Our species concepts are challenged in groups like Delphinium, which includes our western larkspurs. The 200 or so species of this large genus form a series of syngameons that cover much of the northern hemisphere. Species in Delphinium are ecologically, seasonally or geographically isolated, but the actual barriers to hybridization, in the event that pollen … Read more

It’s only June, but prairie bulb season is upon us again! This year’s successive heatwaves are driving everything more quickly than normal, so in terms of plant flowering and other developmental processes, we have skipped the last half of June and all of July, and here we are in August. We have asters flowering already, … Read more

Something rotten is happening in the Oregon Coast Range. It has been festering and getting worse for over 30 years, and none of the government agencies or environmental organizations dedicated to protecting biodiversity and watershed function have said boo. There is a theme in human history of turning a blind eye. People and organizations have … Read more

I am a big fan of good data, basic math, and logic. There is so much we can understand about where we are, where we have come from and where we might go with these three simple ingredients. Here is an example: AREA OF HABITABLE VEGETATED LAND ON EARTH: 25.6 billion acres HUMAN POPULATION 2025: … Read more

To the Climate Adapted Plants group (and anyone else that cares): Changing climate translates to changing selective forces. The adaptation of our flora to these changing forces is going to involve novel modes of selection acting on genetic variation that is present or potentially present in our local plant populations. The amount of genetic variation, … Read more

Step right up folks, and feast your eyes on the glorious wonder that is the North American beaver! We have, right here on our farm, the single largest beaver dam in the Pacific Northwest. It is nearly 1000 feet long and over 7 feet high, and most remarkably, beaver have constructed this gargantuan dam, stick … Read more

In their 1969 treatment of Pacific Northwest Iris, Hitchcock and Cronquist noted that Iris tenax, the Oregon iris, with all its remarkable variability in color, was especially to be enjoyed along Willamette Valley highways. Unfortunately, decades of roadside and grass field spraying have reduced this once common plant, and it is now exceedingly rare along … Read more

For those of you involved in the restoration and management of native plants, it’s time to get serious and do the math, assuming you actually want to make a difference, whatever that means for you. For some of you, perhaps it means a future world where nature functions to support a diversity of wild populations … Read more

If you are a plant population biologist, what’s not to love about willows? Don’t get me started…oops..too late! Earlier I introduced to you an undescribed hybrid between Salix prolixa and Salix sitchensis https://schollsvalley.com/notes-from-the-farm-28-september-2025-more-climate-adapted-willows/. This hybrid has emerged spontaneously here at the farm, and it has almost certainly emerged in other locations where these two species … Read more

We tend to think of willows, with their long stamens and dioecious nature, as wind-pollinated, but bees certainly play a role in moving willow pollen around. In fact, willows attract swarms of bees of many kinds, from tiny solitary bees to honeybees to bumblebees, and Scouler willow in particular does it at a time when … Read more