Dear Claire, As I'm sure you are aware you will have various considerations and the selection of a receiving site may be the most important. Under certain conditions weeds like Brassica tournefortii could swamp such a small plant, and soil disturbance in replanting them could encourage such weeds. Weed abatement would be an important part of any mitigation plan. While stressful, I don't believe that directly transplanting them while in growth to a new site is a great threat necessarily. It depends on the site (soil moisture, e.g.), weather, careful extraction and transport, aftercare (watering), and so on. One watering-in after transplantation may be enough to settle them in for the coming season. With leaves on it will be much easier to find the plants that are in the donor population. Is the population to be impacted of significant size? Is it in proximity to other populations? What is the timeline (end of monitoring) and what are the success criteria? You may want to consult published work on transplantation of Brodiaea, Calochortus, etc. The long term track record of establishing rare plants (all growth habits, whether direct or indirect) in CA is not encouraging. I would focus on the extant plants and either avoid or minimize any propagation or seed banking efforts. Regards, Dylan Hannon On 15 September 2012 18:44, K. Claire Hilsinger <kchilsinger@gmail.com>wrote: > Hello everyone! > I am a biological contractor working on a solar farm project in the > southern California desert. Due to upcoming construction, one of the rare > plants on site, *Androstephium breviflorum*, or, pink funnel lily, must be > salvaged. We have thought about seed collection, propagation from > cuttings, and whole plant transplant, but the fact is, not much is known > about this species and there is no documentation of transplantation or > salvage that we can find. Do any of you have suggestions? > > This annual is a spring bloomer, but is only seen after a big rain, so it > may be difficult even to locate individuals. They are found in fine soils > at the bottoms of alluvial fans. > > Thanks so much for your input! > > Claire Hilsinger > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > -- Liberty is traditional and conservative; it remembers its legends and its heroes. But tyranny is always young and seemingly innocent, and asks us to forget the past. -- G. K. Chesterton