January 1973 California Native Plant Society NEWSLETTER Dedicated to the Preservation of the California Native Flora OFFICERS Honorary President................Lester Rowntree President........................Robert Ornduff Vice-President.....................James B. Roof Recording Secretary................Horace K. Burr Corresponding Secretary..............Alice Howard Treasurer..........................Wayne Savage CHAPTER PRESIDENTS Gualala.....................Dorothy King Young Milo Baker (Santa Rosa)...............Betty Lovell Monterey Bay.........................Hal Carter North Coast .....................Virginia Rumble Sacramento Valley ..................Joy A. Kester San Diego........................Anne Galloway San Luis Obispo County...............Dirk Walters Santa Clara Valley....................Grace Mason Sierra-Santa Monica .................Grace Heintz Southern California Botanists..........Ted L. Hanes OTHER DIRECTORS Paul Badger, Joseph W. Bingaman, Don Falconer, Susan Fruge, Gunder Hefta, Don Lynch, Marian Reeve, Wayne Roderick, G. Ledyard Stebbins, Caljon Strobele, Dean Taylor, Helen Witham COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN Area Preservation ....................Leslie Hood Chapter Affairs.......................Joyce Burr Editorial........................Robert Ornduff Education.........Warner Marsh and J. Martin Weber Field Trips .........................Ted Niehaus Highway Impact......................Ken Taylor Horticultural Advisory ..............James B. Roof Legislative Liaison...................Marian Reeve Membership .........................Don Lynch Plant Sale .............Susan Fruge and Ruth Bailey Publicity.........................Kelly Falconer Rare Plant Project................W. Robert Powell Newsletter Editor...................Gunder Hefta Vol. VIII, No. 4 January 1973 The California Native Plant Society is dedicated to the preservation of the native flora of California. Member- ship dues largely finance the operation and maintenance of the Society. CNPS is not a wealthy organization; we have reason to take pride in our accomplishments, and we believe that we have made considerable impact with our limited resources. We have undertaken a number of important projects that are costly to sustain. These in- clude donations to other groups for the purchase and maintenance of wildflower preserves; an educational program; underwriting a census of the rare, endangered, and extinct plants of California; legal actions; and so on. In many respects, these activities are the most important ones that the Society carries out, yet they are chiefly supported by the modest income from the fall plant sale in Berkeley and by an occasional gift. Friends who wish to supplement the Society's income by making dona- tions, bequests, and memorial gifts may be sure that their remembrances will be devoted to the furtherance of our goals. MEMBERSHIP IN CNPS Membership in the California Native Plant Society in- cludes a subscription to the Newsletter, which is the official quarterly publication of the Society. Several classes of membership are available: Individual, $6.00; Family, $8.00; Student, $4.50; Society or Club, $8.00; Life, $250.00; Supporting, $20.00; Sustaining, $50.00; Contributing, $100.00; Patron, $250.00; Donor, $500.00; Benefactor, $1000.00. To join the Society, send the appropriate dues with your name and address (including ZIP code) to the Treasurer, CNPS, 2490 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94704. Non-members are always welcome at general meetings and on field trips. SUBMISSIONS FOR PUBLICATION Material for publication in the Newsletter should be mailed to the Editor at 1360 Acton Street, Berkeley, CA 94706. All copy should by typed double-spaced on 8V2 by 11 white bond paper; please do not use erasable bond. All plants referred to should be identified by botanical names and, where such exist, by common names. Photographs should be black-and-white glossy prints; please do not send color photographs or slides. Material with time value should be submitted for publi- cation in the Bulletin; please mail such material to Alice Howard, Herbarium, Department of Botany, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. 3 THE KLAMATH REGION by J. O. Sawyer, Jr., and J. P. Smith, Jr. The Klamath region of northwestern California is largely an untamed area of rugged mountains, narrow V-shaped valleys, and wild rivers. The complex physio- graphy and geology of the area have resulted in a great diversity of soils and climates. In contrast to much of the western United States, it is a region with a long vegetational history. All of these elements combine to make the Klamath region one of the last botanical frontiers in California. The limited investigations that have been carried out strongly suggest that it is an area of complex vegetational patterns and an exceedingly rich flora with many endemics and relict populations — but we don't yet know the full extent of its diversity or the complete list of its endemic species. To illustrate some of the characteristics of the region, we have selected Russian Peak, Cook and Green Pass, and Kangaroo Lake, all visited last July by members of CNPS. The Klamath region is a complex of mountain ranges crossed by the Klamath, Salmon, and Trinity rivers and their tributaries. The Klamath River begins in south- central Oregon, well outside the region that bears its name. It travels generally west and south until it meets the Trinity, at which point it turns abruptly north to the Pacific. To the north and west of the Klamath River lie the Siskiyou Mountains, whose peaks rarely exceed 6500 feet. Rich forests on well-watered slopes and fertile soils contrast with the relatively stark landscapes of wood- lands and chaparral on the intruding serpentine soils. Most of the productive forest lands of the Siskiyous are being rapidly lumbered. Because of their deep fertile soils, the middle-elevation forests of White Fir (Abies con color) and higher elevation forests of Noble Fir {Abies procera) and Shasta Fir (Abies magnified var. shastensis) have a rich herb layer with definite affinities with the flora of the Pacific Northwest. The forests of Cook and Green Pass provide a good example of the vegetation of the Siskiyou Mountains. The central part of the Klamath region includes the Marble and Salmon mountains. The Salmon Mountains continue south to blend into the Scott Mountains and Trinity Alps, an expanse of heavily glaciated granitic peaks culminating in Thompson Peak (9002 feet), whose north side is mantled by permanent