more later.

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I'm not gonna read this whole
slide to you, don't worry.

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But the summary of the slide is that

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botany accessibility has
really increased over time,

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since a lot of our early
documentation that we have

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of plant data is-- it's been moving--

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it's been moving in a
direction of community science.

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And I think a particularly pivotal point

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was really around 1999,

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when the Plant Conservation
Volunteer Program was formed

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in working with the Native plant Trust,

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which at the time was called
New England Wildflower Society.

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So now there're actually a
large number of volunteers

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who are actually collecting
a lot of really great data.

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A lot of the greatest--a lot
of the most detailed data

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in our database comes from volunteers

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in collaboration with other organizations.

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And, and it's probably, at this point,

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about a third of our database.

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And that's a lot of the data

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that I'm gonna be sharing with you:

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sort of, trends that we're seeing in that.

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So the nature of our data,

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we can't do controlled experiments, so

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we're looking at, you know,
people's observations over time,

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counting plants and whatnot, and yeah,

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and making observations of populations

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and how they're shifting there.

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There are increasing studies out there,

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finding ways to utilize trends like these,

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but they're mostly at
city and county levels.

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We haven't really had the resources

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to do complex data analysis,

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or publish anything at state
level, and we want--yeah.

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Yeah, sorry, the city
and town things are--

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or, city and county, are
outside of Vermont, really.

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So we wanna be able to
summarize patterns we're seeing,

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because that can help us
understand research questions

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that we need to be asking.

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So, probably a lot of you
remember this little friend

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who became really big
news last June, I guess:

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This is a small whorled Pogonia,

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and the small whorled Pogonia was refound.

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It was actually in a new
place in Chittenden County

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from the original place
documented in 1902.

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But it really captured the
imagination across the public,

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as you, as you can see from this.

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The one that really made me laugh is

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"Orchid Rediscovered In Vermont
Thanks To a Smartphone App,"

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(laughter)

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because obviously the smartphone app

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didn't actually find the plant.

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It was actually a real human.

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(laughter)

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So actually--and so that, on the left,

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that's Tom Doubleday who's a
retired Greenhouse Manager,

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I think, from--who's worked at UVM, yeah,

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who stumbled on the plant at one point,

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well, he didn't stumble,

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but he noticed this plant and thought,

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"Gee, this is a plant I don't recognize."

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So he took a picture and he
posted the plant on iNaturalist.

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And actually Eleanor Ray is
the first person who noticed,

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who is actually one of our
Plant Conservation Volunteers.

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And she identified the
plant on iNaturalist

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and then John Gange, who's
on the right, also went out

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and they were able to
relocate the plant later.

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And John is the one who took these

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really really captivating,
stunning pictures

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that really, I think,
inspired a lot of people.

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So that's what a lot of people
have heard about this plant.

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And you may have heard
in the last few weeks

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about another plant that
also is in the news--

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maybe a little smaller splash:

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This is the purple crowberry.

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Um, it was refound on Mt. Mansfield after,

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well, the last report on
Mt. Mansfield was from 1908.

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And anyway, this is a really
really exciting find, too.

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And this was found by Liam Ebner,

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who's an Adirondack Summit Steward.

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But it was actually on
a Summit Steward trip,

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with a lot of Summit Stewards.

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So I'm gonna just talk a little bit

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about SH and SX designations.

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So SH (state historic),
um--those two plants are SX--

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they're presumed extinct or extirpated.

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That means that we really think

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that they're not there anymore.

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Like, lots of people have looked.

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And in those two cases
and actually a few others

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in the last decade, they
have still been there.

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So, at this point we only have six plants

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left on that SX list in Vermont.

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But we still have 86 taxa
on the state historic list,

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which means they've been
missing for more than 25 years.

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But it doesn't mean that
we're, maybe, less confident

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that they're gone, such as
that sedge, which we refound.

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But, uh, we'll talk about that next.

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Um, so you've all heard, maybe,

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about those, like, bigger
exciting finds, but who has heard

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about Crataegus pisifera,
the pea hawthorn--anyone?

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(laughter)

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Only people in Natural
Heritage are into this.

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This journal article
just came out this month.

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Crataegus pisifera, or sometimes

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Crataegus succulenta var. pisifera,

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depending on how you want
to regard this plant.

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The pea hawthorn, supposedly
because these fruits

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are supposed to be the size of peas,

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or so said Ezra Brainerd in, like, 1900

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when he collected the type
of specimen in Cornwall, VT.

