Critical ecological restoration work in the South Puget Sound prairies currently depends on an army of volunteers to collect native plant seeds, pull Scotch broom, organize Prairie Appreciation Day, and many other tasks. Many of these generous souls operate without formal training in botany but are eager to learn. Volunteer organizations like the Friends of the South Sound Prairies team with non-profit organizations and various government agencies to foster local prairie wellness. As of 2012, no easy to use field guide existed on these threatened ecosystems to assist with important restoration and conservation work. In spring 2012, Evergreen students created a wiki site that features Wikipedia-style pages for over 100 vascular plants of the south Sound prairies. The students involved included Yianna Bekris, Sara Coutts, Melissa Crowe, Emily Driskill, Greg Eide, Eli Evans, Zach Fleig, Lily Hynson, Krista Koller, Irene Matsuoka, Kale McConathy, Kate McConathy, Saff Smith, Michael Stacey, Nikolai Starzak, Mollie Steele, Sofia Vasconi, and Isabel Watts. Photographs were generously donated for the wiki by Rod Gilbert, Ben Legler and others as noted. Lisa Hintz provided photographs taken with an automontage microscope of the magnified seeds of most of the plants featured. Amy Greene and David Geeraerts, IT staff, provided key support. From this information was birthed the first edition of the Evergreen published field guide, Vascular Plants of the South Sound Prairies, edited by Frederica Bowcutt and Sarah Hamman. This community-generated guide includes illustrations and descriptions of nearly 150 vascular plants found in the glacial outwash prairies and associated oak woodlands from Tacoma to Rochester, Washington.
An online database of the guide’s content can be found on the continually updated Puget Prairies Wiki Page.
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