ice fields. The Cover: A fruiting branch of Canyon Oak (Quercus chrysolepis), reduced from an original life-size linoleum-block print by Henry Evans. (Courtesy of the artist.) Three river systems drain the eastern section. The Scott River drains the Scott Mountains and the eastern part of the Salmon Mountains through the agricultural lands of Scott Valley. The scenic and truly wild Salmon River drains the western slopes of the Salmon Mountains. The partially tamed Trinity River drains the Trinity Alps and the lower southern Klamath "hills," such as South Fork Mountain, which is only 6000 feet high but is at least 30 miles long. The central and southeastern parts of the Klamath region have continental climates, extensive areas of granitic rock, and a vegetation pattern similar to that of the Sierra Nevada. This aspect of the region is exem- plified by the Russian Peak area, with its middle-eleva- tion mixed-conifer forests, tarn lakes, and granitic cliffs. Serpentine areas throughout the whole region add to its environmental complexity and floristic diversity. A very different flora is found on these droughty soils with their restrictive nutrient balance. Our discussion of Kangaroo Mountain will give some indication of how dramatic these differences can be. Russian Peak A first look at the Trinity Alps Primitive Area and the Salmon Mountains gives the traveler the feel of the high Sierra, despite the fact that the elevation is only from 5000 to 9000 feet. Deep glaciated valleys, cirques, tarn lakes, and snowfields that last into July are common. The snowfields dotted with stands of Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta var. murrayana), Mountain Hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana), and Shasta Fir turn into meadows during the summer. At lower elevations, the mixed- conifer forests of Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa), Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana), Douglas-Fir (Pseudo- tsuga menziesii), White Fir, and Incense-Cedar (Calo- cedrus decurrens) give a deceptive sense of continuity with the Sierra Nevada. At lower elevations, especially to the west, the California mixed-evergreen forests of Canyon Live Oak (Quercus chrysolepis), Tan-Oak (Lithocarpus densiflora), Douglas-Fir, and Madrone (Arbutus menziesii) remind the traveler that he is closer to the coast. Chaparral dots the dry slopes. The presence of Knobcone Pine (Pinus attenuata) indicates the exten- sive fire history of the mountains. This, too, is familiar to the California traveler. But a closer look at the flora suggests that things are actually quite different. Engelmann Spruce (Picea engel- mannii) and Subalpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa), common ***$}?¦¦-' * The Russian Peak area of the Salmon Mountains as seen from State Highway 3 in the Scott Valley. Eaton Peak is in the center, and Wilcat Peak is on the left. to the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains, are also to be found. If we consider the Marble Mountain Wilderness and the Siskiyous, we may add the Silver Fir (Abies amabilis) and Alaska Yellow-Cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis). As if to make the situation more intriguing, the Weeping Spruce (Picea brevieriana), a Klamath endemic, is encountered here and there, but not everywhere. The Foxtail Pine (Pinus balfouriana), a Sierran species, further complicates the picture. As the rest of the flora is considered, the pattern becomes exceedingly interesting and suggests that the Klamath has its own special flora and vegetation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Russian Peak area, where seven- teen species of conifers occur in one square mile. To explore this point, we will follow a transect from Scott Valley (approximately 3000 feet) to the Foxtail Pine stand overlooking Little Duck Lake (roughly 7200 feet). We begin in an open woodland of Ponderosa Pine, Kellogg Oak (Quercus kelloggii), and Garry Oak (Quercus garryana). Jeffrey Pine (Pinus jeffreyi) and Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) dot the local serpentine soils. With increasing elevation and the dominance of deep granitic soils, the open woodlands change into beautiful forests of Ponderosa Pine, Sugar Pine, Douglas-Fir, White Fir, and Incense-Cedar. Chin- quapin (Chrysolepsis chrysophylla), Canyon Live Oak, and Squaw Mat (Ceanothus prostratus) are components of the drier ridge forests. Mountain Dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), wintergreen (Pyrola spp.), pipsissewa (Chima- phila spp.), Pine Drops (Pterospora andromedea), and Snow Plant (Sarcodes sanguined) are found in the denser moist forests. With an increase in elevation, the forest containing the five mixed conifer species is enriched by high-eleva- tion species of the Shasta Fir zone. This exceptional forest can be seen along Horse Range Creek. Ponderosa Pine, Sugar Pine, Western White Pine (Pinus monticola), Lodgepole Pine, Shasta Fir, White Fir, Mountain Hem- lock, Engelmann Spruce, Weeping Spruce, Douglas-Fir, and Western Yew (Taxus brevifolia) are visible from a single point. The ground is covered with an abundance of Twin Flower (Linnaea borealis), Clintonia uniflora, the windflower Anemone deltoidea, and the false Solo- mon's-seal Smilacina stellata. In the wetter seepage areas are Leucothoe davisiae, Thinleafed Huckleberry (Vac- cinium membranaceum), Littleleaf Huckleberry (Vac- cinium scoparium), Swamp Currant (Ribes lacustrae), Twisted Stalk (Streptopus amplexifalius), the violet Viola glabella, the fairy bells Disporum hookeri, and Senecio triangularis. 