Date: Thursday, January 15, 7:00pm
Presentation: Eight Dollar Mountain: the Place, the Plants, and a Growing Threat Siskiyou Chapter Native Plant Society of Oregon

Speaker: Kristi Mergenthaler

Location: In-person presentation at the Siskiyou chapter meeting at Southern Oregon University Science Building, Room 161. Join us in-person or Zoom in from home. Link to register for Zoom meeting provided below.

Eight Dollar Mountain is an iconic serpentine conical mountain in the Illinois Valley and one of the most significant botanical hotspots in Southwest Oregon. Its ultramafic soils, derived from mantle rocks, support an extraordinary concentration of rare, endemic, and state- and federally listed plant species—many of which occur nowhere else on Earth, and some known only from the Illinois Valley. This otherworldly landscape long served as a living laboratory for researchers studying endemism, adaptation, and ecological resilience.

Today, Eight Dollar Mountain faces increasing pressure from renewed nickel mining interests, a growing threat not only to this singular landscape but to serpentine ecosystems throughout Southwest Oregon. Mining activity poses risks to fragile plant communities, hydrology, and long-term ecological integrity. This presentation will explore the botanical significance of Eight Dollar Mountain, the unique ecological processes that shape serpentine landscapes, and the urgent conservation challenges posed by mineral extraction in one of Oregon’s most biologically irreplaceable regions.

Kristi Mergenthaler is the stewardship director with Southern Oregon Land Conservancy and previously worked as a rare plant botanist. Her conservation passions include rare and endemic plants; retaining and enhancing habitat for declining bird populations; serpentine landscapes such as Eight Dollar Mountain.; standing up for underappreciated species such as oak mistletoe, poison-oak, and western rattlesnakes; and connecting people to the solace and beauty of the natural world.