Environmentalists on Tuesday asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect a southern Oregon flower known as the Willamette phlox.
Citing threats that include climate change, habitat loss and invasive species, the Center for Biological Diversity filed its latest Endangered Species Act petition on behalf of the plant that depends on the region’s disappearing wetlands.
“The fragile Willamette phlox’s survival is intrinsically tied to the seasonally drying wetlands that have nearly vanished across the Willamette Valley, so we have to act,” said Margaret Townsend, a freshwater species attorney at the environmental group.
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Townsend added that “with fewer than a dozen sites where this rare flower still thrives, time’s running out.”
