It’s not a particularly pretty plant – in fact, the flowers look like the pom-poms that follow the dandelion flower, except that they are yellow. Tiehm’s Buckwheat grows in just one place on earth, 10 acres on the Silver Peak Range in Nevada, also the site of a store of lithium. This week, however, the flower was given endangered species protection. The question is whether it will survive mining interests in the area.
The Bureau of Lana Management approved drilling operations in the area (mind you, this is public land, land that belongs to you and me) but outside of the 900 acres it considered essential to the habitat of Tiehm’s Buckwheat. There are people who ask, why on earth worry about some little plant that looks like a spent dandelion?
When we ask such a question, we betray what we claim to be, people who respect God’s creation, which includes more than glowing fields of beautiful wildflowers. This is a desert with cacti, bighorn sheep, chukar, and sea urchins and coral fossils, reminders of the water that once covered Nevada. Everything has its place and use.
Prayer for the Day
Bending down and peering at the earth beneath us,
We are reminded of your creation’s variety, O God;
Touching the earth, our fingers feel its beauty and power,
As we remember we are entrusted with its care.
May we walk gently and lightly on the ground you created,
And care for what is always beautiful in your sight.
In the name of the One who walked among us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Look closely at nature. Every species is a masterpiece, exquisitely adapted to the particular environment in which it has survived. Who are we to destroy or even diminish biodiversity?
- E.O. Wilson, American biologist (1929-2021)
For if one link in nature’s chain be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal.
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt,
To bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, empty of human life,
To satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?
Job 38: 25-27