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However, it turns out,
when Art Gilman was out,

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he went back to the place

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where the original specimen was collected,

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and he actually found some
really old shrubs growing there,

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and a few about nine mile down the road.

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This is a global endemic
species, as far as we understand,

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only known from that, sort
of, 9-kilometer radius.

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[Student] That's awesome!

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And--yeah, I know!

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(laughter)

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So, um, kind of exciting....

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Maybe that's all I'll
say about that, except

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it's not shocking that people
have not really been....

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We don't have very much
documentation of hawthorns

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for a hundred years.

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Art Gilman has put a lot of
effort in in the last 20 years

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to relocate a lot of the ones

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that were documented a hundred years ago.

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So, great for hawthorn diversity.

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So, and here's another
one, just want of many:

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This is the boreal aster.

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This was unreported
from Vermont until 1926.

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And Jacob Penner was--I
was out with Jacob Penner,

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who's another Plant
Conservation Volunteer,

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and he was like, "Hey, is that
the aster we're looking for?"

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(laughter)

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So, anyway, still there!

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And, just, a lot of our
plants that are historic,

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some of them are pretty obscure, as well.

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So, this is rusty flatsedge,
Engelmann's flatsedge...

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they both were historical, but
refound in the last 10 years.

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That last one, on the right,

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was actually found abundantly
in the last 10 years,

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but we don't have any historical record.

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We're just fairly confident
that they've always been here.

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But I think they are
getting more abundant.

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So that's--with some species, like these,

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are, like, drought annuals
of drawdown shores.

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We have to be there in the fall
when the water's drawn down.

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And so a lot of our historical
records are pretty low,

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are pretty poor on them.

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We don't have very much,
just to start with.

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So, I did a graph of how
often--the question is,

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"How often are we re re-finding
plants, versus losing them?"

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Because in this era of
global climate change,

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you would expect we'd be losing
more than we're re-finding.

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And that's actually still not the case,

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which is kind of cool.

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And there's a lot of reasons
for that, which I'll go into.

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So, these blue lines are
the number of taxa that--

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we're just talking about vascular plants--

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changed from state historic,

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or if they were extirpated, to extant.

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So we refound, we've refound populations,

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after they were found historically.

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And you can see it's generally gone up.

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I'm sure I missed some,

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but this is my best
assessment using our database.

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There's sort of a trend
line that goes fairly up

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in the last decade or so,

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versus these ones that changed

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from extant to, like, that
we declared these ones

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historical or extirpated.

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And the reason there's these
large spikes is because

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we did some really large
data reviews some years.

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So, it's kind of jerky.

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Not really clear to me-- I don't know

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if we can really assess
a trend line from that,

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but you can see that there are

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a lot more plants that we're finding

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than that we're losing at the moment.

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So, why would this be?

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Why are all these plants
increasing and recovering?

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Well, actually, one thing I should say is

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eleven of of these plants
that we found are hawthorns.

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So, like, literally nobody was
looking, as far as we know,

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for the last hundred years.

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(laughter)

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And a lot of them are still there.

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And we have a lot of
hawthorns in our state;

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we have about 32 species
documented in Vermont.

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They're all native species, except one.

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So that's one thing.

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Also, like, maybe about eleven of these

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are species that were
missing for about 30 years.

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So there's, like, you
know, "Oh, they're gone,"

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and then five years
later, or two years later,

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we find a new population...

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and I'll talk about that later, too.

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So, I guess the question is here,

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"Why are we re-finding so
many state historical plants?"

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"Or are we?"

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So, I mean, I think we
can speak to the fact

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that plants are incredibly
resilient and adaptable.

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So there is something going on,

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where these plants are actually

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doing some really amazing
things to stay in the landscape.

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I think our landscapes
are also more diverse,

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So they're not, they're not always

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doing the same thing in the same places.

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They, there's also delay
in extirpations, right?

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Because the plants have to go missing,

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and then we have to wait 25
years and still not find them

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for them to actually go on this list.

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So, it's pretty delayed, by the time

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that they end up on
that list to start with.

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And then there's a delay
in detections of declines.

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So, when we're just
talking about declines,

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it takes us a long time to even notice

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that plant populations are declining.

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That's why this value--this
data that we're getting

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from so many volunteers
is really valuable;

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having all this 'revisit data'
to these same populations.

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Because sometimes it can take 20, or,

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often it can take it can take 40 years,

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if you're visiting
every five or ten years.

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Because if they're going like this,

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then it can take a while
to detect the trend line

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out of all of the geographic
and temporal variations.

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So, yeah.

