We in California are lucky to find ourselves in a climate that is gentle enough to allow us to include plants from all over the world in our gardens. But should we? There are compelling reasons to turn to California natives, which are already adapted to our habitats and microclimates. For our speaker, the two outstanding reasons are beauty and challenge. Glenn Keator, coauthor with Alrie Middlebrook of the book, Designing California Native Gardens, will focus on how to create beautiful, site-appropriate designs using California natives. He’ll emphasize plants from our local communities such as oak woodland, grassland, mixed-evergreen forest, and chaparral.

Glenn Keator is a Bay Area botanist/teacher/writer specializing in California native plants with an emphasis on identifying and growing them, and with a particular interest in edible and medicinal natives for the garden. He has been teaching courses at Merritt College in Oakland, College of Marin, Regional Parks (Tilden) Botanic Garden, and leading field trips all over the state and beyond. He has written several other books, including The Life of an Oak: An Intimate Portrait, California Plant Families West of the Deserts and Sierra Crest, and Complete Garden Guide to the Native Perennials of California. You can find out more by visiting his website.

Monday, February 11, 2013

"Great Basin flora of the northern Warner Mountains of Modoc Co."
speaker - Dick O'Donnell

Modoc Co. is located in the extreme northeastern corner of California, abutting the Great Basin to the east and the Klamath Region (southern Oregon) to the north, and is not in the California Floristic Province. Most of the county is in the Modoc Plateau F.P. The Warner Mountains of central Modoc Co., which run north/south, are not lofty; they barely reach 9,000 feet above the Modoc Plateau, but that is enough for a distinctive flora to take root.

Indifferent to rising gas prices, Dick travels from throughout California, and from Oregon to New Mexico every year to savor their distinctive floras. Author of a growing number of articles on the endemic flora of California, he seeks out niches within niches, detecting the unusually constricted habitats of narrowly endemic plants. This retired economist has no economic reason to do otherwise, he says. The best course of action, he adds, is to apply myself to the most rewarding undertakings and to share the findings with the botanical world.

photo: Betula glandulosa (Glandular birch), a widespread but uncommon shrub growing in Dismal Swamp, northern Warner Mts.

Plants have had to defend themselves since their emergence millions of years ago. Myriads of insects and snails feed on them, and larger herbivores devour fresh, green leaves and juicy stems. Being mostly anchored in place, plants have had to evolve elaborate defense mechanisms to survive the challenges. Most plants have structural defenses, in the form of tough skins, thorns, or sharp spines. Through time, plants also evolved a great diversity of defensive substances, in the form of strong odors, bitter saps, sticky resins, or potent poisons. Plants are masters at chemical defense!

During this presentation we’ll look at families of chemical plant defenses. This will be illustrated by many plant photos, mostly of California native plants including Marin County plants, and a few non-natives, too. We’ll examine what is typical of the molecules that compose strong leaf odors, gums and resins, soapy saponins, and the famous alkaloid plant bases (no previous chemistry knowledge required!). We’ll also remember that plant defensive substances have been the origins of many medicines for humans.

Margareta (Greti) Séquin has a PhD in organic chemistry and is a plant enthusiast. She has taught organic chemistry, natural products chemistry, and chemistry for non-majors at San Francisco State University for more than 20 years, and has also led numerous field seminars on the subject of plant chemistry. She is a docent at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Berkeley, as well as the author of the book The Chemistry of Plants: Perfumes, Pigments, and Poisons, published by RSC (Cambridge, UK) in April 2012.

We’ll take a look at San Francisco Bay Area habitat gardens and their plants, including water features and ponds, and some of the wildlife species these gardens attract. The focus is native plants and their relationships with birds, butterflies, bees, and other beneficial insects.

Highlights of this talk will include:
• The basics of gardening for wildlife
• Examples from various Bay Area wildlife gardens of multifunctional native plants that offer cover, food, and nectar for birds and insects
• Pollinators (honeybees, native bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators) and gardens focused on attracting these pollinators
• Beneficial insect predators
• Wildlife ponds and creatures

Nancy Bauer is a wildlife habitat gardener, garden writer, and author of The Habitat Garden Book: Wildlife Landscaping for the San Francisco Bay Region. Her new book, The California Wildlife Habitat Garden, was just published by UC Press in August. She is based in Sonoma County and got her Master Gardener certification in Marin County in 1994.

Photos:
Bee on narrow leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) by Harmina Mansur
House finch on Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) by Robert Watkins
Lavatera assurgentiflora by Mieko Watkins

Monday, June 11, 2012

" What does the new Jepson Manual mean for California floristics?"
speaker - Bruce Baldwin

Changes in understanding of California's native and naturalized vascular plants since publication of The Jepson Manual (1993) necessitated a complete revision of the book, which is now complete. Implications for the flora extend from higher-level classification (e.g., families) to fine-scale taxonomy (e.g., species). Bruce will review some of the more conspicuous changes affecting our plants and provide some perspective on why these changes are important steps forward for California botany. He also will talk about new initiatives of the Jepson Flora Project and how they will affect the California botanical community.

Bruce Baldwin is Curator of the Jepson Herbarium and Professor of Integrative Biology at U.C. Berkeley. He is Convening Editor of the Jepson Flora Project, including The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California, Second Edition.

Monday, May 14, 2012

"2,600 Miles on the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail"
speakers - Bob & Martha Sikora

The Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail extends 2650 miles from the Sonoran Desert at the Mexican border to boreal forests in Canada. The entire route stays within some of the most strikingly beautiful and pristine habitats in the three westernmost states, California, Oregon and Washington. Passing through some 50-odd national and state forests, parks, and wilderness areas, the trail winds up the Peninsular and Transverse ranges, across the western tip of the Mojave Desert and the Tehachapi Mountains, and along the length of the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Mountains.

Bob Sikora and Martha Ashton-Sikora completed the entire Pacific Crest Trail and will share with us some of the scenery and wildflowers they saw along the way. In a walk of that length, can one make adequate photographs to give a sense of the whole endeavor and still manage to cover the distance? Join Bob and Martha on their journey and find out. (Hint: It took them 13 years!)

Bob Sikora (MA, zoology, UC Berkeley) was one of the first four research divers at UCB. He taught advanced placement biology at Berkeley High and enjoys nature photography in his retirement. Martha Ashton-Sikora (PhD, theater, Michigan State University) did her research in India and has authored two books and numerous articles on Indian theater forms. She has taught at the University of Chicago and UC Berkeley.

John Baston has been a National Park Ranger and guide for 22 years. His love of botany started in Marin when he was working at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and at Point Reyes National Seashore. He went on to spend 17 summers in Alaska working as a ranger and sea kayaking guide. He always carries his little pocket camera and has captured images of wildflowers from the beach fringe of Glacier Bay, the deep forests of the Tongass, and up into the subalpine of Denali National Park. Currently he is working again in the Bay Area as the Director of North American and Alaskan Programs at Mountain Travel Sobek.

John’s program will be a survey of wildflowers that he has found in Alaska’s diverse habitats, and he will have some ideas about arranging a trip that accesses all these wildflower hotspots.

Monday, March 12, 2012

"Goose Lake, Modoc County"
speaker - Dick O'Donnell

Dick ODonnell is a retired economist who has determined that hiking, learning, and talking about it are cost-effective. His botanical excursions into New Mexico, Arizona, and all over California have inspired him to write articles, some of which were published in Madrono, The Four Seasons, and Manzanita.

" This is a photographic record of my first visit to Modoc County, limited to the immediate vicinity of Goose Lake. The season started late in 2011. Snow and muddy conditions made access to the Warner Mts. difficult...and just as well since numerous, very colorful flowering plants decorated the lowlands very richly. Had I gone to the Warners instead, I would probably have missed all of what you'll see in the slides. I was amazed at the diversity. But in addition to the floral highlights, there were artifacts from earlier days...arrowheads, mortars, rock art."

The three pictures are landscape around Goose Lake showing snow in the highlands; Lithophragma tenellum; and the rare Downingia laeta.

Monday, February 13, 2012

"Native Plants of Walker Ridge and Bear Valley, Colusa County"
speakers - Vernon and Doreen Smith

Walker Ridge, mostly managed by BLM, covers an area of 14,000 acres along an 11-mile, north-south trending ridge located on the boundary of Lake and Colusa Counties. The serpentine soils, high elevation (over 3000'), and unique geography of the ridge support many rare plants, but this invaluable resource is threatened by a Canadian company which wants to develop a massive wind turbine project. The giant turbines and the associated infrastructure would require clearing of the native chaparral vegetation to provide footprints for the turbines and drastic widening of the existing dirt roads. Some preliminary clearing has already taken place. For these reasons CNPS is proposing the designation of Walker Ridge as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

The Ridge is situated immediately to the west of Bear Valley which is renowned in good years as having the best remaining display of fields of wildflowers in Northern California. These vast flowery panoramas have proven to be a mecca for wildflower enthusiasts for decades.

We made four visits to these two areas in 2010 and 2011 to see and photograph some of the flora that make them so special.

More information can be found, for example, from the October 2011 edition of the Four Seasons, and by visiting Tuleyome and similar websites.

Doreen Smith graduated from Bristol University with a degree in Botany. One of her first job afterwards was working on the Flora of Tropical East Africa at the Royal Botanic Gardens Herbarium, Kew. Since emigrating to the United States in 1967 she has focused on learning the plants of California, especially those of Marin County. She is the rare plant specialist for the Marin Chapter CNPS.

Vernon Smith is a retired medical physicist who enjoys hiking in the outdoors and, while on the trail, photographing the flowering plants. Doreen helps him find the correct identification, and suggests plant subjects, sometimes even those that appear to most people as obscure little green weeds.

Monday, January 9, 2012

"Sonoma spineflower: the natural history and future survival of one of Marin's rarest plants"
speaker - Amelia Ryan

The Federally Endangered Chorizanthe valida (Sonoma spineflower) currently has only one wild population, located within Point Reyes National Seashore, making it one of the rarest plants in Marin County and in California in general. Though commonly called Sonoma spineflower, the site on the Point Reyes Peninsula is the only location where a population of this species has been documented. This talk will cover the quest to understand the likely historic distribution of Sonoma spineflower and the factors contributing to its current restriction to one location, and touch on other aspects of its natural history. It will also discuss current efforts by the Park Service to provide for the ongoing survival of this species. In particular, it will focus on a project undertaken in 2010-2011(funded by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Preventing Extinction Grant) that included new introductions of this species.

Amelia Ryan is an Ecologist with the National Park Service at Point Reyes National Seashore where she has worked since 2003. She has a B.S. in Plant Biology and an M.S. in Biology, emphasis: Ecology and Systematic Biology.
She grew up in the north Bay Area and has been interested in California native plants since childhood. She has been a member of the Marin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society since 2004, and has served on its board since 2010.

Monday, November 14, 2011

"New findings in California Native American basketry and native plants uses"
speakers - Ralph and Lisa Woo Shanks

Right image: Western Mono basket
Left image: Yokuts basket

Monday, October 10, 2011

"The Great Sunflower Project:
Pollinator Conservation by the Public"
speaker - Gretchen LeBuhn

Data from several places around the world suggests that pollinators are disappearing which has serious implications for our food supply and ecosystem health. The Great Sunflower Project empowers people from pre-schoolers to scientists to do something about this global crisis by identifying at risk pollinator communities. Using sunflowers as standardized thermometers for each site where they are planted, citizen scientists time how long it takes for five bees to visit their sunflower, effectively creating an index of pollinator service. When managed well, the return on investment for this type of science is potentially huge. The Great Sunflower Project has over 90,000 people signed up to receive seeds-creating the first social network designed to map pollinator service at either a regional or continental scale. This talk will cover the basics of the natural history of bees, the evidence that bee populations are struggling and then introduce the Great Sunflower Project.

