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Georgia is a leader in the world of plant conservation.

There are about 40 entities University state agencies, private companies that all come together and try to preserve and protect endangered, rare and threatened species at a special plot here at the state Botanical Gardens.

The seeds of endangered plants like this, Georgia Aster, are protected and used to grow healthy populations.

Conservation coordinator Jennifer Ceska says the plants grown here are then planted elsewhere to restore species in the wild.

A lot of these species represent what would be like a Piedmont prairie, a grassland, and a Piedmont.

Prairie is one of the top three most critically rare habitats in Georgia.

So these grasslands were once upon a time vast in the Piedmont and mountains, and we've lost them to history.

And part of the research going on here is recreating those habitats to restoring and and boosting the biodiversity.

It's kind of like a wetland.

You look at a wetland and it just looks like it looks like a bunch of mark and somebody might look at this and just go, Well, this is just a weedy patch of land, but you see something totally you see something totally different.

And I, and I so want to walk with people, come walk with me.

Come meet these characters in this play, because this is a beautiful theater going on.

But you got to know who you're talking to.

Come seek and see if we could just walk with with Georgians, with people and and help them to see that it might look hairy, it might look wooly and wild, but it's so beautiful.

And there's texture and there's movement and there's insects and and birds and there's the sound of the animals.

All of it.

It's so beautiful.

I could sit and look at a grassland and fact I do it often for hours and days, just just to immerse and watch the diversity going on.

Some of the Asters have been planted here in the Chattahoochee National Forest, where trees have been cleared so that native plants can thrive.

Forest ecologist Jimmy Rickard says without fire, the tree canopy gets too heavy for the understory to survive.

We do want to expand this.

This is really where the diversity is for our botanical species.

There's not as much diversity in the tree like the canopy and such.

It's this ground layer where we have a lot of our diversity, a lot of our flowers, a lot of insects, birds, a lot, a lot of critters make their living in this in this ground layer here.

And so, yes, we do want to expand this and try to have more of this habitat on the landscape.

Kerry Radcliffe is also part of the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance.

They often take extreme measures to just protect one species.

We have no idea what we've lost and we don't know what we have left.

There's more research that needs to be done to quantify all of these even these more common species, what their role is, how they interact with pollinators, and how that supports us as humans.

You know, plants support all of life.

Yet two and five plants around the globe are threatened by extinction.

Two and five.

Two out of every five plants worldwide.

Which may help you understand why.

Kevin Elmore is hanging on ropes to cut down these invasive plants because they cast too much shade on Georgia rock cress.

We are in Columbus, Georgia, at Goat Rock Dam, and Kevin is hanging off of a steep embankment above the water and he all of that for this.

Georgia rock cress looks unimpressive in winter, but when it blossoms, it's lovely.

It's just picky about where it grows.

You are basically risking your life to save this one little plant.

Is it worth it?

Definitely.

Definitely.

Because, I mean, the habitat, so much habitats lost to it.

And to be able to open up some space for this plant, it's it's good cause at this point you may be thinking, so what if we lose a few plant species?

Michelle Elmore is lead biologist for the Rock Crest and gave me this reply.

My first response to that is that Georgia Rock Crest and so many of the plants and animals that are unique to this area, it's a special part of Georgia.

It's our natural heritage.

And so for me, you know that that loss would be unfortunate because, you know, we've gotten to enjoy the plant and other plants in that habitat.

And I would like my farm, my children and their grandchildren to know about it.

And like I said earlier, I mean, there could be some utility that we for medicine, for food, things like that, that we do discover in the future because we're still learning so much about the species.

So if we lose it, we'll never know what that value could have been.

And it may also play an important role in just the the interconnections of other plants and animals like pollinators, for example, and connectivity among populations.

If we lose this one, for example, then the pollinator might not be able to connect to the next population because they need these stopover places.

So that's why, you know, each place becomes important and it has its role.

That is why we met up with another group at Drummond Swamp.

A few months later, they came by Kayak.

They waded through mucky water, all to collect seeds from these plants.

So I told you how big this alliance is and this effort.

All of this effort on this particular swamp is for one plant, the Georgia alder, because this is the only place this plant grows naturally in the world.

This swamp is on land owned by Georgia Power, another partner in the alliance.

Jim Ozer, says their property is home to many threatened plants.