5 On the drier slopes, the forests intermittently give way to expanses of montane chaparral of Greenleaf Man- zanita {Arctostaphylos patula), Huckleberry Oak (Quer- cus vaccinifolia), Tobacco Brush {Ceanothus velutinus), Bush Chinquapin {Chrysolepsis sempervirens), Monar- della odoramattisima, and Penstemon newberryi ssp. berryi. At higher elevations, the montane conifers grad- ually drop out of the forests, which then become domin- ated by Shasta Fir and Mountain Hemlock. The con- spicuous communities at these higher elevations are those on rocks and in the meadows. Behind Little Duck Lake is the meadow where Subalpine Fir was first docu- mented for California. The meadow contains such early- blooming plants as Marsh-Marigold (Caltha howellii) and the shooting star Dodecatheon jeffreyi. These are fol- lowed by others, typically Senecio triangularis, the wild onion Allium validum, Hypericum anagalloides, Tofieldia glutinosa, the rein orchid llabenaria dilatata, Bistort {Polygonum bistortoides), Alpine Gentian {Gen- tiana newberryi), and Carex spp. Around Little Duck Lake are many heath shrubs, such as the mountain- heather Phyllodoce empetriformis, Labrador-Tea {Ledum glandulosum), American-Laurel {Kalmia poli- folia), and Alpine Wintergreen {Gaultheria humifusa). Foxtail Pine occurs on the ridge to the south of Little Subalpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa) by a meadow west of Little Duck Lake in the Russian Peak area of the Salmon Mountains. Duck Lake. A steep climb up through the Mountain Hemlock, Shasta Fir, and rocks (and sometimes even snow) is required to see this relative of the Bristlecone Pine. The spectacular views of Mt. Shasta to the east, Russian Peak and Little Duck Lake close at hand, and deep verdant valleys may tempt many to temporarily ignore the surrounding vegetation. Whitebark Pine {Pinus albicaulis), Jeffrey Pine, and Dwarf Juniper (Juniperus communis) occur among the stunted shrubs of Pinemat Manzanita {Arctostaphylos nevadensis) and flolodiscus microphyllus. The scattering of herbs includes Arenaria congesta, the yarrow Achillea lanulosa, Phlox diffusa, and the clubmoss Selaginella densa var. scopulorum. On still higher ridges, and to the summit of Russian Peak (8196 feet), Whitebark Pine forms a woodland with Dwarf Juniper, Holodiscus microphyllus, Haplopappus greenii, Polemonium pulcherrimum, and Draba howellii. Returning from the Foxtail Pine ridge to Little Duck Lake, the traveler passes through an open woodland of Lodgepole Pine, Holodiscus microphyllus, and Pinemat Manzanita on glacially polished rock. In midsummer, this can become a flower garden. The lavender-flowered Lewisia leana is most appealing. Other early-blooming species of the area are Lewisia cotyledon, L. triphylla, Leutkea pectinata, Potentilla glandulosa, Saxifraga nidi- fica, Castilleja applegatei, Claytonia parvifolia, and Poly- gonum davisiae. Clearly, the Russian Peak area should merit special attention from the Forest Service. The seventeen conifer species found in one square mile may make it the richest such area in the world — not to mention the fact that it is possible to find nearly 450 additional species there above 4500 feet. Russian Peak is now a de facto wilder- ness. Part of it has been proposed as a botanical area. We will keep you informed of the progress made in this regard by the officials of the Klamath National Forest. Cook and Green Pass Cook and Green Pass lies north of Seiad Valley near the Oregon border. At lower elevations are forests of Doug- las-Fir, Madrone, Tan-Oak, and Canyon Live Oak that are reminiscent of Mendocino County vegetation. At higher elevations, montane chaparral and Knob- cone Pine cover the south-facing slopes. Once in the pass (4750 feet), the vegetation changes dramatically on the north-facing slopes to a forest of White Fir and Noble Fir with a wealth of herbs. These include Phlox adser- gens, Lilium wigginsii, Trillium ovatum, Anemone del- toidea, Clintonia uniflora, Adenocaulon bicolor, Dicen- tra formosa, Asarum caudatum, Smilacina stellata, Clay- tonia sibirica, Fragaria californica, Viola glabella, Coral- lorhiza maculata, Galium triflorum, Pyrola picta, P. secunda, P. asarifolia, Chimaphila umbellata, C. men- ziesii, Goodyera oblongifolia, the monks-hood Aconitum columbianum, the columbine Aquilegia formosa, 6 Calypso (Calypso bulbosa), the twayblade Listera con- vallarioides, the lady-slippers Cypripedium californicum and C. fasciculatum, Disporum hookeri var. trachyan- drum, Linnaea borealis, and Streptopus amplexifolius. This list is based, in part, on information about the Cook and Green Pass area kindly provided by Wayne Roderick. Copper Butte (6194 feet) rises to the east of Cook and Green Pass. Near the ridge, the forest changes to a stand of oaks and Weeping Spruce. Wayne Roderick sug- gests that two of the oaks, Brewer Oak (Quercus garry- ana var. breweri) and Sadler Oak (Quercus sadleriana), hybridize here. On the ridge itself, the shrubs give way to a stony opening with many herbs. Among them are Sedum stenopetalum, S. obtusatum ssp. boreale, S. lanceolatum, S. purdyi, Lewisia cotyledon, L. leana, Eriogonum umbellatum, Antennaria rosea, Agrostis diegoensis, and Festuca idahoensis. On a recent CNPS trip to the area, a second species of Antennaria (A. race- mosa) was found by Ledyard Stebbins. This species is perhaps new to California. Kangaroo Mountain A rough jeep road leads west from Cook and Green Pass through an open Jeffrey Pine woodland toward Kan- garoo Mountain (6694 feet). The scattered trees project through the rather continuous chaparral of Arcto- staphylos patula, Quercus vaccinifolia, Ceanothus velu- tinus, Rhamnus rubra, the silk-tassel Garrya fremontii, and the service-berry Amelanchier alnifolia. We might expect to find the California Pitcher-Plant (Darlingtonia californica) growing here, if an area of permanent run- ning water were available. No suitable sites were found. A few Shasta Fir and Weeping Spruce appear on the north slopes near Lily Pad Lake. The serpentine landscape of Kangaroo Mountain is broken by a tilted bed of exposed limestone. Limestone offers its own particular problems to many plants, and yet we collected sixty plants here in early July. Note- worthy plants found growing on limestone include Holly Fern (Polysticbum lonchitis), Shasta Fern (Polysticbum lemmonii) the bleeding heart Dicentra pauciflora, Sedum oregonense, and Anemone multifida. In the surrounding serpentine area were such species as Polysticbum lemmonii, P. munitum var. imbricans, an unusual Trillium, Galium multiflorum, Orthocarpus copelandii, Erythronium grandiflorum var. pallidum, and Pedicularis howellii. We have attempted, in this short introduction, to pro- vide some of the botanical flavor of this still surprisingly wild region. There is an opportunity, here, to maintain large wilderness areas and to preserve significant botan- ical features — but not without a great deal of vigil, effort, and knowledge. The CNPS can play an important role in this respect. THE TREES OF THE DESERT ARE DIFFERENT by Helen Witham (A somewhat different version of this article appeared in the December-January issue of California Garden, 1969-70.] The trees of the desert are different. They have to be. These are not the tall leafy oaks and maples that shade summer streets in rainier climates, nor the deep green, solid spires of the great evergreen forests. They will not fill you with nostalgia for the long-remembered sound of scuffing leaves, for they do not have that many leaves, and such leaves as they