Gretchen LeBuhn has been a member of the biology faculty at San Francisco State University since 2001. Four years ago, she founded the Great Sunflower Project, one of the largest citizen science projects in the world with over 100,000 participants. The Great Sunflower Project engages participants from pre-schoolers to our most senior of citizens in collecting data on pollinators in their backyard gardens – identifying the areas where pollinators are struggling and promoting conservation of pollinators. In addition to her work leading citizen science, she has done research on vineyards, mountain meadows, hummingbirds in the Andes and urban parks. She is the author of over 30 papers and recently published a book for gardeners called “Attracting native pollinators”. She received her PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1998.

Plants that are not indigenous to an area can become invasive and can outcompete the natives that coevolved with the local fauna. Weeds grow in most plant communities and Marin County has an exceptionally large percentage of these non-native species. As Leopold put forth at the beginning of the last century, many people are not aware of weeds and their degradation or destruction of our natural communities. It’s important that we learn to identify these plants and understand the role they play in the environment.

Eva Buxton, our Conservation chair, will illustrate and discuss some of the worst offenders.

Eva became interested in plants as a young child growing up in Sweden. She has an M.A. in Ecology and Systematic Biology with emphasis on botany, and worked as a botanist for an environmental consulting firm for 16 years. She volunteers for many environmental organizations in Marin County.

Dick O’Donnell is a retired economist who has scientifically determined that it is cost-effective to talk about what he comes across while hiking the hills and valleys of Napa and Lake Counties. He has published articles in Madrono, The Four Seasons, and Manzanita on various botanical subjects, including the genus Hesperolinon and edaphic endemism (the ecological state of being unique to areas of a specific soil type).

“Streptanthus of the North Bay” will illustrate the amazing amount of infraspecific variation in the genus and speculate about why some of the species are so rare. It may be because many of the species in the genus are still diversifying, while at the same time, their habitat is being degraded, leaving less habitat into which to diversify.

Californians are avid gardeners, and for good reason. Throughout much of the state, outdoor gardening activities are enhanced by mild weather, frost-free nights, and relatively fertile soils. Like elsewhere in the country, water-loving lawns have been a major element in our gardens. Turfgrass lawns seduce us with their seeming simplicity and versatility, but our reliance on them comes at a high cost. After considering the resources and maintenance that most California lawns demand—from heavy irrigation to regular applications of fertilizers to frequent mowing with power equipment—one conclusion becomes inescapable: we need to find alternatives to turfgrass that are more environmentally sound.

If you are one of the many gardeners who is thinking about removing or reducing your lawn, we invite you to the northern California premier of the new book Reimagining the California Lawn: Waterconserving Plants, Practices, and Designs. Authored by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien, it describes hundreds of waterwise plants from California and other Mediterranean climates of the world and provides information on how to plan, install, and maintain an attractive landscape that can replace your lawn. The book is packed with ideas and advice and richly illustrated with more than 300 color photographs. It offers a variety of practical designs and plant palettes to choose from.

Carol Bornstein is a horticulturist, instructor, and garden designer. For more than 30 years, she has been an advocate for sustainable, regionally appropriate landscaping. While Director of Horticulture at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden (which features solely California native plants), she managed the living collections, retail nursery, and plant introduction program and selected several new cultivars. She continues to seek out exceptional plants for California gardens and to share her knowledge of plants native to California and other Mediterranean regions through her writing, teaching, and design work. Along with David Fross and Bart O’Brien, she is also the coauthor of California Native Plants for the Garden.

After making landmark collections of flora and fauna in the Pacific Northwest, Scottish naturalist David Douglas sailed south to California, where he collected from the Bay Area south to Santa Barbara. Although his journals for this period were lost in a canoeing accident, a survey notebook tracks his extensive travels, and the specimens he sent back had a major impact on English gardening and forestry. This slide presentation will follow Douglas’s adventures and compare his working methods in the Columbia drainage with what he accomplished in Spanish California.

Teacher and naturalist Jack Nisbet graduated from Stanford University in 1971, and for several winters worked as a field assistant on the Farallon Islands. He lives in Spokane Washington, where his books explore the human and natural history of the Intermountain West. The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association named Nisbet’s most recent project, The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest, as one of their 2010 Books of the Year. To find out more, visit www.jacknisbet.com.

Monday, February 14, 2011

"Wildflowers of Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve"
guest speaker Ken Himes

Some of you may remember the determined effort by CNPS and 40 other organizations to prevent an 18-hole golf course from being built on the serpentine soils at Edgewood County Park. (See Fremontia vol. 36. no. 1, winter 2008 for the full story.) In 1993, after 13 years, the San Mateo County board of supervisors declared it a Natural Preserve.

Ken Himes will show slides of the diverse flora that occurs in this 467-acre preserve. Over one-third of the area is of the serpentine substrate and supports colorful displays of California wildflowers. In addition, there are 11 plants at Edgewood listed in the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants (6th edition). Six of those occur in serpentine areas.

Other communities include chaparral, coastal scrub, and large stands of coast live oak woodland. An extensive trail system allows close contact with all of these communities, which add to the wonderful mosaic of vegetation at Edgewood. In addition to the slide show, Ken will announce the schedule of docent-led walks that will occur between mid-March and mid-June in 2011. Exciting additional news will be the dedication of the Bill and Jean Lane Education Center in early 2011.

Ken has been involved with the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of CNPS since 1985. He has held a number of positions with the chapter and was elected a Fellow in 2006. He is currently very active with the habitat restoration program at Edgewood. He will also conduct training sessions for the new 2011 docents.

Monday, January 10, 2011

"Populations of Fungi"
guest speaker John Taylor

The study of evolution is dominated by animals and plants, that is, big organisms. Microbes have contributed less to evolutionary studies primarily because they are too small to see by ordinary means. Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the present, microbes have been assumed to be everywhere and spring to action whenever the appropriate environment becomes available. In the past decade, inexpensive DNA sequencing has allowed microbiologists to enter the debate with results that have overturned the idea that, when it comes to microbes, "everything is everywhere." In fact, several studies will be presented that argue for fungi being the best organisms to turn the normal approach to evolution and ecology on its head in what is becoming known as "reverse ecology."

John W. Taylor is a Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology and a Curator of the University Herbarium, both at the University of California at Berkeley. Research in his laboratory focuses on the evolution of fungi, including fungal phylogenetic relationships, the timing of deep fungal divergences, species recognition, the maintenance of species, phylogenomics, and population genomics. He received an AB in Biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1972, an MS in Botany from the University of California at Davis in 1974, and a PhD in Mycology from the University of California at Davis in 1978.

Taylor served as President of the Mycological Society of America and currently is President of the International Mycological Association. He is a fellow of the Mycological Society of America, the California Academy of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Microbiology.

Monday, November 8, 2010

"A Diversity of Lichens"
guest speaker Stephen Sharnoff

Stephen Sharnoff will present a short, illustrated introduction to lichen biology and natural history, followed by a series of images that show the diversity and beauty of lichens. His emphasis will be on California species, but will include examples from other parts of North America.

Stephen Sharnoff grew up in Berkeley and attended the University of Chicago and UC Berkeley. He has pursued various photography projects while working as a carpenter and building contractor in the Berkeley area for about 40 years. He and his late wife Sylvia Sharnoff did the photographic fieldwork for Lichens of North America, with text by Irwin Brodo, published by Yale University Press in 2001. The volume includes over 900 color photographs, and was described as "the twenty-first-century lichen equivalent of Audubon's Birds of America" by Thomas E. Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution. A photographic guide to the Wildflowers of the Sierra Nevada in collaboration with Joanna Clines of the USDA Forest Service is forthcoming from University of California Press. Sharnoff’s photographs have been used in numerous magazines, books, and exhibits, most recently at the Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley. The National Geographic Image Collection and Getty Images represent him as a stock photographer.

Stephen Sharnoff's website of Lichen photographs

Monday, October 11, 2010

"Winged Visitors in Your Garden Sanctuary"
speaker
Charlotte Torgovitsky

Now that you're gardening organically, and have planted California native plants for their habitat value, you have probably noticed increased activity in your garden sanctuary. Perhaps you would like to know more about all those creatures in your garden !

Did you know that it's easy to distinguish male from female in some butterfly species, and that some butterflies can emerge from the chrysalis years after going into the pupal stage ? You'll learn how birds divide habitat resources by using different foraging strategies, and why spiders play an important role in the life cycle of certain birds.

We'll take a "slide show tour" of beautiful habitat gardens, discuss what makes some plants "habitat heroes" and learn unique and identifying features of the birds and butterflies most likely to be seen in your garden sanctuary. You'll learn interesting facts about each species, their life cycles, and the important associations these creatures have developed with the native plants of California.

Charlotte Torgovitsky is a naturalist, longtime organic gardener, garden writer and educator. Charlotte currently teaches classes on Bay-Friendly Gardening and Home Composting through the local community college. As Garden Education Manager at the Marin Art and Garden Center from 2001 to 2009, she created numerous California native gardens, a native plant nursery and composting facilities.
photo credits - Monarch on Arbutus by Mieko Watkins; Bluebird with grasshopper by Bob Watkins

Nearly 50 rare plant species can be found within the protected lands of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Of course, finding them is not always easy and can often be an adventure! Michael Chassé of the National Park Service will share his experiences hunting for rare plant treasures with community volunteers throughout Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties. In addition, Michael will provide some of the inside story on the recent discovery and conservation of the Franciscan manzanita (Arctostaphylos franciscana), a species thought to have been extinct in the wild since 1947.

Michael Chassé is an ecologist with the National Park Service at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. He has been involved with community-based ecological stewardship and the monitoring of rare plants for over 14 years. Michael is also a graduate student in the Department of Geography & Human Environmental Studies at San Francisco State University. His research is focused on the restoration of San Francisco’s endemic manzanitas.

Pete left a 20-year career in social services and international development to pursue his love of gardening with native plants in 2002. Since then, he’s founded East Bay Wilds, a landscape design/installation/maintenance company and native plant nursery.

In addition to attending presentations and lectures and collaborating with knowledgeable horticulturists, ecologists, and botanists, he received his education while exploring our local wild places. His favorite places to explore extend from the high Sierra to the Livermore Hills and Mount Diablo.

He considers his most important tool to be his camera. When he started his business, he was a self-professed lifetime cameraphobe, but in those years, he’s developed quite a good eye for plant and habitat photography. One of his goals is to help people make the connection between their yards and the greater, wild world around us. He wants people to experience the beautiful harmony that he sees around him when exploring the woods, meadows, and high rocky outcrops around the state.

Aaron Schusteff, will share photos of many botanical treasures from various Sierran locales: Alta Peak and Mineral King on the west side, and Kearsarge Pass, Humphries Basin, and Mono Pass/Pioneer Basin on the crest.

There will be plenty of floral treats, ranging from the low-montane to the high alpine communities. This will be a chance for you to enjoy sky pilot (Polemonium eximium) and alpine gold (Hulsea algida) without huffing and puffing to the highest crest! There may even be some vertebrates and invertebrates thrown in for a bit of biological balance.

Aaron Schusteff was born in Chicago. When he was five years old his family moved to the west (initially Tucson) - at which point, for him, the world changed from black and white to Technicolor! He’s had a lifelong love of mountains, deserts, and nature in general. In 1998, after spending too many years indoors studying and teaching mathematics, he immersed himself in a passion for field botany. This provided a richly fulfilling experience of beauty and fascination - and a good excuse to spend lots more time out in the wild! Aaron’s study of botany began with evening classes from Glenn Keator at the California Academy of Sciences, and has been immensely enriched by countless CNPS field trips and members. Many of Aaron’s plant photos can be viewed on the CalPhotos website.

Evidence is mounting that pollinators of crop and wildland plants are declining worldwide. A research group at UC Berkeley and UC Davis led by Dr. Gordon Frankie conducted a three-year survey of bee pollinators in seven cities from Northern California to Southern California. Results indicate that many types of urban residential gardens provide floral and nesting resources for the reproduction and survival of bees, especially a diversity of native bees. Habitat gardening for bees, using targeted ornamental plants, can predictably increase bee diversity and abundance, and provide clear pollination benefits.