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And then, partly, we don't
know what changes to look for.

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So some of what I wanna talk about

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is some of the changes that we are seeing,

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so we even know what to look for.

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Because I think it's kind of
an emerging science, you know?

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How do plant populations
change in the present-day?

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So, this is one plant that we
feel pretty confident is gone.

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And it's just in the last few years

249
00:11:48,540 --> 00:11:50,340
that we changed the species to historic.

250
00:11:50,340 --> 00:11:52,083
This is the fairy slipper orchid.

251
00:11:53,443 --> 00:11:55,290
Um, there aren't that many
pictures from Vermont,

252
00:11:55,290 --> 00:11:56,910
but I found one, by Garrett Crow,

253
00:11:56,910 --> 00:11:58,760
from a Vermont population in Peacham.

254
00:12:01,715 --> 00:12:04,260
There were once 22 populations;
they were in cedar swamps.

255
00:12:04,260 --> 00:12:06,990
The cedar swamps--they're
mostly all still there.

256
00:12:06,990 --> 00:12:08,580
But we see a similar sort of trend

257
00:12:08,580 --> 00:12:12,690
in pretty much all of the
populations across Vermont.

258
00:12:12,690 --> 00:12:14,640
And they're also already historical

259
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:17,223
in New York and New Hampshire, as well.

260
00:12:18,360 --> 00:12:21,720
So, we don't know why they're declining.

261
00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:26,075
But what we can see is
that they seem to be ahead

262
00:12:26,075 --> 00:12:27,856
of a number of other orchids

263
00:12:27,856 --> 00:12:30,030
(and maybe mycoheterotrophic
plants, in general)

264
00:12:30,030 --> 00:12:34,020
that we have, maybe,
half of orchid species,

265
00:12:34,020 --> 00:12:35,550
particularly ones with
a northern affinity.

266
00:12:35,550 --> 00:12:38,043
We're seeing similar patterns of declines,

267
00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:41,673
but maybe on a slower
trajectory than this.

268
00:12:42,570 --> 00:12:45,450
But we are seeing really
concerning patterns

269
00:12:45,450 --> 00:12:47,190
in our database.

270
00:12:47,190 --> 00:12:49,207
Some of them, the more we look,
some of them, it turns out

271
00:12:49,207 --> 00:12:52,057
"Oh, that's not, you know,
we're just over-, you know--."

272
00:12:53,234 --> 00:12:55,881
So, some of that is, often we
don't have enough populations

273
00:12:55,881 --> 00:12:56,910
for it to be a statistically
significant decline,

274
00:12:56,910 --> 00:12:59,880
so we're not analyzing that,
and sometimes we're wrong.

275
00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:02,970
But sometimes it turns out
that they really are declines.

276
00:13:02,970 --> 00:13:07,970
So yeah, this is a paper
that just came out this year.

277
00:13:14,190 --> 00:13:15,960
Robert Bertin and others

278
00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:19,121
looked at Franklin County, Massachusetts--

279
00:13:19,121 --> 00:13:21,780
so just across the southern
border of Vermont--

280
00:13:21,780 --> 00:13:26,103
and they did an analysis of town data.

281
00:13:27,210 --> 00:13:28,533
Like, so, data by town,

282
00:13:29,640 --> 00:13:33,120
of, like, "How many towns are
these plants missing from,

283
00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:35,550
after 2010 versus before?"

284
00:13:35,550 --> 00:13:37,980
The really interesting thing
I wanna point out to you--

285
00:13:37,980 --> 00:13:41,040
and of course this is anecdotal, based on

286
00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:43,178
like, my analysis of our database, but--

287
00:13:43,178 --> 00:13:45,952
those red ones are ones where the decline

288
00:13:45,952 --> 00:13:47,400
is consistent with our data.

289
00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:49,860
So, our data also shows
some really steep declines,

290
00:13:49,860 --> 00:13:51,600
or at least implies some
really steep declines,

291
00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:53,260
that I'm fairly confident about

292
00:13:54,150 --> 00:13:56,250
for a huge number of those red ones.

293
00:13:56,250 --> 00:13:58,350
The yellow ones are
ones that could well be,

294
00:13:58,350 --> 00:13:59,250
but we would need to say--

295
00:13:59,250 --> 00:14:01,260
we have things pointing in that direction,

296
00:14:01,260 --> 00:14:03,030
but I don't think, like--

297
00:14:03,030 --> 00:14:05,850
our data's not really
convincing enough yet,

298
00:14:05,850 --> 00:14:08,940
based on, like--we just
don't have as much data.