have do not lend them- selves to scuffing. Here, in an environment inhospitable to most plants, a few kinds of trees have been able to survive and per- petuate themselves over the ages. They have had to con- tend with heat, strong winds, blown sand, humus-poor soil, and intermittent moisture, and only a few species have made the grade. When you think of going to the desert this winter or early spring, you will very likely be thinking of Anza- Borego, Indio, Salton Sea, Palm Springs, Imperial Valley, or maybe the area along the Colorado River. This part of California's desert region is now quite often referred to as the "Low Desert," rather than as the Colorado Desert, its proper name. The great desert area that makes up the southeastern part of California is roughly divided into two sections by a crosswise chain of mountains that dwindles away toward the east, where some low north-south ranges continue the dividing line in a sketchy fashion. The higher elevation of the Mohave Desert — the portion to the north of this line — gives it the name "High Desert," whereas the Coachella and Imperial valleys and neighboring areas, where the eleva- tion ranges down to several hundred feet below sea level, are the part referred to as "Low Desert." So let's go down to the Low Desert, and get acquainted with its trees. This is not a forested area; there will not be many trees, nor will the trees be of many kinds. There are only these: a handful of small shrubby trees of the Pea family, one tall palm, the famous Elephant Tree, the Desert-Willow, one species of juniper, and two species of pinyon pine. The last three are not strictly desert trees, but they are conspicuous on the slopes of the mountains bordering the deserts on the western side — more so on the Mohave Desert than on the Colorado Desert. This comes out to a dozen, more or less. There are, in addition, a few shrubs that sometimes assume tree form, and those trees that go down the canyons on the desert slopes of the mountains. Then, too, there are those trees 7 California Fan Palms (Washingtonia filifera) near Seventeen Palms, San Diego County. (Photo by W. E. Mackintosh.) that line water-courses all over the West: cottonwoods, willows, sycamores; but these are trees not solely of the desert. So let's consider only our dozen. Of these, the California Fan Palm (Washingtonia fili- fera) is in a class by itself. If we except the arborescent yuccas — Mohave Yucca (Yucca schidigera) and Joshua Tree (Y. brevifolia) — it is our only monocotyledonous tree; and it is the only tree on our list that cannot be described as smalL The California Fan Palm is a big tree; it has a stout trunk, impressive height, enormous leaves, and a massive silhouette. It occurs naturally in canyons that have year-round moisture, or at seeps and springs out on the open desert. This constant moisture seems to be its main requirement; it is easily grown and widely cultivated throughout the warmer areas of our state. You can see it growing wild in canyons and oases from Twenty-nine Palms to northern Baja California. A taller, skinnier fan palm that is frequently seen along streets and in parks is the Mexican Fan Palm, which does not grow wild this far north. It has smaller leaves, a conspicuously slender trunk, and a puzzling name. This palm, which appears rather delicate when compared to W. filifera, is Washingtonia rohusta! If you look at the leaves, it is easy to distinguish the two — many threadlike filaments hang from the edges of the leaves of the California Fan Palm, which make it popular with orioles; there are no such threads on the Mexican Fan Palm, and if the leaves are so high up that you can't even see the edges, the chances are that it is the latter species, which may be as high as 90 feet at maturity. Let's have a look at those trees that are a little harder to tell apart. The California Fan Palm is unmistakeable, but the six spiny, shrubby members of the Pea family are "look-alikes" except in flower structure. They are all SW«i5:^:S!ik'--'afr,.v.-. '₯u«W m% mm BflS -£33K? "?V"fc3l! && :3>S!$f$ • * <> - » ¦ ¦ mm wteffl I'll ti&ih ^^"^•'¦; is- jf -* ¦• " ..' ,v>ffe i.* I California Fan Palms (Washingtonia filifera) in Carrizo Canyon, Baja California. (Photo by Betty Mackintosh.) Smoke Tree (Dalea spinosa) in the Fish Creek area of Anza- Borrego Desert State Park, with Elephant Knee Butte in the background. (Photo by Betty Mackintosh.) spiny and shrubby; all, with one exception, have com- pound leaves divided into many small leaflets; and all have fruits that could be called "beanpods." Then, along with most other desert trees, they share these character- istics, which make possible their very existence: wide- ranging roots; small size; long life; small leaves, some- times early-deciduous; and, with one exception, stout trunks with tough, hard wood and bark. These qualifica- tions all relate to water in some way, inasmuch as water is usually the limiting factor in plant growth. The roots go far and wide, to catch the water as it falls, and deep, to tap underground supplies. Because of their small stature, these trees require less water than they would if they were large; and long life is essential to them because of the difficulty they have in getting started and estab- lishing enough roots to survive the first few summers. Many years, even decades, may pass before the occur- rence of a series of seasons favorable to reproduction — that is, seasons of adequate and well-spaced rainfall. Stout trunks with tough bark are, in part, the result of long life, but it works the other way, too: without stout, hard-barked trunks, these trees could well be demolished at an early age by wind and water erosion. As we shall see, there is an outstanding exception to the rule about tough bark, which proves that generalization may be misleading. The water system in a plant does not parallel our circulatory system, in which the liquid goes round and round; it is more of a one-way street, with most of the water going up to the leaves, out, and away. Thus, the smaller the leaf area and the fewer the pores, the less water is lost by transpiration. Some desert plants are nearly or entirely leafless, and some hold their leaves for only short periods (the early-deciduous ones). Among the latter are Smoke Tree, Ocotillo, and Palo Verde, which often stand leafless for long periods. Their green stems take over the food-manufacturing that ordinarily is done by the leaves. The Smoke Tree (Dalea spinosa) must be surely one of the most-painted most-photographed of Colorado Desert plants, and it could not have