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Meadow Rue Search April 2007: Amanda Stang

One of the most exciting things about my internship was helping to locate Thalictrum arkansanum Boivon or the Arkansas Meadow rue, which is a very threatened plant species (one of the most threatened in the world). Although frustrating at times, as ‘botany hunts’ can be, it was so rewarding to find that one plant or patch of the Meadow rue. I have never heard of this plant species until this internship and now am able to identify it on sight and have a whole new appreciation for it. GIS and GPS were used to establish a location once a patch of the meadow rue was found which allowed us to revisit the same area with more ease. Botanist from Mississippi and Missouri flew in to see one of the meadow rue locations as it is so threatened, not many people have seen it in a natural habitat. How neat to be part of this! A few samples were collected, one female and one male, and put into a press to dry and later, be displayed. The flowers are so delicate but one can easily distinguish the male and female plants based on the flowers. The roots are almost ‘starfish-shaped’ and seem so large and bulky compared to the rest of the plant and its delicate stature. Initially, we started looking for plants that typically grew with and around the meadow rue such as trout lily and buckeye. These species are pretty easy to locate and identify which helped in the search for the meadow rue. Although not every patch of trout lily or buckeye had meadow rue in or around it, it was still very helpful to have something larger and more easily identifiable to look for. Once the typically related species were found, we looked more closely within and around the area for the meadow rue.