299
00:14:08,940 --> 00:14:12,404
And then the blue ones, the
blue dots I just pointed at,

300
00:14:12,404 --> 00:14:15,057
are all the ones that
are mycoheterotrophic.

301
00:14:15,057 --> 00:14:17,010
Now, like, there aren't that
many mycoheterotrophic--

302
00:14:17,010 --> 00:14:18,660
like, plants that really depend on fungi

303
00:14:18,660 --> 00:14:21,753
for a big part of their
life cycle like that,

304
00:14:23,220 --> 00:14:25,350
are not actually the majority of plants,

305
00:14:25,350 --> 00:14:28,533
but they are on this list...which
is really interesting.

306
00:14:29,610 --> 00:14:32,040
Especially because it's
so consistent with those--

307
00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:34,770
oh, and also, all the ones
that aren't underlined,

308
00:14:34,770 --> 00:14:36,540
it's mostly just because
they're not rare in Vermont,

309
00:14:36,540 --> 00:14:38,430
so we're not tracking them.

310
00:14:38,430 --> 00:14:40,290
There's really none on there that are rare

311
00:14:40,290 --> 00:14:43,023
that we really have any data
on, so we wouldn't know.

312
00:14:45,785 --> 00:14:49,050
This is one of the ones at
the top of the other list,

313
00:14:49,050 --> 00:14:50,580
and this, in all of New England,

314
00:14:50,580 --> 00:14:53,060
is showing really dramatic declines.

315
00:14:53,060 --> 00:14:56,250
And we historically
had--we've had, like, hundreds

316
00:14:56,250 --> 00:14:58,950
of collections and
population documentations.

317
00:14:58,950 --> 00:15:00,950
We actually thought this was historical;

318
00:15:02,551 --> 00:15:03,620
they'd been last seen in 1990.

319
00:15:04,761 --> 00:15:08,241
And then in 2017 Matt Peters
found two more populations.

320
00:15:08,241 --> 00:15:11,280
So we can say, "Hey, they're
doing great," but actually,

321
00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:13,950
there's still only two
populations that we know of.

322
00:15:13,950 --> 00:15:16,920
And we aren't--I don't think

323
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:19,113
we're greatly overlooking the species.

324
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:22,990
And that's another mycoheterotroph.

325
00:15:24,219 --> 00:15:26,947
Uh, still the largest risk, I
think, to a lot of our plants

326
00:15:26,947 --> 00:15:31,947
that we really understand,
is loss of habitat.

327
00:15:32,610 --> 00:15:37,610
This is Colchester. This
is the 1973 topo underlay.

328
00:15:38,130 --> 00:15:40,797
This is our--the green
are our Natural Heritage--

329
00:15:40,797 --> 00:15:43,170
those are our rare
plants, as they're mapped

330
00:15:43,170 --> 00:15:46,473
as of a few years ago, over, like, 1973.

331
00:15:48,630 --> 00:15:52,320
And then this is just a few
years ago. Um, aerial photo.

332
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:54,750
So you can see how much
the habitat has changed,

333
00:15:54,750 --> 00:15:56,640
and how the plants are just really cut off

334
00:15:56,640 --> 00:15:58,260
and isolated from each other.

335
00:15:58,260 --> 00:16:00,900
So even though the plants may be there,

336
00:16:00,900 --> 00:16:03,550
a lot of plants, including
these three on the bottom,

337
00:16:04,763 --> 00:16:06,690
they're surviving, they
haven't been extirpated,

338
00:16:06,690 --> 00:16:08,490
but they're really clearly declining.

339
00:16:08,490 --> 00:16:11,760
And essentially we can do
a lot of conservation work

340
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:16,142
and we try to map them and
protect them where they are,

341
00:16:16,142 --> 00:16:19,170
but we're still under-resourced
to prevent declines,

342
00:16:19,170 --> 00:16:23,640
even if we can prevent their
extirpation in the short-term.

343
00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:25,920
Lupine is another one, where
we only have one population

344
00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:28,413
left within that map region.

345
00:16:30,450 --> 00:16:35,280
And lastly, I was gonna
talk about climate change.

346
00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:38,280
A lot of focus on climate
change has been on temperature,

347
00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:40,332
at least in this region.

348
00:16:40,332 --> 00:16:43,590
Often, we're always seeing
global warming, but--

349
00:16:43,590 --> 00:16:46,350
and that that may still
be a big effect, but--

350
00:16:46,350 --> 00:16:48,570
what we're seeing for a lot of plants is--

351
00:16:48,570 --> 00:16:50,103
This is Jerry Jenkins' data,

352
00:16:51,903 --> 00:16:54,233
that report that he
submitted in, around, 2010.

