jjjjaaaammmmiiiieeee 的最愛

This is a species with a spotty distribution in Seattle (and it is rare in SW BC, its range barely crossing north into Canada), and one I never observed before in Lincoln Park in my 24 years of spending time there almost every day. I long thought it had appropriate habitat there, and "belonged" there. It was what I have called a "missing native species" from the location in question.

While looking for Nemophila parviflora in a nearby park where I had previously seen a lot of Nemophila (but finding none that day), I found a couple of large patches of Hydrophyllum tenuipes - Pacific Waterleaf with plants in both spots growing into the trail, where they were being trampled by both the introduced Homo sapiens and their introduced Canis familiaris.

I moved a couple out of the edge of the trail, to a beautiful mossy spot in Lincoln Park, that had just had Trailing Blackberry - Rubus ursinus removed, where I both hope these Pacific Waterleaf plants will have a better chance of survival, and where I hope they will have a chance of starting a new population of this "missing native species". Some days after transplanting they are already looking great, and one leaf, that I thought I might have broken, was also again looking great!

Hard to see, but some tiny teeth on the edge of these hairy leaves distinguish this species from related Madia species.

I've long wanted to get this species started both in Seattle again, as it was on my 1999 list of Seattle's lost ("extirpated") species, this one last recorded in Seattle by the herbaria in 1889 (Alki Point), or 1892 (location not clear) and the flower looked beautiful. I moved these 2 plants to Lincoln Park from the South Puget Sound area a few months ago, and chose a promising mossy forest edge for them, and they were both looking great, until a presumed Eastern Cottontail rabbit chewed one down to the top of the root, but the smaller rosette is what grew back after the Leporine (rabbit caused) setback! I tried the species in the park once before, and that plant didn't get far before dying, but I'm optimistic with these 2!