Gordon Frankie is Professor of Insect Biology in the College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1968. His research interests are in plant reproductive biology, pollination ecology, and solitary-bee ecology. His field research time is split between California and the seasonally dry tropical forests of Costa Rica. He teaches several lecture and field courses in applied conservation biology and environmental problem solving at UC Berkeley. Dr. Frankie is currently working on a new book on urban bees and their host flowers in California with three other colleagues. The book will be published by UC Press in the Natural History Field Guide Series, with a hopeful publication date of early 2011.

Mosses differ from the seed plants in profound ways. They can be defined as plants lacking flowers and fruits, roots, and a defined system of vascular tissues for transporting fluids throughout the plant. They reproduce not by seeds, but by single-celled spores. Besides sexual reproduction by spores produced by a sporophyte plant, mosses have a wide array of vegetative (gametophyte) propagules to assist in species distribution and colonization of new habitats. Because they have no roots, mosses are not confined to living on soil; they are quite content to live on rocks, tree trunks, and rotten wood.

With nearly 1,200 species of mosses recorded in North America, over half are documented in California. Many mosses in California occur as widely disjunct populations, and a few species are either California or Pacific Coast endemics. Jim Shevock will present an overview of California mosses, where they occur, and the need for ongoing inventory and conservation.

After a botanical career spanning more than 30 years between the USDA Forest Service and the National Park Service, Jim retired from public service in 2009. He is currently research associate with the Department of Botany, California Academy of Sciences and the University Herbarium, UC Berkeley.

Initially a vascular plant taxonomist with a focus on the flora of the southern Sierra Nevada, Jim migrated to the study of bryophytes (primarily mosses) in the late 1990s. His plant collections, currently at over 34,000 specimens, are housed at the herbarium of the California Academy of Sciences with selected duplicates provided to major bryophyte herbaria around the world. His most recent work, California Mosses, was co-authored with Bill Malcolm, Nancy Malcolm, and Dan Norris and published in the fall of 2009. With nearly 2,200 color images, this book provides a portal into the wonderful diversity of California mosses. Copies will be for sale at the meeting.

Humans have managed oak ecosystems for thousands of years. Before the gold rush, acorns were a staple food for the majority of all California Indians, and their relationships with oaks and acorns were an important part of their Native culture. Human relationships with oak landscapes and management regimes continue to evolve and change today. These changes are mirrored in our oak landscapes.

In 2007, our speaker, Jolie Egert, set out on a journey to explore acorn food (the original California Cuisine) and understand oak ecology at a deeper level. This talk will present her research into the ethnoecology of oaks in California and will weave human relationships into the complex ecological web of oak habitats, focusing on past and present management of oak ecosystems, acorn culture, Sudden Oak Death, and traditional and modern-day acorn food preparation.

Jolie Lonner Egert, M.S., is our newest board member. She is a forest ecologist, ethnobotanist, and herbalist. She is principal at Go Wild! Consulting, a business that restores the land and our connections to it. Jolie currently leads field classes in botany and medicinal and edible plants throughout Northern California. She has worked on ethnobotanical and restoration projects on four continents and can often be found grinding acorns and eating wild foods.

free download of 50-page "Acorns and Eat 'Em" from California Oak Foundation website

John and his wife Carolyn moved to Inverness three years ago after spending nearly three decades in Connecticut, where John was a banker. He earned his Masters in Environmental Management from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, then developed and directed a 700-acre nature center for the National Audubon Society. He began photographing nature 20 years ago, starting with birds. Although birds remain his primary photographic interest, he also enjoys shooting wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies, and other critters.

This program will center on a trip this past summer with Bob Stewart to the Sierras north of Yosemite. Carolyn Longstreth is on the board of the Marin chapter of CNPS.

Evidence is mounting that pollinators of crop and wildland plants are declining worldwide. A research group at UC Berkeley and UC Davis led by Dr. Gordon Frankie conducted a three-year survey of bee pollinators in seven cities from Northern California to Southern California. Results indicate that many types of urban residential gardens provide floral and nesting resources for the reproduction and survival of bees, especially a diversity of native bees. Habitat gardening for bees, using targeted ornamental plants, can predictably increase bee diversity and abundance, and provide clear pollination benefits.

Gordon Frankie is Professor of Insect Biology in the College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1968. His research interests are in plant reproductive biology, pollination ecology, and solitary-bee ecology. His field research time is split between California and the seasonally dry tropical forests of Costa Rica. He teaches several lecture and field courses in applied conservation biology and environmental problem solving at UC Berkeley. Dr. Frankie is currently working on a new book on urban bees and their host flowers in California with three other colleagues. The book will be published by UC Press in the Natural History Field Guide Series, with a hopeful publication date of early 2011.

Join us for a detailed look at the upcoming Muir Beach Restoration Project (formerly known as the Big Lagoon Restoration). This project will transform the way that Redwood Creek flows into the Pacific Ocean at Muir Beach, including the construction of a new parking lot and bridge, a reconstructed creek channel, and expanded wetland habitat for frogs, salmon, and other wildlife. In addition, part of the restoration design will incorporate plants with ethnobotanical significance, to showcase a "living museum" of the Coast Miwok tribe’s relationship with the landscape.

Chris Friedel, a resident of Muir Beach, has been the manager of the Redwood Creek Native Plant Nursery, located at Muir Woods, since 2005. In addition to propagating native plants, he has coordinated the re-vegetation of several restoration sites in the Redwood Creek watershed. Soon, he will take on a new role with the National Park Service as vegetation ecologist for the Muir Beach Restoration Project.

Chris graduated from Stanford University in 2001 with B.S. in Earth Systems. His appreciation of California native plants began through his work as a docent and environmental educator at Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve.

Did you know?
• You can increase the number of pollinators in your garden by making conscience choices to include plants, mostly native, that provide essential habitat for bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, hummingbirds, and other pollinators.
• The health of pollinators has a significant influence on our ecosystems and agricultural industry.
• You can find online the "Selecting Plants for Pollinators" Ecoregional Planting guide for your ZIP code. Eventually, 35 guides willG be available for download, free-of-charge from the Pollinator Partnership and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC).

As Executive Director of the Pollinator Partnership, Laurie Davies Adams has overseen the initial organization and development of the NAPPC, the 120-plus member collaboration of Mexican, Canadian, and US stakeholders that work for a variety of fields including science, the environment, agriculture, and private industry. NAPPC’s successes under Ms. Adams include the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council Study on the Status of the Pollinators of North America, the US Postal Service’s "Pollination" stamp series, and the US Senate and USDA proclamations creating National Pollinator Week.

This talk will give an overview of the County’s complex and fascinating geology, which attracts geologists from all over the world. We will look at the processes that shape Marin’s scenic landscape, including how the San Andreas Fault and other plate tectonic movements have brought exceptionally interesting rocks to Marin from far distances in time and space.

Doris Sloan is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley. She has a MS in geology and a PhD in paleontology, both from UC Berkeley. She taught for two decades in the Environmental Sciences program at UCB and has led field seminars for Point Reyes National Seashore Association, and several other organizations. She is the author of Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region, published by the University of California Press in their California Natural History Series, and is writing a booklet on Discovering Geology at Point Reyes for the Association. Her current research focuses primarily on microfossils in the sediments beneath San Francisco Bay and what they can tell us about the Bay’s geologic history.

Lepidopterist Liam O'Brien spent 2007 combing every bit of remaining open space, park, beach dune, and vacant lot to see exactly what butterflies still fly in San Francisco County. Armed with the historic record, he logged over 200 days in the field, in a city more famous for what is gone (the Xerces Blue) than for what remains. Come see some fantastic pictures and learn for yourself the interesting relationship between host plants and butterflies. Hear some interesting stories about the zones where humans and Lepidoptera converge, and become updated on some exciting new projects to turn the tide of our rapidly diminishing charismatic microfauna.

Trained as a professional stage actor, Liam O'Brien had returned to the Bay Area from Broadway in 1996 when a tiger swallowtail flew into his backyard off the Duboce Triangle. It was a life-changing experience. He travelled all over California studying and painting the state's butterflies and moths. His artwork/journals have been published in many periodicals, most recently Bay Nature (April 2008). After surveying the butterflies of San Francisco, Liam came up with a conservation project in tandem with Nature in the City: the Green Hairstreak Corridor - the restoration of a disappearing butterfly’s ecosystem in the Sunset District. He runs the annual San Francisco butterfly count and is currently painting wildflowers and natives for some Recreation & Parks signage. He also serves on the board of directors of the CNPS Yerba Buena chapter.

Exotic diseases like Sudden Oak Death are among the most destructive forces responsible for major changes in native plant communities. Although an initial flurry of media attention and public interest several years ago brought Sudden Oak Death into the limelight, it has all but disappeared from the news and the general public consciousness of late. But Phytophthora ramorum, the pathogen responsible for the disease, continues to spread in northern California, including the North Bay, and the count of susceptible plant species now numbers in the dozens. Fortunately, research on the disease and the pathogen has also been expanding, led by scientists like this month’s speaker, Matteo Garbelotto.

Matteo’s presentation will focus on examples of exotic forest diseases and explain how they were introduced and how they may be spreading. In particular he will present the latest published data showing where Sudden Oak Death was first introduced in California, how it has been spreading, and what the natural potential spread of this scary pathogen is likely to be. Answering these questions required dedicated work by many researchers at several universities and included sequencing the entire pathogen genome. Alarming as the pathogen and the disease are, the research and its findings are fascinating. Those who have attended Matteo’s presentations in the past know he is a dynamic speaker and a brilliant researcher who always provides ample reason for hope.

Dr. Matteo Garbelotto is a plant pathologist who serves as Extension Specialist and Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley. His research interests include ecosystem sciences, forestry, microbial biology, plant biology, Sudden Oak Death, and forest pathology.

Amelia’s research examines the effects of nitrogen and salinity in salt marsh communities. An essential nutrient for plant growth, nitrogen can have a profound effect on the diversity and structure of plant communities. The effects of excess nitrogen have the potential to be magnified in salt marsh communities because nitrogen is a key component in the plant response to salt stress.

Nitrogen levels have been increasing worldwide since the onset of the industrial age. This problem is pronounced in estuaries such as San Francisco Bay because both direct input and runoff concentrate nitrogen in estuaries. Salinity varies around the bay, but both water diversion and climate change have caused overall increases in bay salinity. These salinity changes could further impact marsh diversity.

Amelia will discuss a series of experiments she undertook in both the greenhouse and at China Camp State Park in San Rafael to try to understand the impacts of these human-caused changes to the estuary. This work was completed as a part of her master’s work under Dr. Katharyn Boyer at the Romberg Tiburon Center, San Francisco State University.

Amelia grew up in rural western Sonoma County, where she developed an interest in California native plants at a very young age. She graduated from UC Davis in 2000 with a B.S. in Plant Biology. After leaving Davis, Amelia spent two years as a science teacher in Namibia. Since 2003, Amelia has worked at Pt. Reyes National Seashore as a biologist on the Giacomini Wetland Restoration Project. It was this experience that inspired her interest in marsh communities in particular. In 2008 Amelia was proud to receive a scholarship from the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the CNPS to support the completion of her master’s work.

Is it any real surprise that California Native plants form the basis for our state’s first and greatest Native American art form? Every Native American basket was created using a remarkable and fascinating array of native plants. California Indian baskets have a rich heritage thousands of years old and comprise the finest basketry in the world. These fascinating baskets achieve their beauty because our rich flora was combined with the artistic talents and cultural needs of the diverse First People of California.

What an unexcelled combination: the most complex Native American cultural region interacting with the flora of California. Each Indian basketry tradition reflects the plants of the region where the baskets were created. And how surprising these baskets are: there are baskets so small they can sit on the head of a pin and some so large it took four strong men to carry them when filled. Many kinds of baskets were used by both women and men throughout all aspects of their entire lives. To make these baskets required great knowledge of California native plants. No wonder California Indian people became expert ethnobotanists.

