Penstemon Prairie

Next up we're paying a quick visit to Metro's Penstemon Prairie Natural Area, an obscure wetland area that I visited the same day as the nearby and much better-known Chehalem Ridge Nature Park. As I mentioned in that post, the difference between a Nature Park and a Natural Area is huge: Nature Parks get their own web pages and all sorts of visitor facilities -- paved paths, signs, picnic tables, restrooms, maybe some playground equipment, even a few public art installations. Natural Areas (like the one we're visiting now) get a little sign that says "Natural Area", and sometimes not even that. In this particular case, the Chehalem Ridge Master Plan (2020) briefly mentions Penstemon Prairie along with a few surrounding nature areas, I guess to place the upcoming nature park in a broader context:

Both south and west of Fernhill Wetlands, additional bottomlands have been protected by Metro at Carpenter Creek and Penstemon Prairie. These do not offer public access and are often flooded, providing critical habitat for waterfowl and migratory birds.

A recent Tualatin Floodplain Metro doc includes a few vital statistics about the place: the natural area comes to 280 acres, was purchased in 1995, and an ongoing restoration project began in 2015.

So now we get around to the subtle details that make this a special place. The name "Penstemon Prairie" comes from the tall western penstemon (Penstemon hesperius), a rare wildflower that is exceedingly fond of Willamette Valley wetlands. In fact it likes Willamette Valley wetlands almost as much as humans like turning Willamette Valley wetlands into farms and subdivisions, and it stubbornly refuses to thrive in any other circumstances. As a result, the species had not been seen since 1935 and was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered here in 2008. Since then, increasing the penstemon population has become a major focus of the ongoing wetland restoration work here.

In parallel there's an ongoing effort to get it listed as an endangered species: Here's the original petition, and a doc confirming that it's officially under review as of October 2022. And there's even a status page indicating where it is in the review process. And, inevitably, a lawsuit running in parallel with the formal petition process, because that seems to be an essential part of getting anything onto the list, and federal agencies won't take the proposal seriously unless there are lawyers and judges involved, and often not even then.

The chance rediscovery happened while a researcher was looking for Nelson's checker-mallow (Sidalcea nelsoniana), another rare (and unrelated) species endemic to wetlands in the Willamette Valley and parts of western WA up to about Olympia. This checker-mallow was actually listed as Threatened on the federal Endangered Species list until it was delisted in 2023, after the feds decided it had recovered sufficiently. And the presence of checker-mallows means this area may also be home to Macrorhoptus sidalceae, an obscure and highly specialized type of weevil that only noms on checkermallow seeds, if you can believe that.

The rare streaked horned lark has also been seen here, and is also the subject of a federal lawsuit arguing the bird should be considered Endangered, not just Threatened.)

I did not know any of this at the time I visited, did not know what to look for, and I'm also not that good at identifying wildflowers even when they're common ones, so I (probably) did not get any photos of any rare species when I was there, though I'm not really sure. If you're an expert in identifying Willamette Valley wetland plants and see anything interesting in these photos, feel free to leave a comment down below. I also had a question that popped into my head while reading up on the various rare species here: If you identify one of these checker-mallow plants, and you look closer and see a weevil eating checker-mallow seeds, I am not sure what you're expected to do. Do you smoosh the weevil for the sake of more checker-mallows? Or do you keep walking and leave the circle of life alone, on the theory that any insect that is this absurdly specialized is probably rather uncommon too?