failed to have been called "Smoke Tree." The new growth is a smoky blue- gray, and the older growth is yellowish-gray. For most of the year, it is leafless, but it has so many stems that it appears as a solid shape. When its brilliant blue-purple flowers cover the stems in June and July, the effect is that of a puff of purple smoke. It looks soft, but it isn't: each of its many, many branchlets ends in a sharp spine. Its pods are not more than one-half inch long, with one seed, or sometimes two. Like the other members of its genus, one of which is called Indigo Bush, this plant — leaf, stem, and calyx — is dotted with tiny yellowish glands that yield an orange stain or dye {not indigo — that word refers only to the startling flower color). Early Indians used this dye to color deerskin and fibers to be woven into baskets. Smoke Trees may be seen in washes all around the edges of our desert, and into Mexico and Arizona. Palo Verde (Cercidium floridum) is another small tree that is most often seen without its leaves. When present, the leaves are few and short, borne just below the straight, quarter-inch spines. Palo Verde is a Spanish name meaning "green tree," which refers to the bright green color of the branches and trunks of young trees. Good specimens may be seen along the highway between Kane Springs and Salton Sea. The brown-barked Parkinsonia aculeata, a native of Arizona and Mexico, is also often called Palo Verde. Widely planted throughout Southern California, it is a handsome tree with showy yellow flowers that bloom over a long period, pinnately divided leaves up to twelve inches long, and many straight, sharp spines as much as an inch in length. Catclaw (Acacia greggii) you will meet quite often, but you won't want to shake hands with it. Most fre- quently, it is seen as a tangled mound; it is grey-green when in leaf, but otherwise, it is only a mass of reddish stems armed with stout curved spines set singly between leaf nodes. Its flowers are yellow, in cylindrical spikes, and its pods are lumpy-looking, owing to the constric- tions between the seeds. The seeds are flat, shiny, deep brown disks. This little Acacia is one of only two growing wild in California. It occurs in washes and here and there on the lower slopes of the mountains surrounding the desert. A number of trees with hard, heavy wood are called "Ironwood"; among them is the Desert-Ironwood (Olneya tesota). It has flaky, red-brown bark and gray- ish-green leaves covered with fine hairs. Its flowers are small, purplish, and pealike, appearing in April and May, before the leaves. Now look at the spines: like those of the Catclaw, they are stout and somewhat curved, but they occur in pairs at the leaf nodes. With or without leaves or flowers, you can tell the difference between this and the Catclaw by the placement of the spines and by the general appearance of the plant. The Desert-Iron- wood looks more like a tree, less like a thicket. This and the mesquites have been sources of firewood for genera- tions. The two kinds of mesquite, Honey Mesquite (Pro- sopis juliflora var. torreyana), so called because of the delicious white honey that the bees make from its nec- tar, and the Screwbean or Tornillo (Prosopis pubescens), often are seen growing side by side. Both of them pro- vide staple food for stock — and, of course, for deer and rodents and the larvae of various insects. In size, habit of growth, foliage, and flower, the two are similar, but the first one, the Honey Mesquite, has leaves with 9 to 18 pairs of inch-long, bright green leaflets, whereas the Screwbean has shorter leaves with 5 to 10 pairs of tiny leaflets, each less than half an inch long. The easy way to tell the two apart is to find seedpods: the curiously coiled pods of the Screwbean are unmistakeable. 9 Flower spikes of Honey Mesquite (Prosopis juliflora var. torreyana). Note the bee gathering nectar at the left. (Photo by Betty Mackintosh.) A good place to get acquainted with most of these thorny subjects, including the outlander mentioned above, is Vallecito County Park. Let's get away from all those spines! Here's a nice friendly tree you can approach casually, even brush against — the Desert-Willow (Chilopsis linearis). It is likened to a willow because of its leaves: green, very narrow, 3 to 6 or more inches long, deciduous. Perhaps also we could describe the slender branches as willowy, inasmuch as we are in the habit of describing one plant in terms of another, but here the resemblance stops: this is California's only member of the Bignonia (Trumpet Vine) family, and its flowers are trumpets. They are up to 2 inches long, lavender or pink, with purple veins or markings, and touches of yellow in the throat. The fruits — which, at first glance, resemble string beans — are not constructed like those of beans or peas. There is a parti- tion down the center of each, and this partition bears the astonishing seeds. These are almost perfect oblongs, flat, dark, with a tuft of long white hairs on each end. The Desert-Willow is fairly common, in places, along washes and streambeds. The Elephant Tree (Bursera micropkylla) has to be seen to be believed. It has short, stubby branches and a short, stout trunk that is much enlarged toward the base, all covered with bark like tissue paper, peeling to show the bright red layer underneath. The bark on the branches is cherry red, and the tree has red sap. The leaflets are tiny and early-deciduous, and the flowers and fruit are unspectacular. The bark — and this is the excep- 10 tion mentioned earlier — is thin, and the wood is punky. This is our lone representative of the Burseraceae, a family containing some 500 species, mostly of Central America, Mexico and the West Indies. Its distribution here is restricted to a few spots between Fish Creek and Carrizo Creek on the west side of the Colorado Desert. One group near Fish Creek may be reached by a short walk from the road. As you go down any grade leading eastward into the desert, those rounded large shrubs or small trees you will be seeing will likely be California Junipers (Juniperus californica). Here, in a country of sparsely foliaged plants, their bright green color and dense foliage make them standouts. When in fruit (those berries are really cones), this juniper is extremely handsome — and it is worth close examination, because it smells as good as it looks. Two kinds of pinyon pines may be seen in scattered locations along the western edge of the Colorado Desert. These are Pinus monophylla and Pinus quadrifolia, names easy to remember because they mean just what you