Teams gathering native seeds in Nevada

Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2005 | 7:53 a.m.

Native Nevada plant seeds have attracted the attention of royalty under a preservation project between a federal agency and Great Britain.

Seeds of Success is a parternership project in the Great Basin between the Bureau of Land Management and the Royal Botanic Garden in London.

The U.S. portion is a branch of a large, global conservation effort called the Millennium Seed Bank Project. The worldwide project is identifying, collecting and storing plant material and native plant seeds in 16 countries.

The seeds are needed for restoring and rehabilitating public lands and for meeting a long-term goal of conserving plant biodiversity.

The overall goal is to collect seeds of 10 percent of the world's plants by 2010. Then, if an extended drought occurs or climate change causes some plants to become extinct, seeds will be ready to replant or reforest affected areas.

The BLM's Carson City Field Office organized a Seeds of Success team to collect Great Basin seeds this year, BLM spokesman Mark Struble said. A similar team is gathering seeds from 661 species of plants in the Mojave Desert, including Southern Nevada.

The teams spent most of the summer identifying and collecting seeds from 70 species of native plants in western Nevada, said Dean Tonenna, the BLM botanist who spearheaded the effort. Potential plant restoration projects identified include five rehabilitation sites and native plant restoration proposals in disturbed areas overrun by noxious weeds.

The volunteer teams gathered native seeds, including sagebrush at Sand Mountain in Northern Nevada, and assisted the BLM in monitoring the use of off-road vehicle trails and the effect on native plants and their habitats.

The volunteers also mapped invasive salt cedar, or tamarisks, in the Stillwater Mountains, learning how to map various vegetation types at the Casey Ranch in Washoe Valley, Tonenna said.

The team's work helped map and document distinct populations of buckwheat (Eriogonum diatomacium), a critically endangered plant in the state. The BLM will be able to track the buckwheat's population over the years.

Mary Manning can be reached at 259-4065 or at manning@lasvegassun.com.