Parish's Alkali Grass (Puccinellia parishii)

Global Rank: G2 - Imperiled
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Poaceae
State: AZ, CA, CO, NM, TX
Nature Serve ID: 154141
Lifeform: Graminoid
Date Inducted in National Collection: 09/16/2019

Description:

annual, bluish-green grass

Where is Parish's Alkali Grass (Puccinellia parishii) located in the wild?

States & Provinces:

Parish's Alkali Grass can be found in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas

Which CPC Partners conserve Parish's Alkali Grass (Puccinellia parishii)?

Institute for Applied Ecology

Not Sponsored

Assigned 09/16/19

The Arboretum at Flagstaff

Not Sponsored

Assigned 11/10/23

CPC's Plant Sponsorship Program provides long term stewardship of rare plants in our National Collection. We are so grateful for all our donors who have made the Plant Sponsorship Program so successful. We are in the process of acknowledging all our wonderful plant sponsorship donors on our website. This is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Conservation Actions

Kimiora Ward & Laynie Saidnawey, Institute for Applied Ecology

11/22/2019

The Puccinellia parishii collection CPC accession number S0812 was collected by the Institute for Applied Ecology on Bureau of Land Management land in Sandoval County, NM. The population appeared healthy at an estimated 1000-2000 plants observed. 75-100% of the population appeared to have just finished flowering on July 22, 2019. The population is facing the threat of the invasive grass species Festuca arundinacea, which was reportedly covering 25-49% of the ground. The habitat the population was living in is described as open, 0-5% slope, southwest facing with no litter. Associated species include Festuca arundinacea, Eleocharis sp., Sporobolus airoides, Distichlis spicata var. stricta, Hordeum jubetum, Juncus balticus, Suaeda sp., Tamarisk and Almataster pauciflorus.

There were some seed maturity issues in the collection as roughly 30% of the collected seed appeared green and not fully developed. There did not appear to be any other issues with the seed. The seed is very small and processing it takes a lot of time to count out 25 maternal line collections. In total our collection was an estimated 10,000 seeds. After doing a basic cut test under a microscope, I believe we had ~ 45% viable seed, although again the seed is very small and our viability test might not be completely accurate.