Ralph Shanks, M.A., author of Indian Baskets of Central California, will present a beautifully illustrated slide show on the Indian baskets of California. Ralph is president of the Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM). He has a long-time interest in native plants dating from his first published article in “Fremontia” in volume 1, number 1. Ralph and his wife recently completed studies of very early California baskets at Harvard University, the Museo de American in Madrid, UC and other collections.

Lisa Woo Shanks is a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service area resource conservationist who covers environmental projects in the Bay Area and Delta. She is editor and photographer and will show you slides of many of the finest and rarest Indian baskets ever created including seldom seen very early baskets from East Coast and European museums. The Shanks will emphasize native plants uses in Indian basketry and the role both plants and baskets play in California Indian life yesterday and today.

The Shanks will have copies of their beautiful book, Indian Baskets of Central California, available for sale and signing. See “Fremontia” (Summer 2007 issue) for Steve Edwards’s outstanding review of the book.

Right image: An Ohlone/Costanoan coiled basket from the San Francisco Bay Area, decorated with olivella shell disc beads and woodpecker feathers.
Left image: This Pomo burden basket has a background of sedgeroot with redbud designs, plus a few clamshell disc beads for decoration.

We in California are lucky to find ourselves in a climate that is gentle enough to allow us to include plants from all over the world in our gardens. But should we? There are compelling reasons to turn to California natives, which are already adapted to our habitats and microclimates. California native gardens give us a sense of place, low maintenance, and great beauty. Glenn Keator’s talk will feature Marin County plant communities as inspiration to create appropriate local gardens. We’ll visit the hot, dry chaparral; the cool, shady redwood forests; the open oak woodlands; and the wildflower-filled grasslands.

Glenn Keator is a freelance teacher, botanist, and writer specializing in California native plants and their garden culture. He teaches at San Francisco Botanical Garden, Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Merritt College, and College of Marin. Glenn has written several books on natives including The Life of an Oak, Introduction to Trees of the San Francisco Bay Region, and a pocket guide called Trees and Shrubs of Mt. Diablo. His newest book, Designing California Native Gardens, with Alrie Middlebrook (UC Press), forms the basis for this talk. A limited number of copies of the book will be available for purchase (at a discounted price) and signing after the presentation.

Monday April 14, 2008
"Lester Rowntree and Hardy Californians: A Woman's Life with Native Plants"
Illustrated presentation
by guest speaker
Lester B. Rowntree

Lester Rowntree was a pioneer in the study, cultivation, and conservation of California native plants. While remembered today primarily for her 1936 classic, Hardy Californians, which UC Press recently republished in an expanded edition, Lester also authored over 700 popular articles and gave hundreds of public lectures as she tirelessly promoted the cause of native flora. Besides her botanical and horticultural messages, the public seemed equally enchanted by Lester's gypsy lifestyle and her irrepressible personality, empowered as it was by a mystical blend of natural philosophy and religion that was enriched by her outdoor life. In this talk her grandson, Lester B. Rowntree, will talk about this fascinating woman's life with native plants. The talk will be illustrated with pictures from the Rowntree family archives, as well as with original photographs taken by Lester herself.

The Speaker: After three decades of teaching in San Jose State's Department of Environmental Studies, Lester B. Rowntree is now a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley where he researches and writes about local and world environmental topics. In addition to editing the recent edition of Hardy Californians, Lester is currently working on a natural history book of California's Central Coast for UC Press. He is also the author of over a dozen college textbooks. He lives in Berkeley and has long been a member of the East Bay chapter of CNPS.

Join us for a lecture to learn how construction of the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park was informed by the institution's commitment to the environment and its sustainability. As eco-friendly continues to take center stage, buildings of all kinds and sizes are going green. Almeda will discuss ways in which the new Academy is setting some of the highest standards for green architecture in everything from water and energy efficiency to natural light and ventilation, recycled building materials, and last but not least the challenges and benefits of a living roof.

Lagunitas coho salmon are listed as endangered at the State and federal level and are the largest remaining wild run of coho salmon in Central California. The Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN) is a 501c3 organization in West Marin working to protect and restore endangered salmon populations and creek ecosystems. Paola Bouley will talk about the importance of riparian forests and floodplains to salmon in California and highlight SPAWN’s grassroots efforts to revive and protect local riparian forests and coho salmon in West Marin.

Paola has a M.S. in Ecology from the Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies and San Francisco State University, and a B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Over the past 10 years, Paola has worked with the GGNRA, PRBO Conservation Science, and the Nature Conservancy monitoring migratory songbirds and working actively in the restoration of Bay Area wildlands. Since 2004, she has worked as the watershed biologist (that is, a community ecologist) for SPAWN. Working closely with volunteers, she helped launch SPAWN’s watershedbased native plant nursery, and helps manage programs to monitor coho salmon and streams, restore native riparian habitat on private lands, and advocate in support of environmentally sustainable land and water management policies.

SPAWN naturalists lead creek walks for the public to view endangered coho salmon in the Lagunitas Watershed through the winter months (November- January). For more information, visit the SPAWN website

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area contains more endangered species than any National Park in continental North America: more then Yosemite, Yellowstone, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks combined. This astounding array of imperiled biodiversity - in the midst of the Bay Area’s vibrant civilization - is certainly cause for celebration, but also concern, as the species’ dire status may indicate that something is wrong with our relationship to the Park.

In 2008, CNPS will embark on an exciting campaign to reconnect people with these species: the Endangered Species Big Year. Like traditional listing competitions, the Endangered Species Big Year provides Park visitors with opportunities to see each of the 33 listed species found in the Park, both through individual exploration and guided expeditions. Over a dozen trips are scheduled in Marin County alone, for species such as Northern Spotted Owl, Tiburon Paintbrush, Marin Dwarf Flax, and Mission Blue Butterfly.

But it doesn’t stop there: the Endangered Species Big Year also empowers individual competitors to take 33 conservation action items that aid species recovery, reconnecting people with the preservationist values of this urban national park experiment.

Peter Brastow is Founding Director of Nature in the City, the first and only organization wholly dedicated to the conservation and restoration of the Franciscan bioregion. Peter started Nature in the City on the heels of working for the National Park Service at the GGNRA, where he was the Presidio Ecological Restoration Coordinator. He still serves as Rare Plant Co-Chair for CNPS’ Yerba Buena Chapter, and managed rare and endangered plant restoration and monitoring while working at the Presidio. Prior to his 10-year stint at the GGNRA, Peter did graduate work in biogeography at UCLA, an experience that taught him about both our current ecological crisis as well as its social and cultural origins.

Peter and Nature in the City are playing a leading role in the GGNRA Big Year Project because of its direct confrontation with our collective relationship with nature where live. Speaking of which, though his work is in the city, Peter recently moved with his wife and two boys to San Anselmo, where Peter hopes to contribute to the region’s cultural ecological transformation, including along his own creek frontage!

Planting with some of our native flowering shrubs and wildflowers can yield three seasons of garden bloom. Come see a sampling of the myriad possibilities. Ted’s photography is superb, so this presentation will be both informative and visually stunning. Ted’s interest in the natural world began early and led to studies of natural history and a passion for plants. After working at Strybing Arboretum, Ted founded a tree pruning business, Tree Shapers, and earned a reputation as one of the most artistic of Bay Area arborists. He is an accomplished and widely-published plant photographer, and an avid gardener, active in a wide array of horticultural societies. Ted’s California native gardens have appeared in three books - one on wildflower gardening. Ted has been a longtime member of this chapter and a frequent presenter at our meetings.

Monday October 8, 2007
"The Poetry of John Thomas Howell and the making of the new Marin Flora"
Illustrated presentation
by guest speaker
Wilma Follette

Co-author Wilma Follette will give a slide-illustrated talk with selected quotes from Howell’s classic work. As much as possible of the original species discussions, along with his insights and unique - often poetic - observations, has been retained in the new edition. Wilma will share selections of these and relate tales from the 12-year work on the new Flora, a joint project between CNPS Marin and the California Academy of Sciences. Both hardcover and softcover editions of the Flora will be available for purchase (by check or cash) at the meeting, and Wilma will autograph copies as desired.

Wilma is a third-generation, native-born Northern Californian - 44 years here in Marin - with a lifelong interest in the outdoors. In 1973 she was one of the founders of the Marin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. For this society and other organizations she has led numerous field trips locally and around the state, including weekly trips in Marin during March, April, and May over the past 25 years, identifying spring wildflowers, making plant lists, and monitoring rare-listed species for public agencies. For 11 years, Wilma taught a fall community education class in plant identification at the College of Marin. Since 1979 she has enjoyed working with botanical artists to produce and has overseen the distribution of six different wildflower posters for the state organization of CNPS, for which work she has been honored as a Fellow of the society.

Wilma’s husband Bill, who has pursued photography as an avocation since a boy, devotes much energy to flower photography especially, and they travel together throughout the western states pursuing their joint interest. While Bill waits for the breeze to die down and jockeys for the right angle and "most sincere" arrangement, Wilma endlessly keys out and checks references to get the correct epithet on the subject at hand. The result is a collection of over 15,000 slides and great memories of interesting plants in beautiful locations.

The California chaparral is a distinctive plant community occupying the Mediterranean-climate zone of coastal California and the Sierra foothills. In this talk, David Ackerly will discuss the diversity of plant strategies for surviving the summer drought, and the role of drought and fire in shaping the evolution of the chaparral flora. In addition, he will share preliminary results of ongoing studies on the potential impact of climate change on endemic plants of California, with an emphasis on the chaparral and other coastal vegetation.

David Ackerly is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, and the Curator of Ecology for the UC and Jepson Herbaria, at the University of California Berkeley. A native of New England, he conducted his Ph.D. and post-doctoral research at Harvard University, including field work in Brazil, Mexico, New England, and Japan. Professor Ackerly and his research group study the ecology and evolution of plant traits - characteristics such as leaf size and thickness, flowering time, and seed size - that reflect the ecological diversity of terrestrial plants. Current projects in his lab are examining vernal pools of the Central Valley, evergreen shrubs in California and Australia, tropical forests in Ecuador, woody plants in the Sierra Nevada, and potential impacts of climate change on the endemic flora of the California Floristic Province. At Berkeley, Professor Ackerly teaches courses on Ecology, Plant Ecology, Biodiversity, and Plants of the UC Botanical Garden. He is married to documentary film maker Noel Schwerin, and they live in San Francisco with their twin seven-year- old boys.

In 2006 Reny Parker photographed 200 species of flowering plants that were new to her in our area-this after 17 years of photographing wildflowers. Come and enjoy a special slide presentation of the more unusual and difficult to find beauties. Reny will also show us her new photographic guide Wildflowers of Northern California's Wine Country & North Coast Ranges. This guide contains 358 species of wildflowers in 83 plant families, 272 pages, and 542 color photos. Included are bloom times, habitats, garden tips, native uses, natural history, plant family traits, and 33 wildflower hot spots with maps.

Reny has lived in rural northern California for 40 years, currently with her husband and two cats off the power grid in northern Sonoma County. She began photographing in 1964; for the past 17 years Reny has focused her lens on wildflowers. Her works have appeared in books, on cards and posters. See hundreds of Reny's photographs on her web site: Wildflowers - A Closer Look. She is past president of the Milo Baker Chapter (Sonoma County) of the California Native Plant Society. Camera in hand, Reny roams the western states and Canada in spring and summer indulging her passion to capture and communicate the delicate beauty of wildflowers.

Monday April 9, 2007

"Southeast Arizona - Flora and other Wildlife" Illustrated presentation by guest speaker Bob Stewart

When you visit southeastern Arizona at any time of the year, put aside your California expectations and biases. Here, a little over 1,000 miles away, a very different world awaits. The number one rumor to dispel is that this is a very hot, flat, deserty kind of place, therefore boring and tedious. Most people from California think of Phoenix or Yuma when they think of Arizona. But southeastern Arizona is full of high basins and mountains over 9,000 feet, and it borders Mexico. The diversity of flora and fauna is high.