We've got things going on all over the state and this one happens to be an important location, but we've got them all over them from north to south, east and west, and, you know, getting some of them on company lands, own rights of ways, but a very diverse group of plants and diverse group of habitats.

But we're able to play a role and we're glad to do it.

Watch as these folks with the Department of Natural Resources do the painstaking work of gathe It takes hours and they will have to come back again.

It looks desolate here, but there are some homes in the vicinity.

However, if this land was not protected, it could easily be filled in and developed into a residential area.

One reason that rising wages are good for a lot of plants is they are maintained as open space and you don't see a lot of good open space habitat anymore.

After the Georgia Alder seeds are collected, they are kept safe until they can be delivered to a seed bank.

Carly Stepp says this is a rare plant in a complex habitat.

These are actually pretty much their flowering structures.

They don't get flowers in the same way that you would think of them, but that's essentially they're like their cone and it's like a baby pine cone.

It does look like a baby pine cone.

It's basically looks like a big pine cone.

And then these little seeds are inside of there.

So this is it dries up and kind of turns into this like gunky looking plant.

And then we collected this entire thing and then this goes to the Atlanta Botanic Garden and actually gets cleaned.

And then they put it in seed storage like this.

That is a lot of work.

It's a lot of work.

We turned in about 17 plants.

That's what we collected and we got over 5000 seeds.

This is where collected seeds go for protection and propagation.

The Atlanta Botanical Seed Bank, Jason Ligon, oversees this sterile environment where some seeds are the size of dust.

As we were saying, one of the application is for micro propagation, is whenever you can't grow something outdoors or in your greenhouse.

So one great example for that would be with orchids.

So this one here is actually our white fringe, this orchid.

So this is a federally listed species that we have, and we've done quite a bit of work.

Atlanta Botanical Garden has done a lot of work with this species, and we've actually augmented or increased the number that are in certain population.

They work with a lot of orchid species, all of which will eventually be planted in the wild.

This is that first stop for those orchids.

So right beside us here in the lab, in our flow herd, that's the sterile conditions in which we sell them.

And from that, you actually see this proto corn developed from the orchids.

So this is a structure that's unique for orchids, where before that true leaf and root is developed, you have this stage that's like a little ball.

They're almost like Dippin Dots.

And then from that you'll have the true leaf and the true root that will sprout.

And this will eventually be a slipper orchid.

That's right.

That's right.

So very similar.

Here we have.

If you fast forward about six months to a year, just how you would subdivide your tulips and things in a bed at home.

We do the same thing with our cultures here.

So this eventually will just overcome the plate.

And so we'll just subdivide that and one of these will become about five or so tops like this.

As the rare plants mature, they will be transferred to a greenhouse which is home to pitcher plants and other species.

The alliance will eventually plant in a habitat where they have a chance to thrive.

These are the same orchids you just saw in the micro propagation room.

They've grown up a little bit and when they reach maturity, these orchids will be going in the wild.

In Kentucky will have three plants, a lot of seeds, and manages this greenhouse.

It's sort of like a bank vault.

Only the folks who work here believe these plants are more valuable than currency.

It's not a seed that we bought from Home Depot.

It's a seed that one of our partners collected out in the wild.

They probably tagged the location of the individual that they collected the seed from.

And we know, like the year, the date person that collected it.

And we carry that information forward with this plant all the way until it gets replanted back into the wild.

Many plants that are rare are not the prettiest things on the table.

In fact, the rarest plant that we have in the whole greenhouse.

Do you see this flat over here with some little grass looking stuff in the mud?

Yeah.

That's the rarest plant in Georgia.

The mat forming quilt.

Walk the mat forming what?

What?

Mat forming.

Quill work.

Quill ward.

Yeah, it's.

It's a group of fern allies.

The super ancient lineage of vascular plants.

It's like one of the most ancient lineages of vascular plants, actually.

And that.

And that's the most rare thing you have.

Yeah, that's not all the pretty thing.

No, I mean, we have a lot of rare plants in here, including the pretty things like the Sarah Sonia, Luca Phyla, which I think is down to one remaining population in Georgia.

The Atlanta Botanical Gardens is just one of many partners in the Plant Alliance, but they also work in eight different states and other countries across the globe.

Vice President Emily Coffee says there is a lot at stake.

