Save Plants

Despite completing a doctorate in botany, I, like many people, didn’t realize there were endangered plants in the U.S., much less in my neighborhood. I was aiming for an academic career when U.S. Forest Service botanist Renee Galeano-Popp hired me to evaluate the impact of timber harvest on Arizona leatherflower (Clematis hirsutissima var. hirsutissima), a rare perennial in the buttercup family. Using my scientific skills as a plant ecologist, I discovered that I could actually help protect this rare plant species. It was a realization that changed my career direction and ultimately led to the varied, interesting, and successful conservation of many rare plants across the nation. Solving the puzzles of rare plant population decline often required tools or methods outside of my experience, motivating me to seek collaborations with scientists or members of the public. These collaborations benefited the rare plants, and in turn, steered my career in new directions.

An example of that was my first population modeling, and my first rare plant reintroduction adventure conducted in the early 1990s. Sue Rutman, botanist for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been monitoring sentry milkvetch (Astragalus cremnophylax var. cremnophylax) at Grand Canyon National Park for several years, documenting its decline. This tiny mat plant grew on Kaibab limestone platforms at a very popular overlook and suffered from trampling. Using Sue’s data, and collecting more after the population was fenced, I enlisted a colleague, Robert Frye, to help us model the population differences between the two. While it may seem common sense that the population would benefit from fencing and diversion of human traffic, proving it with data is more powerful. Showing positive growth projections into the future sure enhanced the protection for that little plant!

Documenting is one thing, actually helping improve the sentry milkvetch population numbers was another. For the reintroduction, I dutifully collected only 10% of the fruits produced one season and sowed 226 of them at the canyon in a replicated microsite experiment. Only two of them germinated. Reporting my results as a failure at one of my first CPC meetings only to have my CPC colleagues assure me that such low field germination is not uncommon and not a failure was another major “Aha!” moment in my career. Now I realize that it is important to begin a reintroduction with thousands of seeds! And ever since that time I have counted on the wise advice of my CPC colleagues to help me solve rare plant problems. By the way, one of those seedlings grew up to be a big momma, surviving and producing many offspring! Other seeds sprouted from the efforts. Plant conservation heroes at The Arboretum at Flagstaff and Grand Canyon National Park expanded the population and restored major portions of its habitat.

My plant conservation experiences, along with the wisdom of colleagues in the CPC network, culminated in the recommendations provided in the CPC Best Plant Conservation Practices Supporting Species Survival in the Wild. I have seen that my efforts from seed collection through cultivation and reintroduction have reduced extinction risk of many plant species. It’s been a great and fulfilling journey.

Talia Portner, Honolulu Botanical Garden’s (HBG) curator and horticulturist, comes to the horticultural world through her years of working with rare plants in their natural habitats. This background has taught her about the needs of plants and instilled in her a natural aesthetic. Talia hopes to incorporate both of these traits, with all she is learning from her colleagues, into the five gardens she works with across O’ahu.

Though her biology education focused on human biology, Talia was quickly drawn into the world of plants and the plight of rare plants as she entered the workforce. There is no shortage of rare plants in Hawai’i, with so many naturally rare endemics and so many threats wrought by changes to the islands. Talia spent nearly thirteen years with Hawai’i’s Plant Extinction Prevention Program (PEPP), working with the rarest of the rare in Hawai’i – the species with less than 50 wild individuals remaining. In the field working with these species, and enjoying seeing them in their natural habitat, Talia repeatedly encountered the hardships of working with such species in the wild. The long treks out to field sites which only allowed for limited work to get done, the small populations, etc. helped her recognize the need for conservationists to be able to access these plants in a different setting.

Partners within PEPP, including CPC institutions Harold L. Lyon’s Arboretum and HBG, have taken in these rare species, and Talia hopes to use her new position at HBG to expand their role in inter situ conservation. Always having been able to see the big picture in situations, Talia is excited to become a bridge between the in situ conservation work of her experience and the important ex situ collections she can influence now as she serves as a curator acquiring plants for the gardens.

Koko Crater Botanical Garden, for instance, presents a great opportunity for inter situ conservation. The 60-acre garden on the basin floor of a dormant volcano supports 50-year old native plants that the public rarely gets to see and has had been part of some great conservation projects. Learning from the garden’s recently retired manager, Robin Sunio, she learned how to incorporate knowledge of the climate and trends into decision making at the garden. As someone who spent a lot of time making observations in the field, Robin’s observation approach to garden management proved invaluable during her transition into the garden. Talia sees Koko Crater, and its amazingly fertile soils, as an ideal garden to increase the number of wild-collected individuals, by collaborating with partners in the field as well as the Lyon Arboretum seed lab.