think they would mean — they describe the needle arrangement: monophylla means one needle, and quadri- folia means four needles. These trees, along with the more widespread Pinus edulis, are the source of tasty pinyon nuts, which were (and still are) a staple food of southwestern Indian tribes. All the pinyons are small trees, for pines, rarely exceeding 25 feet in height, with heavy, often gnarled or twisted, trunks and branches. Their needles are short, mostly one or two inches long, and curved inward toward the branches. These needles remain on the tree for four or five years, occasionally for as long as ten years. Growth is slow, and the trees live to a great age. Usually, they occur in thin stands along with junipers and a few desert shrubs, with lots of space between for the annuals that flower so profusely in early spring (pro- vided there was ample rain during the previous Novem- ber and December). Pinus quadrifolia has a limited range north of the Mexican border, occurring in scattered stands along the desert side of the San Jacinto, Santa Rosa, and Laguna mountains. A few grow near Jacumba and Mountain Springs. Pinus monophylla has a wider range — from Sierra County southward, and into Utah, Arizona, and Baja California also. So many of them grow with the junipers on the mountains in and bordering the Mojave Desert that they have given their name to a whole vegetation type: Pinyon-Juniper Woodland. This fills the niche between the Yellow Pine Forest of the higher mountains and the Sagebrush Scrub and Joshua Tree Woodland of the open desert. Here in the south, they may be seen on the desert side of the Lagunas from Mountain Springs northward, and on Pinyon Mountain east of Earthquake Valley in Anza-Borrego State Park. If, when you visit the desert, you are prompted to ask incredulously, "These are trees?" just consider the con- ditions under which they grow and you will be amazed that they grow at all. An Elephant Tree (Bursera microphylla), one of a group off the road between Ocotillo Wells and the gypsum mine near the eastern edge of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. (Photo by W. E. Mackintosh.) '-*V^ x,X '&". 'V efc- ":s*«i y- •&>& 11 MILO S. BAKER by Vanette Ott Bunyan When the newly organized chapter of CNPS in Sonoma and Napa counties chose "Milo Baker" as its name, it identified itself with the late Milo S. Baker, botanist at Santa Rosa Junior College and curator of the North Coast Herbarium. Attention was immediately focused on the reissuance of his long out-of-print "A Partial List of Seed Plants of the North Coast Ranges of California" (1954), which can now be ordered at the Santa Rosa Junior College Book Store ($2.44, which includes tax and mailing charge). The sketch of Viola bakeri that appears on the cover of the plant list has been repro- duced as the logo on the chapter's stationery. The Milo Baker Chapter is sponsoring the preparation of the Herbarium, now at California State College, Sonoma, with Dr. Charles Quibell as its curator. Specimens are being removed from their fragile newsprint folders and are being mounted on permanent herbarium sheets. Most of Mr. Baker's personal things were burned when his Kenwood property changed hands, but the Milo Baker Chapter has recently acquired a series of photographs taken by him in 1898 and 1899. He mounted these pictures and added handwritten notes to the labels more than sixty years later. The photographs reproduced here are from that series. Milo Samuel Baker was born in Strawberry Point, Iowa, on July 19, 1868, and came to California with his family in 1875 to settle in Oak Run, Tehama County. At twelve, he moved to San Jose, where he finished school with a teaching certificate from the old San Jose Normal School. Upon accepting a position in the elementary schools of Modoc County, which required a 100-mile walk from Redding to Bieber, he began to collect plants and to correspond with Professor E. L. Greene of the Botany Department of the University of California. Much of the flora of eastern Shasta, Modoc and Lassen counties was first made known through his work. Note- worthy is Modoc Cypress (Cupressus bakeri), which was discovered by him in the lava beds and named in his honor by Professor Willis Linn Jepson in the first volume of A Flora of California. At the close of the century, Mr. Baker earned his Bachelor's degree at the University of California majoring in chemistry and taking work in botany. After a few years of teaching at Lowell High School in San Francisco, he moved to Kenwood, and for twenty years he farmed — a period he liked to call his "Rip Van Winkle sleep." The Kenwood ranch was first called "The Maples" and later "Maplewood," names that appear on some of his herbarium sheets and in his notebooks. Canyon Oak (Quercus cbrysolepis) in Cow Creek Canyon, Shasta County. (Photo by Milo S. Baker, August 1898.) Situated at the mouth of Adobe Canyon where Sonoma Creek enters the Valley of the Moon, it was his home as long as he lived. Mr. Baker was a member of the Santa Rosa High School Board of Education, and soon after the City of Santa Rosa Junior College was organized, the University of California was asked to recommend an instructor for botany and zoology. "The best possible man is already there," advised the University. So, in 1922, the Board of Education accepted his resignation and the Junior College gained a botanist. He had received his Master's degree from Stanford University, and, in addition to teaching his classes, he continued to add to his plant collection. He made his first botanical trip to Humboldt County in 1924; in 1931, he issued the first of five plant lists prepared from his field notes and growing 12 '¦""¦¦NW Western White Pine (Pinus monticola) near Lake of the Woods, Siskiyou County, il'hnin l>\ \liln s. K.ikir. Ink IX"".) herbarium. This first list contained the names of plants collected by Mr. Baker in the North Bay counties. Revisions and additions were made as the list was mimeographed in 1934, in 1937, and in 1941. In 1951, the list was called "A Partial List of Seed Plants of the North Coast Counties.'' in the introduction he wrote: "This list has been undertaken in the sheer pleasure of finding out what seed plants grow in this vast and varied region. . . . the list may contain some wrong determina- tions, but for every name in it there is a voucher in the college herbarium and living plants growing at the indicated location. The names may change from time to time but the plants remain unchanged and unmindful of attempts to classify them." The 1954 plant list named 2425 plants collected in the northern coast counties. The 1958 supplement added 292 more, making a total of 2717 different plants collected by Milo Baker and his students and associates. The North Coast Herbarium, housed at Santa Rosa Junior College, numbered almost 13,000 specimens. 