It's about bringing people that are experts together to actually collaboratively work to address these big pressing questions in in conservation, because two and five plants are at risk of extinction during our lifetime.

We actually have to work as a community.

Plants don't understand state or international borders.

They just grow where they grow.

And they need us to work together and to be able to harness the power that is found across the world and that we can assist each other with to be able to actually build networks, bring expertise together, and then address really difficult and challenging questions through a host of different ways.

Georgia is on the plant lovers map for a couple of reasons.

We have hundreds of plants that are species of concern and a unique group of partners who work together across the state to protect them and Mincy Moffitt with U.S.

Fish and Wildlife has worked hours to help with this show.

It's amazing.

We started talking about doing this show a year ago, and you convinced me this alliance was such a big deal.

Why is it a big deal?

Well, let me let me start by saying that Georgia has 3700 plant species, so native plant species that ranked sixth among all states for plant species diversity.

So six in the nation, six in the nation.

Right.

And plants are a big deal, right?

I mean, they they form the basis of the food chain.

They anchor ecosystems.

They provide us compounds for industry and agriculture and medicine, and they provide all kinds of ecosystem services like flood control and nutrient cycling and pollination.

We met again at the little Dry Creek natural area in Rome to plant some rare trillium.

It's a sweet little plant but needs this bog type environment to grow.

Those are chorus frogs singing in the background.

Henning von Schmeling with the Chattahoochee Nature Center, holds the precious load.

We are here in Floyd County.

We're working on doing some habitat restoration, removing some shrubs and trees.

But more importantly, we're going to be out planting this very, very rare trillium that is only known from one site in Georgia.

Nowhere else in the world.

This is called the Georgia released Petroleum Petroleum, Georgia.

And we've already grown some out here, there, some already out on the property.

We're augmenting that today with some more looking at little different micro habitats where it might be happier than where they were planted before.

So hopefully these new babies without two containers of them will find a good home here.

I'm excited that there's there's a deer fence going in because it's going to protect these from the deer that like to eat them.

I've been on the site here now for over 20, 25 years.

I've been coming here when it was still not even purchased by the Georgia Department of Transportation.

And I've seen a lot of damage, but I've seen also a lot of good stuff happening on the site with the deer fence.

It's going to be amazing what's going to pop up.

The commitment of this group of what I affectionately call plant geeks is amazing.

From a guy dangling from a rope with a chainsaw to folks waiting in high water to collect seeds, they all believe saving endangered plants is important for us as a society.

So we've got all this plant diversity, but a lot of them are threatened or rare, and it's hard to get the dollar.

That's right.

So about we have about 800 species that are tracked as species of conservation concern in Georgia.

And if you look at all of the rare species across all taxonomic groups, plants make up about 50% of that, but they only receive 5% of the conservation dollars.

So the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance is one way to address that gap in conservation funding.

And the alliance itself is diverse.

I mean, you've got corporations, you got state agencies, federal agencies, you're federal.

I mean, volunteers.

It's huge.

Yeah.

So there's right now there's about 60 different groups and there organizations of all types, state and federal agencies, Botanical Gardens, Arboretum nature centers, NGOs.

There are members of industry.

The guy you see planting Trillium is with the Department of Transportation.

D.O.T.

is going to build a ten foot fence around this bog to keep the deer out and protect the plants.

Bradley Doherty says D.O.T.

tries to offset any disruptions from transporting Asian projects by working with the conservation group.

Well, so it turns out there's a plant species come out of socialism and this this site is the only known natural site for that species in Georgia.

And it was the property was purchased as a conservation site.

And it's an it's one of our methods of efforts towards accommodating for some of the impacts of of in this case, a nearby transportation project.

And so because you know while we do hold up, you know, the integrity of Georgia's transportation infrastructure, we're also, you know, do our best to be stewards to our natural environment.

And so we also kind of, you know, do things that are, you know, adjacent to just the transportation work collectively.

All of the alliance probably has a much better feel for the state of our ecosystem than most of us.

I did keep asking, so what if you lose one scraggy looking plant?

And maybe the best response I received was this If one plant blinks out, it says there's something wrong with the habitat.

And if there's something wrong with the habitat, it could have an impact on the entire ecosystem.

It's never just about one plant.

I'm Sharon Collins.

We'll see you next time.