353
00:16:54,233 --> 00:16:59,030
What we're seeing is that
the climate data are--

354
00:16:59,030 --> 00:17:02,250
I guess, we're seeing a lot more effects

355
00:17:02,250 --> 00:17:03,750
from changes in hydrology,

356
00:17:03,750 --> 00:17:05,400
and it might be that
they're easier to detect,

357
00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:08,020
but those are the ones
that we're seeing more

358
00:17:09,073 --> 00:17:11,730
in our rare plant population changes.

359
00:17:11,730 --> 00:17:14,190
In this case, he's
documenting hot dry summers,

360
00:17:14,190 --> 00:17:16,770
and this is what he calls
a 'stairstep decline,'

361
00:17:16,770 --> 00:17:18,660
which is something I hadn't
really thought to look for

362
00:17:18,660 --> 00:17:19,533
before that.

363
00:17:20,473 --> 00:17:22,410
But we may actually be seeing
in more of our populations.

364
00:17:22,410 --> 00:17:25,470
Essentially, these are
the long-life plants.

365
00:17:25,470 --> 00:17:29,610
You can get a hot--sorry,
a dry and hot--summer,

366
00:17:29,610 --> 00:17:32,100
and the population can
plummet, and the pop--

367
00:17:32,100 --> 00:17:33,810
the plants have the ability to recover

368
00:17:33,810 --> 00:17:35,490
if you give them enough time,

369
00:17:35,490 --> 00:17:37,240
but as they're starting to recover,

370
00:17:38,146 --> 00:17:42,420
if the stressor is getting
closer and closer together,

371
00:17:42,420 --> 00:17:43,980
then you can end up with a stairstep,

372
00:17:43,980 --> 00:17:46,263
rather than just a decline and a recovery.

373
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:50,400
And this pattern has continued.

374
00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:52,470
This is actually Matt
Peters' continued survey,

375
00:17:52,470 --> 00:17:55,200
more recently, and you can
see that the stairsteps

376
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:56,500
have continued to go down.

377
00:17:57,540 --> 00:17:58,740
This is our last population.

378
00:17:58,740 --> 00:18:01,410
There were once four of them
in Vermont, that we knew of.

379
00:18:01,410 --> 00:18:03,453
But this is the last remaining one,

380
00:18:04,308 --> 00:18:07,923
and probably won't be in
the next couple decades.

381
00:18:10,140 --> 00:18:11,883
Um, how much time do I have?

382
00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:14,697
You can answer some
questions, if you want.

383
00:18:14,697 --> 00:18:16,370
Okay, I'm gonna skip over this.

384
00:18:16,370 --> 00:18:18,210
But there's a lot of really
interesting hydrology stuff.

385
00:18:18,210 --> 00:18:21,930
Essentially, a lot of unprecedented
stuff in Lake Champlain,

386
00:18:21,930 --> 00:18:24,480
which has caused some
really major declines

387
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:26,700
that may be, like, the first
stairsteps that we're seeing

388
00:18:26,700 --> 00:18:29,283
with species like dunegrass and beach pea.

389
00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:33,060
And we're seeing it also on our rivers.

390
00:18:33,060 --> 00:18:35,100
Essentially, summer
flooding is a lot different

391
00:18:35,100 --> 00:18:36,730
than winter flooding.

392
00:18:36,730 --> 00:18:37,680
A lot of these plants on the shores

393
00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:39,230
are adapted to winter flooding;

394
00:18:40,322 --> 00:18:42,120
and summer flooding is
just, sort of, unprecedented

395
00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:43,920
in the way that it's happening.

396
00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:45,537
Plants do go extinct.

397
00:18:45,537 --> 00:18:46,590
The last thing I'll say is--

398
00:18:46,590 --> 00:18:48,720
this is a little
unconventional, but my critique

399
00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:51,120
of this conference is we often
don't spend enough time--

400
00:18:51,120 --> 00:18:53,770
I feel like we spend a lot
of time in our heads here,

401
00:18:55,133 --> 00:18:57,600
and I just wanna give us a
chance to, like, take a breath,

402
00:18:57,600 --> 00:18:59,670
because a lot of this
information's really heavy.

403
00:18:59,670 --> 00:19:02,460
Like, change can take a
lot of toll on our body,

404
00:19:02,460 --> 00:19:04,410
especially when we don't talk about it.