13 Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana) near Fallen Leaf Lake, El Dorado County. (Photo by Milo S. Baker, August 1898.) For many years, wildflower shows at the college every second spring attracted the attention of botanists from all of northern and central California. Students were taken on scouting trips by Mr. Baker (in his black Model-A Ford in the late twenties and early thirties) over several weeks in April; the day before the show, on or about the first of May, they fanned out all over the county to bring in specimens, which he identified during the long night. Every name was correctly spelled in the show as in all class work. His botany students remember being penalized one point for each misspelled word, botanical or not, and being reawarded the sometimes critical point when the spelling correction would be meekly recited. As early as 1929, Mr. Baker was publishing research papers in botanical journals. "Studies in Western Vio- lets," a series of nine papers, appeared in Madrono, Brit- tonia, and Leaflets of Western Botany, the first in 1935 and the last in I960 when he was 91. Violets were his great love. His creekside garden at Maplewood was filled with violets from all over the world, grown from seeds collected by him and from seeds sent to him by his many correspondents. When Sonoma Creek flooded during the winter of 1955-56 and destroyed the garden, the loss was great. Mr. Baker was generally recognized as the authority on western members of the genus Viola. His collection of violets, including type specimens, is now at the Botany Herbarium of the University of Cali- fornia at Berkeley. Retiring from teaching in 1945, he was named Instructor Emeritus, and remained active as the curator of the North Coast Herbarium. He served as president of the California Botanical Society in 1952, and, in 1955, the Society's journal was dedicated to him and con- tained his portrait. He was a man whose scientific ambi- tion was always afire; in later years, it far exceeded his physical capacity. He literally refused to accept old age: at 90, he was persuaded to teach his last class in field botany to a group of four students. He never gave up his search for an associate who might accompany him to Alaska to collect violets on Mt. McKinley. Mr. Baker and his wife, Jean, were married 60 years before her death on February 22, 1958. They had one daughter, Marjorie, now deceased. His last illness was brief; he was at work in the Herbarium until three weeks before his death on January 4, 1961. He remained inter- ested in his world of plants until the last: "Come again and tell me all of your secrets," he said to his herbarium assistant shortly before he died. In 1965, the beautiful new life-sciences building on the campus of the Santa Rosa Junior College was com- pleted and named Baker Hall in his honor. The North Coast Herbarium is now at California State College, Sonoma, where it remains available to Santa Rosa Junior College faculty and students as well as to State College personnel. 14 GROWING OUR NATIVE ALPINE PLANTS by James Roof The subject of this article is the culture of those Cali- fornia alpine plants that are brought from high eleva- tions in our Sierra Nevada to Bay Area and coastal gardens. Most of these plant species are small and well suited to rock gardens. We have been growing many of them in the alpine sections of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden for well over twenty years. Most of the research that I shall refer to was performed in our botanic garden. That work has been supplemented by some forty years of field observations. Before I begin, I would like to say that I have never read a book on the culture of alpine plants. Years ago, I found no time to do so. Lately, I have been afraid to do so for fear of learning that some of my most brilliant discoveries have been common knowledge for the past hundred years. Before this article is through, we are going to dig a great many alpine plant species in the high Sierra and bring them down to our lowland gardens. I am sure you are all law-abiding folk who never lift wild plants in parklands or botanical reserves. In any case, such lawless- ness is unnecessary; for all of our best alpine plant species are to be found in our National Forests, and permits can be obtained for their procurement there. We at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden obtain Forest Ser- vice botanical collector's permits each January and, fol- lowing their prescribed rules, collect with care and dis- crimination. Fortunately, the most desirable of our high-mountain plant species occur in vast numbers and, thus, usually spare us from the guilty feeling that we are rifling nature of something irreplaceable when we secure a few of them. Legally. The first question I shall ask and try to answer is this: Why do high-mountain plants grow where they do? Many years ago, I heard this question answered by experts who held that the air of the high mountains is thinner, cooler, purer, and richer in ultraviolet rays than that of our lowlands. That, they claimed, was the only real difference between environmental conditions at high elevations and those of the lowlands. As we proceed, we may discover that states of the air — most importantly, its temperature — have very little to do with growing alpines in our home gardens. Let us begin by comparing high-mountain soils with those in the valley, in the San Francisco area, or along the coast. In the main, our lowland soils are prime agri- cultural soils — black or dark, rich in humus, and well- suited to the growing of asparagus, cabbage, or other leafy vegetables. We may agree that these soils, often enriched with organic matter in the course of their for- mation or downward movement, have been washed down for millennia from hills and mountains. The mountain tops and ridges, thus scoured, are, we may further agree, generally thin of soil and, in great part, lacking in humus or organic matter. Indeed, the typical aspect of high-mountain reaches, as we have observed in our summer peregrinations, is one of stretches of bare granite, of boulders and fell fields, or of glacier-scoured granitic peaks with talus slopes at their bases. There are, certainly, many species of high-Sierran plants that occur in black, humus-rich