Agate Desert
title: "Agate Desert" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["grasslands-of-oregon", "white-city,-oregon", "geography-of-jackson-county,-oregon", "protected-areas-of-jackson-county,-oregon", "nature-conservancy-preserves"] topic_path: "geography" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agate_Desert" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
The Agate Desert is a prairie located near White City, Oregon, 53 acres The area is not in fact a desert as its name suggests; it is so named because of the abundance of agate, petrified wood, jasper, and other minerals found there. Much of the World War II army training base of Camp White was built in the Agate Desert. The Nature Conservancy is working to preserve the Agate Desert as a native Rogue River Valley grassland.
Ecosystem
The area contains seasonal vernal pools that act as their own self-sufficient ecosystems. The Agate Desert is also the only known place where the endangered big-flowered woolly meadowfoam plants grow and the desert contains over 500 of the plants. Cook's lomatium or Cook's Desert Parsley is also found in the Agate Desert and only grows naturally elsewhere in the French Flat of Illinois Valley, also in Oregon. In 1998, Henri Dumont discovered a new species, Dumontia oregonensis, also known as the Hairy Water Flea, in the desert, and it is not known to live anywhere else.
Preservation
Ecologists are currently conducting prescribed burns to the area, and volunteers are then spreading seeds of the native grasses and wildflowers in order to restore them to the area. Ecologists are also studying the various species, many of them rare, in the vernal pools. Development in the valley has left it at only about 25% of its original size.
References
References
- "The Nature Conservancy's Agate Desert Preserve".
- {{cite gnis
- "Jackson County Place Names Database". Jackson County Genealogy Library.
- "The Agate Desert".
- "Big-flowered wooly meadowfoam". [[Oregon Department of Agriculture]].
- (29 July 2009). "Habitat Will Be Protected".
- "Researchers make a giant Oregon find".
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