405
00:19:05,825 --> 00:19:08,019
So these are the things I've
been trying to do lately,

406
00:19:08,019 --> 00:19:09,653
just in terms of figuring out ways

407
00:19:09,653 --> 00:19:11,053
to resist, accept and adapt,

408
00:19:11,940 --> 00:19:13,047
for all the creatures that we care about,

409
00:19:13,047 --> 00:19:14,583
but also for ourselves.

410
00:19:15,606 --> 00:19:18,703
And especially adapting in
that, like, we need creativity

411
00:19:18,703 --> 00:19:22,740
and we need diversity, which
means having conversations

412
00:19:22,740 --> 00:19:24,540
about equity and inclusion and justice

413
00:19:24,540 --> 00:19:28,057
also in our environmental work. The end!

414
00:19:29,429 --> 00:19:33,929
-(laughter)
-(applause)

415
00:19:40,757 --> 00:19:43,606
Okay, questions? Sorry,
I covered a lot. Yeah?

416
00:19:43,606 --> 00:19:46,720
Do you think the trends
that you were observing

417
00:19:48,476 --> 00:19:52,593
in declaring things extinct
versus rediscovering them

418
00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:58,530
is reflective of our lack
of willingness to declare,

419
00:19:58,530 --> 00:20:02,250
or, our hesitancy to
declare something extinct,

420
00:20:02,250 --> 00:20:05,160
and the controversy that can often ensue?

421
00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:06,150
Coming from the bird world,

422
00:20:06,150 --> 00:20:07,297
I'm think of the ivory-billed woodpecker,

423
00:20:07,297 --> 00:20:10,080
which was a huge you-know-what show....

424
00:20:10,080 --> 00:20:11,280
-Yep!
-(laughter)

425
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:13,680
-So, like, yeah.
-Absolutely. Yeah.

426
00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:15,540
I mean, I don't think we've actually added

427
00:20:15,540 --> 00:20:18,300
much at all to the SX list.

428
00:20:18,300 --> 00:20:19,870
We just keep taking plants off

429
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:23,850
because we never cease to be surprised.

430
00:20:23,850 --> 00:20:25,707
It's amazing how much you can, like--

431
00:20:26,918 --> 00:20:28,734
especially, like, Alpine's
zones, we think of as

432
00:20:28,734 --> 00:20:30,660
like, people have spent
so much time botanizing

433
00:20:30,660 --> 00:20:32,310
up in the alpine zones.

434
00:20:32,310 --> 00:20:34,950
You would think that we
couldn't find any plants

435
00:20:34,950 --> 00:20:36,990
that we didn't know
about, but we still do.

436
00:20:36,990 --> 00:20:41,280
So it's really, uh, yeah, it is true.

437
00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:42,930
We're hesitant to put things on that list,

438
00:20:42,930 --> 00:20:44,433
to put an X on that list.

439
00:20:45,270 --> 00:20:46,103
Yeah?

440
00:20:46,103 --> 00:20:48,499
Aaron, is there any thought
with the whole lawns to,

441
00:20:48,499 --> 00:20:51,420
you know, No-Mow May, and pollinators,

442
00:20:51,420 --> 00:20:52,770
of looking at, like, Colchester,

443
00:20:52,770 --> 00:20:54,990
and talking about, you know,
cultivating their lawns

444
00:20:54,990 --> 00:20:56,896
for these species that
have no way of jumping

445
00:20:56,896 --> 00:20:59,766
and moving space to space to space?

446
00:20:59,766 --> 00:21:01,560
It would be a great
initiative for that one area,

447
00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:04,920
for those plants that
are, it's very clear,

448
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:08,100
that that kind of conversion
could make a difference.

449
00:21:08,100 --> 00:21:11,670
Yeah, that is a much longer conversation

450
00:21:11,670 --> 00:21:12,503
than we could have now.

451
00:21:12,503 --> 00:21:15,801
But I think, yeah, I think
talking about how homeowners

452
00:21:15,801 --> 00:21:17,670
how people who are living in the area

453
00:21:17,670 --> 00:21:21,282
can be involved and can
engage in that cause.

454
00:21:21,282 --> 00:21:22,115
Yeah, it's really important.

455
00:21:23,969 --> 00:21:25,440
We should probably wrap it up,

456
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:27,450
so people can get to the next topic,

457
00:21:27,450 --> 00:21:29,385
but thank you very much.

458
00:21:29,385 --> 00:21:31,635
(applause)