Although there is a general overlap with the California flora, there are many different species and some different families to add spice to a botanical visit. The saguaro, Carnegiea gigantea, a rare plant in California, is strikingly abundant once you cross into Arizona. Many families that occur in California have different genera in Arizona: for instance, Graptopetalum in Crassulaceae; Crotalaria, Desmodium, Erythrina and Mimosa in Fabaceae; Jatropha and Cnidoscolus Euphorbiaceae; Hybanthus in Violaceae; Tetramerium and Anisacanthus in Acanthaceae; Bouvardia in Rubiaceae; and Macrosiphon in Apocynaceae, just to mention a few.

One special species in the Cochlospermaceae, Amoreuxia palmatifida, blooms in the summer and fall. Its yellow petals with two sets of stamens open only at night to be pollinated by moths. Of the approximately 11,500 species of moths in North America, over 3,000 occur in southeastern Arizona!

The most exciting time to be here is during the monsoon season (late June to September), because this is when the most rain falls. At that time the region is a paradise for botanists, birders, and entomologists.

Born in 1936 in New York City, Bob moved on to earn an AA Degree (1956 San Mateo College, CA), a BA Degree in Social Science and English (1960 San Jose State University, CA), a BA Degree in Biology (1962 S.F. State University, CA), and an MS Degree (1965 Oregon State University). He holds a Life Teaching Credential and taught Biology in California public schools from 1962 to 1969. From 1969 to 1979, Bob was Landbird Biologist and Director of Education at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, where he presented talks for 500 groups and published many scientific papers, including several on the Wilson's Warbler. From 1979 to 1982, Bob taught Biology at the College of Marin, and from 1982 to 1997 he held the position of Naturalist for the County of Marin, leading over 2,000 free public day outings featuring bird behavior, migration, song and nests, butterflies and other insects, spiders, grasses and other flowering plants, mushrooms, lichens, habitats, and general ecology. From 1973 to the present, Bob has also led numerous private birding and natural history tours to various locations in California (mostly Sierra Nevada), SE Arizona, Texas, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Trinidad & Tobago. He has published two books, Common Butterflies of California (1979 West Coast Lady Press; 10,000 sold), and Butterflies of Arizona, a Photographic Study (2001, with Priscilla and Hank Brodkin).

Monday March 12, 2007

"From Aristolochia to Zigadenus, the Transformation of a Marin Garden" Illustrated presentation by guest speaker Joan Pont

March, 1983 news alert: two new home owners move into their 1960 ranch style home. A botanical survey of the "garden" would take about two minutes to complete. Eucalyptus, Monterey pines, oleander and agapanthus, all plants that seem to thrive in highway median strips.

1984: all trees cleared and non native underbrush removed. Some residual stalwart plants reappear with the cheerful suncups (Camissonia ovata) leading the way. Joan joins the Marin Chapter of CNPS and gets inspired

Fast forward to 2006: 163 species of native plants in the garden. Learn all about it at the March meeting, intentionally scheduled before the plant sale!

Joan Pont grew up in Palos Verdes, California. The peninsula still has sizable open space and residual outcroppings of native plants that Joan can now recognize but could not then. She attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School in Boston. A return trip to California brought her back to Stanford and UCSF for Internal Medicine Residency. She is an Internist and Assistant Chief of Medicine at Kaiser in San Rafael, and married to another physician, Allan Pont. They have one son, Sean, a senior at Cornell University. Gardening was taken up as a serious hobby when she and Allan moved into Mill Valley in March of 1983, a wet year. In the intervening 24 years, there has been plenty of opportunity to hone gardening skills. Inspired by reading that Thomas Jefferson recorded all his gardening experiments, a high tech log of the garden was developed with the computer savvy of son Sean.

Monday February 12, 2007

"A Peek At Wildflowers on the peaks and slopes of Mt Tamalpais and Mt Diablo..."
Illustrated presentation by guest speakers Ken Lavin and Mia Monroe

An intimate look at some of our favorite flowers with stories about their uses, names and discovery. Learning about the plants is often a good lead into the area's history and past lore or a chance to discover a bit of geology, too! Good trails to discover seasonal wildflower displays, special floral features and good views will be highlited.

Rangers Ken Lavin and Mia Monroe will combine their years of hiking and botanizing the area's two distinctive peaks, sharing the stories the public has most enjoyed and giving you some behind the scenes news on park activities. Mia has been at Muir Woods for a quarter of a century and has found her niche among the non-flowering plants from tall to small. Ken also rangers among the tall trees but has also been President of the Mt Diablo Interpretive Association (he knows the names of each tarantula on that mountain!).

Although California leads the US in its proactive approach to climate issues, most natural resource professionals in California do not explicitly address climate change in their work protecting species and habitats. Environmental changes likely to occur in this century necessitate, however, that management and conservation planning efforts incorporate an awareness of the high-probability climate impacts affecting wildlife. In recent work sponsored by the California Energy Commission and the California EPA, researchers developed a set of possible climate "scenarios" for California and used these to assess statewide impacts. Although it is impossible to predict site-specific effects, regional models suggest a relatively narrow range of probabilities for such factors as temperature increase, sea level rise, loss of snowpack, and increased fire risk. California's plant and animal species will respond in different ways to these changes. Research is ongoing towards understanding how species' ranges and demographic patterns will shift, and how critical ecological relationships will be affected. The multitude of potential changes in ecological relationships suggests that management "rules of thumb" developed in past climates may quickly become obsolete, and that managers must be prepared for surprises. Although there are many uncertainties, we have enough information to act. Landscape-level planning that allows species to move and adapt to climate change is above all important.

Brian Ellis works for the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program of the California Energy Commission. He is a research contract manager in the PIER Environmental Area concentrating on projects studying the ecological impacts of climate change and carbon sequestration. He received a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in Nature and Culture from the University of California at Davis.

We are exposed to a variety of landscapes, including our residence, place of work, and the places we frequent, such as walkways, parking lots, and freeways. So many of these planted areas require large amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and often quite a bit of effort. In areas of low summer rainfall where water can be scarce, or where other natural resources and wildlife are at risk, this type of landscaping does not seem wise or sustainable.

How can we use our California native plants to conserve resources and contribute to a healthy ecosystem while creating beautiful landscapes?

We are happy to welcome Peigi Duvall, Horticulture Program Director for CNPS, landscape designer, and Santa Clara Valley Chapter member, who will share insights and experiences about the good use of native plants in the landscape. The CNPS Horticulture Program works to bring more awareness to the public about our wonderful California flora.

Peigi Duvall grew up in Monterey, CA, and has been playing in California’s natural beauty ever since. She is certified in Landscape and Ornamental Horticulture and professionally designs native gardens throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

Sandhill Sage (Artemisia pycnocephala)
Monterey Manzanita (Arctostaphylos hookeri ‘Ken Taylor’)
and Yerba Buena (Satureja douglasii)
photo by Peigi Duvall

Monday October 9, 2006

"San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge and the Marin Islands"
Illustrated presentation
by
guest speaker Giselle Block

San Pablo Bay contains some of the largest contiguous tracts of tidal marsh and open space in the San Francisco Estuary. The environments of San Pablo Bay provide habitat for a diversity of wildlife and plants including many that occur nowhere else in California. The San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge (SPBNWR) lies along the northern border of San Pablo Bay and comprises 13,000 acres of tidal marsh, tidal mudflats, seasonal freshwater marsh, and sub-tidal environments. The focus of management efforts at SPBNWR is restoration and enhancement of tidal environments for the benefit of estuarine dependent species.

Giselle Block is a Biologist with the SPBNRW and Marin Islands NWR. Her talk will cover topics ranging from the National Wildlife Refuge System, endangered species of the refuge, common wildlife and plant species of the refuge, and current efforts to restore native plant assemblages of SPBNWR and Marin Islands NWR.

Sonoma Creek photo by James Martin

Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) are certainly among the most interesting challenges introduced to California. Though native to other parts of North America, Wild Turkeys never successfully colonized California, and so the recent introduction and expansion of turkeys in California creates tantalizing questions and research opportunities. In November 2002, I initiated the first experimental assessment of turkey impacts in California. This exclusion experiment evaluates the effect of turkeys on grounddwelling invertebrate populations, acorn removal, and vegetation structure and composition. This presentation will give an overview of the history and biology of California’s introduced turkeys, describe research underway at Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Bouverie Preserve, and include presentation of preliminary results that improve our understanding of introduced turkey ecology.

Daniel Gluesenkamp, Ph.D directs Habitat Protection and Restoration for Audubon Canyon Ranch and leads in the development, implementation, and evaluation of conservation and restoration projects at ACR preserves. His work involves experimental evaluation of management techniques, oversight of stewardship activities such as control of invasive alien species, and collaboration with neighboring land owners and agencies to protect ACR lands. Daniel's research focuses on the factors structuring plant communities, particularly as related to the invasion and spread of introduced species, with work in habitats ranging from desert riparian zones to subalpine Sierran meadows. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley with research that revealed how populations of native and alien thistles are shaped by plant competition, by insect herbivory, and by effects of habitat productivity on the relative intensity of competition versus herbivory.

Monday May 8, 2006 "The Inyo-White Mountains and Sweetwater Range" Illustrated presentation by guest speaker Ted Kipping

The Inyo-White Mountains, though reaching 14,000 ft., are very dry due to the "rain shadow" effect of the equally high Sierra Nevada range just to the west. The result to most observers would seem a near moonscape were it not for the surprising ridgetop appearance of the remarkable bristlecone pines. Thanks to decent roads, thousands of people have had the privilege of walking on the upper reaches of this range.

The Sweetwater Range, just north of the Inyo-Whites, although only 11,000 ft. in elevation, is even drier, more remote, more picturesque, and is so sparsely vegetated on top as to make the Inyo-Whites seem lush in comparison. Nonetheless, it is a place of austere beauty, of bare mineral soils in an artistic array of pastels, with choice alpine plants appearing all the more rewarding for their scarcity. Alas, without a helicopter, few of you will ever stand on its summit, as access is horrendous. The easiest way to enjoy this remote but compelling place is to come to our meeting and view it in comfort!

Ted Kipping studied Natural History at Columbia University, New York, and has been involved with horticulture for thirty-five years. After completing his studies, Ted wanted to apply his knowledge, and went to work at Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. There he worked with a broad range of trees and other plants. Ted's interest grew more and more towards trees and shrubs, and in 1976 he started his own tree-trimming enterprise, dubbing himself "Tree Shaper". Ted continues to operate his Tree Shaper business out of San Francisco, and, as skilled with the camera as with the secateur, he is a sought-after consultant and popular speaker. A life member of CNPS and numerous horticultural societies, Ted has a love of plants that extends from the tallest trees to the smallest jewels of the plant kingdom, and he pursues this passion from his own private rock garden to the far corners of the globe.

Monday April 10, 2006 "Vernal Pools: California’s Unique Seasonal Wetlands" Illustrated presentation by guest speaker Denise Cadman

Vernal pools form as a result of our Mediterranean climate; areas of impermeable soils and depressions in the landscape fill with winter rainfall. This special seasonal habitat has led to the evolution of many endemic species, plants and animals, found no place else in the world. Join our speaker for a tour of vernal pools and learn how and where they form, with an emphasis on the pools and flora of the Santa Rosa Plain.

Denise Cadman, a native of Santa Rosa, holds an M.A. in biology with an emphasis in plant ecology. She currently works for the City of Santa Rosa as a Natural Resource Specialist in the Utilities Department. The core of her job involves managing the natural resources on city owned properties in the Laguna de Santa Rosa that are irrigated in their recycled water program. Denise also teaches part time at Santa Rosa Junior College in the Life Sciences Department. In addition, she and her family run a small, draft horse powered farm, growing chemical-free fruits and vegetables for the local farmer’s markets.

