Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful is holding their Great Community Cleanup on May 3rd. One of their biggest goals for this event is to aid in the removal invasive weeds present on public lands. They have a few sites this year that could greatly benefit from having some plant-savvy volunteers present - can you help? On May 3rd from 8 AM-12 PM volunteers will be working across various sites to tackle invasive/noxious weed species. Our locations doing weed removal include Hunter Creek Trail, Carcione Open Space, Canepa Open Space, Silver Lake's L-Pond, and Swan Lake Nature Study Area. Weed species being worked on include white top, species of thistle (musk, bull, etc), knapweed, and hemlock. After the event there is a celebratory picnic which we invite all volunteers to attend where there will be free food, a raffle, and beer provided by Parlay6. (fb)

The Plants of Nevada BioBlitz is going very well, nearly 3000 obsevations and 382 species logged in the first week. Thank you to the observers and to the identifiers, over half of the observations are rated as Reseach Grade meaning at least two people agree on the identification. Southern nevadans were busy over the weekend, all the most observed spoecies are from that area, Ferocactus cylindraceus leads the pack with 139 observations. Many of the observations are fantastic with multiple photos showing flowers, flower parts, leaves, hairs and habitat. The more photos you take the easier it is to identify tricky taxa like Astragalus, Eriogonum etc. Please do not dig up our native babies, they work hard to thrive, you rarely need below ground parts for idenification. Please feel free to dig up and remove non-native plants like Ceratocephala testiculata, bur buttercup. (fb)