Rare But Extremely Common

Rare But Extremely Common

There are plants that are extremely rare in every sense of the word.  They only grow in a few places.  Maybe you have to travel to the ends of the earth to catch sight of them.  However, every plant has its range. When you are on the edge of its range it can become very rare indeed.  Most of us live in one place at a time.  Sometimes for a very long time.  And we have a range within which we normally work and play.  If we are interested in plants or trees or birds or insects the intersection of our normal range and the ranges of all these things define what we think is common.  So when we only rarely happen on a certain plant, for example, it can become (or at least it does for me) something kind of exciting.  

In my long career with the U.S. Forest Service on the Kaibab National Forest I have ended up walking a lot of it.  Walking as the job of a forester is a passionate belief of mine and perhaps another blog post.  But, at any rate, I know much about the Williams Ranger District where I worked for 24 years.  I have been known to get excited about seeing a certain tree or shrub someplace I didn't expect or growing to a size I didn't expect.  Most of these plants are very common in the national or worldwide sense but rare enough within my home range to catch my eye such that I will note and remember their location. 

Perhaps one of my most exciting finds is of a plant that has a worldwide range and even has "common" as part of its name.  This is a shrub known as common juniper or ground juniper (Juniperus communis).  Northern Arizona is at the very southern extent of its range in North America. At this latitude it would only be expected to be found on the highest mountain peaks.  I have found it in only three places on the Williams District in all my literally thousands of miles of walking over all those years.  (One of those lone patches, on Bull Basin Mesa, was burned and destroyed in the Wildhorse Fire in 2009.) As common as this plant is worldwide I cannot tell you how exciting it was to find these isolated clumps.  One group of plants is only 3 or 4 feet across.  This clump is separated from the nearest known clump by over 20 miles distance.  I won't say it couldn't occur at a few other spots but it is very uncommon.

Here is a photo of the group of plants near Sitgreaves mountain:

 You can see that its distinctive color and growth habit really make it stand out within the pine forest.

Closeup of Foliage of Ground Juniper

These plants are surely leftover from the days of much cooler climate after the last ice age.  Truly what can be called "relict".  In time they too will be gone.  But for now they are the kind of find that can really make my day in the woods one to remember.