"My Favorite Wildflowers of Mount Diablo" Illustrated presentation by guest speaker Yulan Chang Tong

Yulan Chang Tong was born in China. Educated in Taiwan in the field of chemical engineering, Yulan travelled to the U.S. to continue her studies and received a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Illinois in 1961. Publications include 21 U.S. patents, 20 other publications, and many presentations in the field. After retiring from chemistry, Yulan began a second career as a nature photographer. Exploring extensively in California, she has enjoyed its variations of desert, coastal region, foothill, and montane habitats. Her nature studies and photography have taken her to Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming, South Africa, Mexico, and many other destinations around the world. Yulan is a docent at Mt. Diablo State Park and works in the school program. She resides in Walnut Creek.

His photos have been published in various books and magazines on orchids, carnivorous plants, and California’s Wild Gardens. He recently co-authored a book on the Central and South American orchid genus Masdevallia (Timber Press), and is currently working on a book about Calochortus.

Richard received his Ph.D. in Botany from Ohio State University in 1988 following an M.S. Botany from the University of Alberta in 1981 and a B.A. Botany from Rutgers in 1978. He has spent the past 18 years primarily teaching undergraduates in all aspects of plant biology, with an emphasis on systematics, evolution, and genetics. Richard has taught at Sonoma State University, and served as Curator of its North Coast Herbarium of California, since 1999.

Tom received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1980, following an undergraduate degree from Duke. He was Curator at the Arizona State University from 1981 to 1985. Tom has been Assistant Curator, Associate Curator, Chairman, and is presently Curator of the Department of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences. His research for the past 20 years has centered on members of the family Acanthaceae (shrimp plants and their relatives), native and naturalized, occurring in Mexico. Tom’s other research interests involve floristic studies in western North America, and current projects include a revised flora of San Francisco and floristic catalogs of certain mountain ranges in Arizona and the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Jack will present an illustrated lecture about the natural history of the Sierra Nevada, and the process of creating a field guide. He will also bring original illustrations that have been painted in the field and studio. Jack has studied the natural history of the Sierra for many years. He is trained as a wildlife biologist and is an associate of the California Academy of Sciences. He has spent the last four summers painting Sierra wildflowers from life. During the 2005 wildflower season alone, Jack spent more than 70 days in the field working on illustrations for this book. His illustrations capture the feeling of the living plant or animal, while also including details critical for identification.

In the summer of 2004, Laws published Sierra Birds: a Hiker’s Guide. He is also a regular contributor to Bay Nature magazine with his "Naturalist’s Notebook" column.

Monday, June 13, 2005

"Battling Weeds with Foreign Bugs: A Good Idea for Cape Ivy?
The Benefits and Risks of Classical Biological Control of Weeds"
Illustrated presentation
by
Jake Sigg and Joe Balciunas

Many people are aware of invasive plants but are unfamiliar with how deep and broad the problem is and how severely these organisms threaten native biological communities and human welfare. Technologies for dealing with the problem are few, expensive, controversial, and often not very effective. The control of problem plants by biological means sometimes offers the only hope of coping with a desperate problem.

Although the rat-and mongoose and cane grub-and-cane toad failures are frequently cited as "biological control mistakes", these biologically-based experiments were never part of classical biological control, which attempts to manage foreign invaders by releasing carefully-selected and tested natural enemies from the pest's native land. Classical biological control, as practiced now, is far more sophisticated, but it still presents unique risks. This presentation goes into the inner workings of the science, using as example the effort of great interest to coastal California, the Cape ivy biocontrol program of the USDA Agricultural Research Service. Jake Sigg and USDA Agricultural Research Service scientist Joe Balciunas will talk about the history of the problem and the program.

Jake Sigg was Invasive Exotics Chair for the California Native Plant Society for 15 years. One of the many tasks he undertook was to raise money to fund some of the overseas research for the Cape ivy control program. He is retired from 32 years as gardener and gardener supervisor for the San Francisco Recreation-Park Department, and now serves CNPS full-time as a volunteer at state and chapter level.

Dr. Joe Balciunas is a research entomologist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Albany, CA. In 1998, he initiated and currently leads the USDA-ARS research project to develop biological control agents for Cape ivy. This includes overseeing the research in South Africa by USDA-ARS cooperators located in Pretoria. Prior to coming to Albany in 1996, he founded, and for 11 years, was the Director of USDA's Australian Biological Control Laboratory, where he led the team that discovered and developed the successful biological control agents for melaleuca trees in Florida. With more than 30 years of training and experience in classical biological control of weeds, Joe now frequently serves as spokesman for this tool.

Dr. Katherine Schick works as a curator at the Essig Museum of Entomology and the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a doctorate in Entomology from the University of California at Davis and her specialty is systematics (evolutionary relationships) among Cynipoidea (the superfamily which includes gall-inducing cynipid wasps). Kathy has also taught biology part-time at San Joaquin Delta College for the past several years.

Monday, April 11, 2005 "Highlights of Carson Pass, Sierra Nevada" Illustrated presentation by Ted Kipping

Monday, March 14, 2005

"The Cedars - Sonoma County’s Spectacular Serpentine Canyonlands"
Illustrated presentation
by
Roger Raiche

Roger Raiche grew up in Newport, Rhode Island and moved to California in the late 1970's. Until recently, he co-owned the Bernard Maybeck Cottage in Berkeley with his partner David McCrory. For many years, Roger oversaw the California Natives section at the U.C. Botanical Gardens in Berkeley. With over 25 years as a field botanist and garden designer in California, Planet Horticulture co-founder Roger Raiche, is known for both his encyclopedic knowledge of California plants and his rarified garden designs. Synthesizing international travel, formal horticultural training, and many year of practical experience creating gardens, Planet Horticulture co-founder David McCrory has established a distinctive sensibility for landscape projects, large and small. As a design team, Raiche and McCrory work with clients from project conception through the installation process, tying all the details together. Working in the diverse micro-climates and gardens of the Bay Area, Raiche and McCrory see each garden as a living creative environment that will evolve over time with the passing of each season. Raiche and McCrory are the proprietors of Gold Leaf Vineyards in Sebastopol, a wine country estate which features two vacation rental homes, each with unique Planet Horticulture gardens. Raiche and McCrory are also the owner-stewards of The Cedars, a unique ultra-mafic canyon system in northwest Sonoma County. Working with artists and scientists to understand and relate to the land they are preserving, The Cedars is their most cherished project.

The Sonoma coast has an abundance of beautiful park lands and miles of pristine hiking trails. Most of the trails see little foot traffic, even on the weekends. This talk will describe two particularly lovely walks. The first is from Shell Beach to the Pomo campground which begins in coastal grasslands, meanders through riparian habitat and ends up in the majestic redwoods. The second walk is located in Salt Point State Park. It begins just above sea level, travels through Bishop Pine/Grand Fir/Redwood forest, then to an area of pigmy forest dominated by pigmy cypress and dwarfed redwoods, ending up in a large, open meadow that is resplendent with wildflowers in the Spring. This presentation will be accompanied by photographs highlighting the special features and diverse flora of the region.

Walter Earle, along with Margaret Graham, founded Mostly Natives Nursery, located in the town of Tomales, in 1984. The nursery offers a wide selection of native plants, many of which are grown from locally collected seed. Walter has been a dedicated member of CNPS for many years and was a past president of the Milo Baker Chapter. His knowledge of plants and his skill at photographing them in their native habitat are both renowned.

Shelly was born and raised in western Washington and considers herself a naturalist, botanist, and lichenologist. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Western Washington University, and was introduced to the world of lichens while working on a forest ecology research project with the University of Washington. This led to a job identifying canopy epiphytes at the Wind River Canopy Crane Research Facility in south central Washington. Inspired by the adventurous field of canopy ecology, she entered graduate school to further explore the ecological role of lichens in the forest canopy and learn how to climb trees. Shelly earned a Master of Science degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies from the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George BC, Canada. After graduate school she worked for 3 years at Point Reyes National Seashore as the rare plant specialist and is currently employed by Sonoma State University to study the plant pathogen that causes sudden oak death.

Lichens are visible and abundant in many California ecosystems. There are approximately 1,000 species of lichens in California, found in nearly every possible habitat from alpine peaks to desert soils and city sidewalks to rural fence posts. In addition to their beautiful colors and ingenious architecture, lichens are important contributors to ecosystem function. Lichens provide food and shelter for a variety of animals, aid in nutrient cycling, help to maintain forest humidity, and stabilize soil. Lichens are well known for their sensitivity to air pollution and can be used to assess air quality. Lichens also have economic value. They are used in perfumes, dying fabrics, and pharmaceutical uses such as antibiotic salves, deodorants, and herbal tinctures.

Join us for an entertaining and informative presentation by a leading researcher in the field on one of the most important and distinctive plant habitats in California. Dr. Hugh Safford, a geologist-ecologist, jointly Research Associate at UC Davis and Regional Ecologist for the US Forest Service, will present a program on plant species diversity in California serpentine-regional patterns and possible causative factors. This will be a summary of the statewide and regional patterns of species diversity on serpentine, a look a the history of serpentine (geology, soils, vegetation), a discussion of disturbance effects (grazing, burning) on serpentine vegetation, how these differ from "normal" vegetation, and a more detailed look at the Sierra Nevada.

Pamela C. Muick is the Executive Director of California Native Plant Society. The mission of California Native Plant Society (CNPS) is to increase understanding and appreciation of California's native plants and to conserve them and their natural habitats through education, science, advocacy, horticulture and land stewardship.

CNPS is a thirty-eight old, non-profit, science based conservation organization. A 32 member Chapter Council guides policy direction and twelve-member board governs CNPS. CNPS has approximately 10,000 members organized into 32 chapters located throughout California. The annual budget is about $1,000,000 and a staff of eight handles day-to-day operations.

Prior to CNPS, Pam served as the Executive Director of Solano Land Trust for six years where she was responsible for raising more than $7 million dollars and protecting over 4,000 acres of farmland and 4,000 acres of open space, including King Ranch, Jepson Prairie and Lynch Canyon. Pam developed the first comprehensive countywide plan for farmland protection in Solano County. Also, she was part of a coalition that developed an open space vision for Solano County.

Prior to the land trust, Pam was actively engaged in land management, particularly of California's oak habitats, for over twenty years. She designed and implemented habitat restoration projects in San Joaquin, as well as in Sonoma and Monterey counties. On these and other projects she has collaborated with a broad spectrum of public and private entities.

Based on her years of experience in oak habitats Pam originated the idea for the book Oaks of California which she co-authored. She was an editor of The Ecological City: preserving and restoring urban biodiversity, and has written numerous articles. Pam has taught at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley and UC Extension.

From 1992 to 1994, Pam worked with the US Agency for International Development in Washington D.C on biodiversity issues in Asia as an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow. This prestigious fellowship included travel assignments in Nepal, Pakistan and Thailand.

Pam received masters and doctoral degrees from UC Berkeley, in Forestry and Wild land Resource Policy & Management, based on research on oak regeneration and restoration. She earned an undergraduate biology degree from Sonoma State and an associate degree from Santa Barbara City College.

Mono Basin is the watershed area for Mono Lake, an ancient salt lake best known for its tufa towers, brine shrimp and for the several million migratory birds that use it as a filling station as they travel along the Pacific Flyway. The Mono Basin is also home to a dazzling array of wildflowers ­ tiny pink mimulus that cover the pumice flats around Mono Lake; deep blue larkspurs, golden yellow buckwheats, and crinkly-petalled prickly poppy in the sagebrush; red columbine and purple monkshood along the streams; tiny white violets, rosy elephant’s heads and purple asters in the montane meadows near the summit of Tioga Pass. Ann will describe the variety of wildflowers she has encountered in her many years of botanizing in the Mono Basin. Ann is the Senior Botanist for Garcia and Associates in San Anselmo, and CNPS’s new Rare Plant Program Director.