Some years ago, CPC held a board meeting in Cincinnati, and one of the field trips was somewhat unusual – to visit the grave of one Emma Lucy Braun. This eminent scientist, and plant conservationist, has inspired many in the CPC network and decidedly deserved the homage paid to her.

Lucy Braun’s work with and for plants stands today and is truly inspiring to all of us who strive to save plants today.

When did you first fall in love with plants?
I first became interested in plants in college. I grew up in a very urban neighborhood and disliked my high school biology class. While retaking biology my first semester in college, I wound up fascinated and wanted to learn more. Not ready to dissect animals in my second semester, I opted for botany, with the fear that it would be boring and there might be only a couple other people in the class. It was team taught by two young and enthusiastic professors, with about 50 people in the class. After that I was hooked.

What was your career path leading up to your position as Director of Plant Research at CREW?
For my Ph.D. I worked on an aspect of the crown gall disease and Agrobacterium tumefaciens, for which I had learned tissue culture methods. I realized in the end that I was more interested in the tissue culture and plant developmental systems than in crown gall itself. I was then fortunate to have two post-doc positions after grad school both dealing with in vitro systems.

Later, as a Research Associate at the University of Cincinnati working on responses of a tomato mutant in vitro, one of the herbarium professors, Vic Soukup, would walk by the lab and see me working on tissue culture. He would stop to talk and ask questions, and one day he asked if I would be interested in trying to put Trillium, a genus he as an expert on, into tissue culture. I thought that sounded interesting, and agreed to collaborate. We eventually published 3 papers on Trillium species in culture, including the rare, Trillium persistens.

Vic was a member of the Cincinnati Wild Flower Preservation Society. He asked if I would be willing to give a talk to the group on the work with Trillium. Just about that time, the Cincinnati Zoo decided that it was going to recognize its longstanding commitment to its gardens, as well as its animals, by changing its name to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. In conjunction with this recognition Betsy Dresser, founder of what has become the Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW), wanted to add a plant research component to CREW. With CREW focused on cryopreservation and in vitro for animals, Betsy asked the Director of Horticulture, Dave Ehrlinger if he knew anyone who might be able to develop a similar program for plants. Dave, also a member of the Wild Flower Society, had attended my talk on Trillium. He suggested me to Betsy and I’ve been here ever since.

What about working with plants has surprised you?
Given my lack of interest in them up until college, I would say that at that point I was surprised at how interesting they are. I think now I’m fascinated by the incredible diversity of plants, and in their adaptations to so many different environments.

What drew you to work with exceptional species?
In a way, the work with exceptional plants developed in reverse. Because of my interest and training in in vitro systems and the emphasis at CREW on cryopreservation, those were the methods we focused on in the Plant Lab.

It naturally evolved that we were working with those species for which there were particular difficulties with using traditional methods for propagation or preservation—plants that were producing few or no seeds, or plants with little seed production because there were few plants, or plants with recalcitrant seeds. We were fortunate to have several grants from IMLS for developing protocols for species nominated by the CPC network, and that helped develop that area of work.

Please share one of your plant conservation projects.
The autumn buttercup restoration project has been so rewarding to be a part of because of the partners: The Arboretum at Flagstaff (TAF), The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, and Weber State University. We’ve produced hundreds of plants through tissue culture that were acclimatized by TAF, and later outplanted on a TNC preserve in Utah. It’s been a great group to work with and a fascinating project. I’m also very excited about a project funded by our current IMLS grant, which provides seed money for in vitro or cryo research on exceptional plants in 11 other institutions, most of them CPC gardens.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your work?
Plants. The variety of plants and their responses in vitro and to cryo is challenging, it but is also the most interesting part of my work. I would like to understand more about how those responses relate to the natural adaptations of the plant. If we knew more about that, we might be able to better predict what methods would be the best for each species. A secondary challenge is educating people on the fact that plants are important and are species in their own right, as much as animals are.

Please discuss any women in science who have inspired you through your career.
I attended a women’s college, Mount Holyoke College, and the majority of professors in biology and chemistry were female. The model that women could succeed in science was accepted as normal. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with some younger women scientists and have benefited from their energy and enthusiasm. And, of course, there is Dr. Emma Lucy Braun, who, in this part of the country, is an iconic figure in plant ecology, botany, and conservation, as well as a pioneer woman scientist of the early to mid-twentieth century. I first learned of her in my first year at CREW, when I met some long-time Cincinnati nature lovers. They commented that Lucy Braun would be very happy about what I was doing with plants, and I had to go look up who she was. I would never put myself in her league, but I think those of us in plant conservation are certainly trying to follow in her footsteps.