The rare Tiehm's buckwheat stands less than 30 centimetres tall in Nevada's rocky high desert, its thin, leafless stems adorned with tiny yellow flowers in spring.
Greenhouses at the University of Nevada, Reno, where researchers are studying whether they can transplant the plant or seeds germinating in the greenhouse to the desert to bolster the native population.But the Centre for Biological Diversity withdrew its lawsuit against the US Bureau of Land Management in January after Ioneer ended its exploration activities and agreed to provide the group notice before resuming any work at Rhyolite Ridge in rural Esmeralda County.
"We have always been aware of the buckwheat. It didn't come as a surprise," Ioneer president Bernard Rowe told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Australia. "We torture them. We want them to know life is hard, starting now," said Beth Leger, a UNR plant ecologist who has done extensive research on invasive cheat grass and native plants of the Great Basin region.
"We know they are very tolerant of horrible soil. That's unusual," Leger said. "What we don't know is how it will grow in other kinds of soil."
Green Left bites itself again!
hard to believe.
Go green, buy electric! wait no! errr...