This slide-illustrated talk examines the nature of the problem of invasive plants and its dynamic, our personal relation to it, and why it is important to us. The phrase "the threat to the world's indigenous biological communities posed by invasive nonnative plants is exceeded only by the threat from development" is so frequently quoted that it has become gospel. Jake is of the opinion that invasive weeds now destroy more habitat than does development.

Who needs another crisis to become exercised about? While the subject is a serious one, Jake is in the battle for the long term and that requires taking a light-hearted approach. These are exciting times; the problem, although frightening, is vulnerable to human ingenuity. Jake hopes that heightened awareness will lead to addressing a problem that an increasingly urban world ignores, unaware of how it affects them.

Jake Sigg is chair of the CNPS Invasive Exotics Committee and conservation chair and past president of the CNPS Yerba Buena Chapter. He is retired from 32 years with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department; as gardener in Golden Gate Park and as gardener supervisor in Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, where he was de facto curator of collections. He now works six days a week trying to save our natural heritage from the threat of aggressive weeds. That work includes writing; his latest includes an article in the April 2003 Fremontia titled Consider the Weeds of the Field-- My, How They Grow!, and, in the October 2003 issue, Triple Threat from South Africa, about Cape ivy, yellow oxalis, and the sneaky grass ehrharta.

Spring has sprung, and now wildflowers all over Marin and the rest of California appear to be smiling at us or trying in some other way to attract our attention. But are they really? Of course, the answer is, “Not exactly….” It has been known for some time that the attractive efforts of flowers are directed primarily at insects and other animals that pollinate them.

However, the exact details of these plant-animal relationships are still imperfectly known. Which pollinators are most significant for which plants, how effective the pollination process is, and how it varies over time and space are all important questions whose answers could tell us much about the future viability of populations of plants and there pollinators.

Four years ago, a group of faculty and students from College of Marin began to investigate the pollination ecology of dune plants at Abbott’s Lagoon in the Point Reyes National Seashore. This month’s speaker is Paul da Silva, who will discuss past, present and future aspects of this work. This will provide an opportunity for members to become reacquainted with some familiar local plants and to learn about some lesser-known aspects of their existence.

Paul is a professor at the College, where he teaches in the biology, natural history and environmental science programs. He received his M.S. in resource management from U.C. Berkeley, where he studied interactions among grasses and shrubs in coastal ecosystems. Later he earned his Ph.D. in entomology, also from U.C. Berkeley, for work involving interactions among plants their herbivores and their natural enemies. Since then, he has continued to pursue interests in interactions among plant and insect members of ecological communities.

Have you ever tried to propagate native plants yourself? Seems like it should be easy, after all they grow here naturally. What’s the big deal? We’ll talk about the special world of wildland seed collection and growing for habitat restoration for the National Park in your backyard. How we maintain genetic diversity, assure the survival and continued evolution of the native habitats of Marin; how we make those sometimes stubborn native seeds sprout and the precautions we take during the growing process will be discussed? Bring your questions about plants you have tried to grow without success. We make time for propagation and native plant growing questions.

Betty Young has been propagating and managing nurseries since graduating from UC Davis 20 years ago. 15 of those years have been in nurseries growing native plants for habitat restoration. Betty is now Director of the 5 Nurseries supported by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy for the GGNRA.

Native Plant Journal and Native Plants Network website contains general and specific native plant propagation information, with some contributions from Betty Young.

Native Plant Nursery System Contact Information:
Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy website
Betty Young, 415-331-6917
Muir Woods Nursery 415-383-4390
Tennessee Valley Nursery, 415-331-0732
Marin Headlands Nursery, 415-332-5193
Fort Funston Nursery, 415-239-4247
Presidio Nursery, 415-561-4826

Although The Jepson Manual was published only 10 years ago, it is out-of-date as a result of the phenomenal progress in plant systematics. Some significant taxonomic changes have already been made and others are on the horizon; it is estimated that 57% of the families in the 1993 edition of The Jepson Manual will require substantial revision.

The Jepson Herbarium has initiated a five-year project (2003-2008) to produce a scientifically revised Jepson Manual. The Second Edition will provide revised treatments for all taxa in the 1993 edition of The Jepson Manual and include new treatments for taxa that have been added to the flora of the state since 1993 (either as new to science or as newly reported for California).

This month's lecture will include a discussion of the effort to produce a Second Edition and a variety of companion materials including electronic keys and improved distribution maps with geo-referenced localities. Additionally, some of the recent taxonomic changes in major California plants groups will be reviewed.

Staci Markos is Project Manager and Development Coordinator for the Jepson Herbarium. She completed her undergraduate work at UC Davis and graduate work at San Francisco State (M.A., systematics of the Arctostaphylos hookeri complex) and UC Berkeley (Ph.D., evolutionary patterns in Lessingia).

California is among the world's best and most diverse places for conifers. Among the superlatives, we have the world's bulkiest tree (giant sequoia), the world's tallest tree (coast redwood), and the world's oldest tree (bristlecone pine). The talk will survey some of the most outstanding of our 50+ species, including areas rich in species, such as the Russian Peak Wilderness area in the Klamath Mountains, where 17 species occur within one square mile!

Glenn Keator is a free lance botanist, writer, and teacher in the Bay Area. He teaches at Merritt College, Regional Parks Botanic Garden, California Academy of Sciences, and Strybing Arboretum. His specialty is growing California native plants. His two latest books are Life of an Oak with Heyday Books and Introduction to Trees of the San Francisco Bay Region with UC Press.

Kathy and Dave Biggs planted their pond with mostly native plants instead of tropicals, and it has attracted 24 species of dragonflies, 54 species of birds, 2 dozen species of butterflies and several species of mammals. A visual slide tour of the pond and its plantings, and also slides of many of the critters who have visited will be given. They will discuss the pond's layout and native plant life.

Monday, October 13, 2003 Treasure Hunt for Salvias New Species of Salvias for the Garden presentation by Betsy Clebsch

"Betsy Clebsch is a noted amateur botanist and horticulturist La Honda, Northern California, having made and tended gardens in Virginia, Texas, and California. She became intrigued with salvias when she began her second California garden, a country retreat left unattended for several weeks between visits. That required sturdy, drought tolerant plants like many of the salvias. "Writing about the culture of salvias would not have been possible has I not has a large garden in which to grow, observe, and enjoy the plants...and nursery people and botanists who visited the garden gave invaluable information as to a plant’s source and who has grown it." Clebsch has participated in many plant explorations and exchanges seed and rare plants, particularly salvias, with many botanical gardens."
- taken from "A Book of Salvias" by Betsy Clebsch, which has been revised and republished this year by Timber press as a new book of slavias-sages for every garden’.

Ever wish to travel back in time to witness a favorite landscape before it suffered the ravages of industrialization? In the absence of time travel, historic photographs provide a window on the past that helps us understand the dips and swells of the contemporary city. The advent of photography coincided with the rise of San Francisco as a wealthy urban center, so it's no surprise that its photogenic environs were well-documented by dozens of excellent photographers during the second half of the 19th century. Thanks to gracious support from local archives and collectors, Pete Holloran will use dozens of photographs of old San Francisco to illustrate his slide show on the evolution of its dune landscapes. Nearly a third of San Francisco--including most of the Richmond and Sunset Districts as well as Golden Gate Park, Hayes Valley, and downtown--were covered by extensive sand dunes. It wasn't all just open sand either. A rich mosaic of oak woodlands, tightly woven dune scrub, and interdune slacks and ponds were scattered across the landscape. Now mostly gone, the dunes of San Francisco persist in remnant oak woodlands in neighborhood parks, patches of dune scrub at the Presidio and Fort Funston, and sandy backyards throughout the city. And at Crissy Field, of course, one of several dune restoration projects that Pete has been involved with over the last eight years. In addition to his work with the National Park Service and other land managers, he served for four years as president of the Yerba Buena chapter of the California Native Plant Society. His articles on the history of dune landscapes have appeared in Bay Nature and Reclaiming San Francisco (1998, City Lights Books). He is now working toward his Ph.D. in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz.
-Photo from the Greg Gaar Collection; probably taken by William Worden in 1910 in the Sunset District.

Presenting "Cliffhangers at Point Reyes National Seashore," the story of dune restoration and iceplant removal to protect threatened and endangered species at the seashore.

Bigraphical Data: Jane Rodgers
Vegetation Program Manager at Point Reyes NS since March 2003.
Vegetation Manager at Joshua Tree National Park Jan. 1994- Feb. 2003.
Environmental Volunteer US Peace Corps Republic of Niger Nov 1990-Feb 1993.
Graduated with BS Forestry UC Berkeley 1990.

Recent advances in molecular biology have produced a deeper understanding of the relationships among living organisms. What once was considered to be a simple division between animals and plants (a two kingdom system) has become a multiplication of many more kingdoms of life. Evolutionary biologists have divided the bacterial level of life (a single kingdom when many of us were in school) into two great groups each comprised of many kingdoms. The evolutionary line encompassing organisms with nucleated cells has been expanded from a 3-kingdom system of animals, plants, and fungi to include at least one additional kingdom of one-celled organisms (and their close multicellular cousins) called Protista. And now many scientists view the kingdom Protista as too much of a grab bag and consider its members to be a number of separate kingdoms as well.

Fossil and other geologic evidence can be used to create a time line for the events that ultimately resulted in life as we know it today. Among the many fascinating stories elucidated through the fossil record are the origin of photosynthesis, the establishment of the earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere, the organization of the nucleated cell, and the foundation of the kingdoms of life.

Alan Kaplan, naturalist for the East Bay Regional Park District, will present a fascinating slide-illustrated introduction to the latest theories on the origin and organization of life and the evidence supporting them.

Alan has had a keen interest in one-celled life forms since he got his first microscope. He studied bacteriology in high school and microbiology in college, and taught a laboratory section on microbiology at UC Berkeley. His programs through the Tilden Environmental Education Center are always popular, and his interests and knowledge span vast areas of the natural world.

A professional photographer for many years, Charlie combined this skill with an interest in local history for his book San Francisco Bay Area Landmarks: Reflections of Four Centuries. During the past ten years he has taken workshops and received hands-on training in habitat restoration through the Golden Gate National Park Association and other organizations, while he also developed a fascination for local botany and botanical photography. Since 1988 he has been attending classes in traditional California Indian skills through MAPOM and other groups, and is self-taught in other basketry techniques. He is on the board of Friends of Corte Madera Creek Watershed, being active in the areas of public education and habitat restoration.

Mary Schindler is a recent graduate from U.C. Berkeley who became involved in Dr. Gordon Frankie's bee research 3 years ago. Since she began this research, she has had the opportunity to watch thousands of bees in action as they interact with flowers (natives and exotics) in the urban and natural environment. The aspect of her research she most enjoys is fieldwork, which involves wandering around in nature reserves and beautiful residential gardens, observing gorgeous flowers, and counting bees at work.

In the upcoming presentation, Mary Schindler will report on the most recent bee research project headed by Dr. Frankie. The first of its kind, this project aims to provide new information on the diversity of bees identified in the urban residential areas of Berkeley and Albany, California, and to document the unique relationships between urban bees and flowers.

Both of these isolated mountains are very interesting botanically. Many plants are at their natural limits of their range. Ken Himes, who has lead several overnight trips to both mountains for the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of CNPS, will give an illustrated slide show of both the common and unexpected plants of each region. Ken has held several positions during his 17 plus years with the Santa Clara Valley Chapter and currently is the chapter representative with the volunteer program to control the spread of invasive exotics st Edgewood County Park & Preserve on the San Francisco Peninsula. He is also employed with the city of Belmont in the Parks & Recreation Department.

