Oregon's Rare and Endangered Plants
Mirabilis macfarlanei
Rare & Endangered Plants of Oregon
Federally listed species as of January 1, 1995.
Thanks to the passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the inclusion of plants for the first time, the State of Oregon has been keeping a list of rare, threatened, and endangered plants since the 1979 publication of Rare, T
hreatened and Endangered Vascular Plants in Oregon - An Interim Report. Early in 1980 a computerized data bank of Oregon's rare and endangered animal and plant species, the Oregon Natural Heritage Data Base was established in the Oreg
on field office of The Nature Conservancy. Conferences have been held regularily since then in order to update the original list, the latest being held in December 1994 in Bend, Oregon. The State of Oregon recognizes the efforts of the participating age
ncies and recognizes these lists.
Unfortunately for some of the plant populations in Oregon (as in the rest of the world), recognition is not enough. Fortunately, the Native Plant Society of Oregon took up the task of pushing through legislation to protect these endangered plants, and in
1987 their effort was successful and Oregon Senate Bill 533 was passed. This bill put the responsibility for Oregon's native plants on the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Division of Natural Resources, headed by botanist Dr. Bob Meinke. The ODA are
charged with monitoring and maintaining Oregon's threatened and endangered plant populations.
Currently Oregon has five Federally listed Rare and Endangered plants. This site has a photo and a limited amount of information about four of the five, and we hope to have more information soon.
Incidentally, the majority of the information that you will see here, as well as the images displayed, have come from the excellent book, Rare and Endangered Plants of Oregon by Donald C. Eastman. We hope to have more curren
t information and images very soon. All images are copyright Don
Eastman and used with his permission
This document was last updated: Thursday, 16-Jan-1997 21:28:34 PST