Calflora has assembled and integrated a rich collection of photographs and plant information from many sources and provides it for free on the web site www.calflora.org. With more than 28,000 plant photos (representing over half of all California species), reports for over 8,000 kinds of California plants, more than 15,000 synonyms that simplify searching, and over 850,000 plant observations, Calflora has become an essential resource for many, and a vital outreach tool for teaching about California plants. Over 200,000 people visited the website in May of 2002 alone. Partnered with CNPS, state and federal agencies, professional botanists, and hundreds of private contributors, Calflora is developing innovative strategies to expand and refine the available collection of plant information, and to create more learning opportunities for the public. Come learn about what information Calflora has for you, how you can participate, and what improvements are in our near future.

Tony Morosco is Technical Manager for Calflora and has been intimately involved with establishing the nonprofit organization since 1997. Tony's botanical background centers on floristics and information about plants on computers, and California plant conservation. Tony is current President of the East Bay Chapter of CNPS, former Council Member of the California Botanical Society. Tony has worked on the revision to Howell's Marin Flora while an intern at the California Academy of Sciences, and various projects at the Jepson Herbarium.

California's rich diversity of habitats supports an equally diverse array of native plant species. Many native plants are focal points around which numerous vertebrate and invertebrate species spend a portion or all of their lives. Of spectacular note is the incredible display of plant galls or tumor-like swellings induced largely by specific insects. These strange growths appear mostly on the leaves, buds, stems, and flowers of native plant hosts. Of special interest is the number of species that appear on oaks, willows, sage, and wild roses. Tiny wasps, flies, moths, mites, and various fungi and viruses are the pinciple agents involved in gall formation. Join us for a lively and entertaining journey into one of nature's least known realms...plant galls and gall inducers.

Ron is the Chief Naturalist for the East Bay Regional Park District where he has worked for 36 years. Ron has published over 30 papers and articles in journals and magazines, in addition to six field guides including Plant Galls of the California Region, Pacific Coast Fish, Pacific Coast Mammals, Pacific Intertidal Life, Mountain State Mammals, and Hawaiian Reefs. He has been an instructor for the California Academy of Sciences, University of California Berkeley Extension, and the California State Park Training Academy. In addition, Ron has conducted training seminars throughout the United States for several state park, county, and federal park and land management agencies. Currently, Ron guides trips twice a year into Southeast Alaska to observe whales and other wildlife. Ron's specialties include nudibranchs, sharks, mushrooms, galls, mammals, and humpback whales. In 1989, he received the distinguished FELLOW award from the National Association for Interpretation.

We will take an up-close look at many of Marin County's wildflowers as we enjoy our Autumnal revival of Spring. We will hear interpretive tidbits about the flowers, including Miwok uses of native plants, mythology, and ecological niche.

Diana Roberts is a writer and member of the Marin County chapter of CNPS. She has worked as an interpretive ranger at Point Reyes National Seashore and at Golden Gate National Recreation Area's Marin Headlands, where she created a 100+ image visual interpretive guide to the wildflowers of the Marin Headlands. Learning to look closely at wildflowers to see their hidden beauty has taught her to see everything - not just wildflowers - more clearly. She wants to help the uninitiated (potential new members of CNPS?) have a similar experience.

Stephen Lowens, long-time member and past newsletter editor of the Marin CNPS, avid wildflower watcher and amateur photographer, will give the presentation. The show will feature virtually all known species of the genus calochortus that grow in the United States. A brief history of the taxonomy will be presented, as well as general descriptions and maps of where the species grow. This will be an evening for feasting on the beauty of the flowers - technical details will be kept to an absolute minimum.

Emily will speak on the soils of California. She will describe how soils are formed and key components and processes that occur within them. She will also discuss how conservation of soil health relates to CNPS native plant conservation work. Finally, Emily will present examples of CNPS conservation projects in areas where threats to the integrity of soil processes is a key component of the imperilment of native plant communities.

Emily Brin Roberson is Senior Land Management Analyst for CNPS and Project Director for the Native Plant Conservation Campaign. She holds a bachelors degree magna cum laude in plant ecology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in soil microbial ecology from UC Berkeley. She worked as a researcher in the plant and soil sciences in the U.S. and France for 10 years before joining CNPS in 1993. Her work focuses on native plant conservation advocacy with the federal and state land management agencies.

You key a plant in The Jepson Manual, you write on a lovely note card, you read Fremontia: how are the images and text created, and what does "publication" really involve? Linda Ann Vorobik, botanist, illustrator, and Fremontia Editor, describes the process of her work, from pencil to CD-ROM burner, with examples from her latest projects. By using examples from the new Jepson Desert Regional Manual, she describes how the final 110 electronic illustration plates were assembled from scans of the original Jepson Manual illustration plates and new drawings. With her botanical watercolors (several framed paintings will be displayed), she shows how such plant portraits are created. Finally, Dr. Vorobik overviews how your CNPS Journal Fremontia is assembled, and solicits your input for Fremontia.

Dr. Vorobik has been a part of large botanical projects for several years (The Jepson Manual as Principal Illustrator, The Flora of Santa Cruz Island as Principal Illustrator and Page Designer, the Flora of Yosemite National Park as Technical Editor, etc.) and is now Illustrations Editor for the two Flora North America grass volumes as well as Fremontia Editor. She resides in Berkeley where she is a Visiting Scholar at UC, and in Washington state where she is a Visiting Scholar at UW, Seattle, but lives on Lopez Island.

Linda will have notecards, prints, and original artwork for sale; 30% of proceeds will be donated to the CNPS Marin Chapter.

Linda will be offering two illustration workshops through Friends of the Jepson Herbarium:
March 9-10: Basics of Botanical Illustration, UC Berkeley Campus and Botanical Garden
April 18-21: Desert Wildflowers: Sketching With Watercolors, Granite Mountain Research Station
For more information call the Jepson Herbarium at 510-643-7008 or visit the UC/JEPS web page.

Come explore the world of edible and medicine plants that is in our own gardens and open spaces. Through slides and fresh specimens, we will discover the many native plants of the Bay Area that can and have been used as food and medicine by humans for hundreds of years. These riches include familiar plants such as manzanita, oaks, willow, California bay and California Poppy plus some not so familiar plants including hedge nettle (Stachys spp.), silk tassel (Garrya spp.), figwort (Scrophularia spp.), gumweed (Grindelia spp.) and some local seaweeds.

Autumn has been a plant addict for the last 12 years. She graduated from the California School of Herbal Studies in 1988 where she currently is a member of the teaching staff. Other studies include receiving a BA in Anthropology with an emphasis in Ethnobotany from Sonoma State University. Her current focus is on teaching botany, edible and medicinal plant use, and seaweed classes in and around the Bay Area including a summer course at Sonoma State. She is the past President of the Sonoma County Herb Association and lives in Sebastopol.

References:
Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman, Timber Press, 1998
Native American Ethnobotany Database - online lookup
The Flavors of Home - A Guide to Wild Edible Plants of the San Francisco Bay Area by Margit Roos-Collins, Heyday Books, 2001
Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West by Michael Moore, Red Crane Press, 1993
Little Acorns - A Guide to Marin County Plant Lore by Ruth Stotter, Stotter Press
Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West by Gregory L. Tilford, Mountain Press Publishing Company, Inc., 1997

The El Niño rains of 1997-98 didn't all fall on the Central Coast - there was enough left to bring a record 5.8 inches of rainfall to Death Valley (average rainfall, 1.7 inches). The rains were spaced just far enough apart to ensure an extensive growth period and continuous bloom for much of the Death Valley flora. Monterey Bay Chapter, California Native Plant Society past president, Rosemary Donlon, was there for a week in March and a week in April of 1998 to see and photograph the phenomenal display.

Death Valley’s geologic history, topographic diversity and climatic extremes make it home to a fascinating flora. Of the nearly 1,000 plant species found in this National Park, 22 are found nowhere else and another 33 have only a few populations found elsewhere. Many of these bloomed in record profusion in the El Niño rains, some for the first time in years. Come see the vast fields of desert gold, the rare golden carpet, Gilmania luteola, rock mimulus, Death Valley sage and other beautiful treasures of one of our state’s magnificent National Parks.

Rosemary Donlon is a landscape designer and horticultural consultant in Carmel, California and specializes in native plant landscaping. She is the past president of the Monterey Bay Chapter and is a member of the state CNPS horticultural committee. Rosemary began to hear about Lester Rowntree soon after she became a CNPS member about 20 years ago. Her serious interest grew as she helped plant some of the first areas of the Rowntree Native Plant Garden in Carmel and she began to be intrigued by Lester’s elegant writing as well as her immense knowledge of California’s native flora.

While studying in Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s ornamental horticulture and botany departments she decided to compile a bibliography of Lester’s journal and magazine articles, little realizing the magnitude of the task she had undertaken. (Lesters’s own estimate was that she had written approximately 100 articles over her lifetime.) That project has expanded considerably (and extends to include over 680 articles) and has taken her to libraries all over the country. Her current projects include compiling and editing a collection of Lester Rowntree’s articles on the horticultural use of California native plants for publication by CNPS.

Charles Kellogg was a famous vaudeville performer. He recorded bird songs for Victor Records, and these were best sellers. He travelled with John Burroughs in the West Indies for two weeks, observing nature. The last known photograph taken of John Muir is with Charles Kellogg. So who was Kellogg and what does he have to do with native plants? Kellogg built what may have been the world's first motor home. It was made from a single redwood log. He used the "travel log" to tour the country and promote the newly formed Save the Redwoods League.

Dabney Smith is a park ranger for Santa Clara County Parks. She currently works at Mt. Madonna County Park, the former estate of Henry Miller, the cattle king and savior of Tule Elk. Dabney graduated with a B.S. in Biological Science from Cal State Hayward in 1970. Shortly thereafter, she met Rick Bergman and Gini Havel. Upon Rick's recommendation she joined the newly formed Marin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. She attended Gini's field biology classes at the College of Marin, and sometime thereafter met Wilma Follette and Phyllis Faber. She considers Gini, Wilma, and Phyllis her mentors, and responsible for her lifelong adventures with native plants.

This slide presentation will explore using our wonderful native flora to create a garden for butterflies, birds and beneficial insects. The interdependence of plants and insects takes us to a new, deeper level in our gardens. Most of the information I have comes from personal observation and experience, gardening in a mostly native setting in Western Sonoma County. I have found that by nourishing butterflies, the garden attracts many other wonderful beings that live in community with native plants.

Leana Beeman-Sims is first and foremost a habitat gardener. She started Wayward Gardens, a nursery specializing in habitat plants, three years ago on her farm outside Sebastopol. She is a Master Gardener and current President of the Milo Baker Chapter of CNPS.

More than half of Marin's listed rare, threatened and endangered plants grow on Pt. Reyes. For many of these species this area has the only abundant populations left in California/the world. Other plants not (yet) officially recognized as special will be included as they are different from other morphs of the "same" species of and in the rest of the state.

Doreen was born in England, educated at the Universities of Bristol and London and has a B. Sc. in Botany. Her first "real" job was at the Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working on the flora of tropical East Africa. She did graduate work in ecology and conducted pollen analyses of marshes. Since coming to the U. S. in 1967, she has worked in Radiation Biology and taught Elementary Science. She has also taught non-credit Botany courses at the College of Marin.

Doreen learned about the local flora mostly from field trips with CNPS. She is a treasured member of our Marin CNPS board, on which she has served as education chair and is currently chair of rare and endangered plant. She is a frequent field trip leader and has an eagle eye for the minutiae of our diverse flora.

Amanda will discuss the formation process of this new group and what it has accomplished in just two short years. It is a group of enthusiasts that work toward education about and eradication of noxious weeds within Marin and Sonoma Counties. Funding has been received in both 2000 and 2001 from the California Department of Agriculture as well as from the Marin County Board of Supervisors.

Amanda graduated from CalPoly, San Luis Obispo with a degree in Animal Science. She worked as an Agricultural Biologist in 1995 for Fresno County and for 2.5 years for Mendocino County. Amanda came to work for Marin County in 1999 and became Chairperson of the Marin/Sonoma Weed Management Area in May of 2000.