soils in mountain marshes and meadows and along stream and lake margins. For the purposes of this discussion, I shall place such species in a separate category and treat them later when I discuss drip-basin gardening. For the moment, however, I would like to concentrate attention on those alpine species that occur in soils that are very low in organic matter. I have long suspected that those humus-filled, garden soils of the lowlands, which support a rich variety of leafy crops, including weeds, can be deadly to many high-mountain plant species. They may also support a rich variety of soil fungi — Armillaria, Botrytis, and what not — for which many high-mountain plants have little or no tolerance. I am not a plant pathologist, but my experience is that many mountain plant species die soon after transplantation to black soils. Hence, my comple- mentary surmise: that the thin high-mountain soils that support so many of our finest alpine plant species are relatively free of organic matter and, therefore, also rela- tively fungus-free. In my opinion, at least three things make this so. The first, already hinted at, is the relentless scouring action of water, ice, and snow in the high places. Much of the soil up there is carried away toward the lowland valleys before it has a chance to become enriched. The second is the bitter cold of the high places in winter. Most soil pathogens can be hardly expected to thrive in it. The third, which is related to the second, is that the period of pathogen-encouraging warmth is very short. Winter comes early and leaves late in the mountains. At the beginning, the Sierran Meadows section of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden was entirely of the local loam. After planting in it all the high-mountain species 15 we could obtain, we stood back to observe which were going to make it, and which were not, in this alien medium. In a few years, we had a fairly good idea: from sixty to seventy percent were going to pull through with no fuss. We stuck Jeffrey Pine (Pinus jeffreyi), Lodge- pole Pine (Pinus murrayana), and White Fir (Abies con- color), for example, into this ground; they flourished, period. 1 have coined a name for such mountain plant species. I call them "crossovers." Incense Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) is a prime example of a crossover. Found growing spontaneously only in the transition-zone forest of our mountain regions, and widely collected and planted by professionals and laymen alike, it is now one of the common yard trees in coastal gardens. Several of our true firs are crossovers, as are certain strains of Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides). Copper Birch (Betula occidentalis) and Mountain Alder (Alnus tenui- folia) are two small mountain tree species that thrive in local soils under lawn conditions. There are a number of small alpine plant species, suit- able for rock-garden display, that cross over to local soils and require little extra care beyond that of their initial establishment and some summer watering. Notable among these easy-to-grow species are the fine Sulphur Buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum), which blooms profusely twice each year (in May and September), the equally lovely Donner Buckwheat (E. ursinum), and the Sierran Coral Bells (Heuchera rubescens var. glandulosa and //. r, var. alpicola). These plants have presented no difficulties when moved to our botanic garden soil, and the original plants of each have been thriving with us for the past thirty years. I do not precisely know why these plant species adapted so readily to changed habitat and soil, but I am glad they have done so. So much for crossovers. It is the high-mountain species that fail to cross over — many of them the very ones we wish to grow — that require our special con- sideration. Perhaps our first step in giving this consider- ation is to take a close look at the soils in which they generally occur. Soil To be grown successfully, alpine plants require, first of all, a medium that is "clean" — that is, free of humus and black soil — and of diverse, but predominantly rough, texture. Not clean gravel, for that lacks almost everything a plant can readily assimilate. On the other hand, a clean sandstone naturally crumbled into particles of many shapes and sizes is ideal. Such soil-rock can be a "run-of-the-mill" haul from a quarry, or loose material lying at the sides of roads hacked through rocky, mountainous terrain. What we use in the Regional Parks Botanic Garden we obtain from a road-ballast quarry in Tilden Regional Park. Free of black soil, humus, and, for that matter, practically every other kind of contaminant, and naturally crumbled into a spectrum of variously shaped particles running in size from near-dust to goose- egg, this substance affords our desiderata — cleanliness, adequacy of available nutrient, and diversity of texture with predominant roughness — to a highly satisfying degree. "Andesitic rock," we have called it — a poor term, geologically speaking, to judge by the static given us by rock men; but, our plea to them for a better name still standing unanswered, we shall persist with our coinage. (A brief but concentrated note on this kind of soil, as compared to Sierran granitic sands, appeared in The Four Seasons, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 13-15, August 23, 1966.) Let me stress that, except for its texture, there is no magic ingredient in this kind of rock. Some, though, after seeing our alpine plants growing successfully in it, have persuaded themselves to the contrary — that the rock contains secret substances that will support alpine plants no matter what its texture. Evidently, among those steeped in this error was a young employee of our garden. Instructed to fill some very expensive newly built alpine-plant beds with andesitic rock while I was away on a field trip, he had indeed done so, I discovered upon my return — but only after putting the rock through a quarter-inch screen! The finished beds were beautiful to behold, and entirely useless. The finely screened rock, with texture differing little from that of our black loam, was already 16 beginning to vie with the local soil as a host for the latter's fungi. The plant beds had to be cleaned out and refilled with unscreened natural rock in all its varied coarseness. It will bear repeating that there is no magic in this material aside from its coarse texture. It will bear stressing also that we introduce no humus, emulsions, or other organic ingredients to this crumbled rock. With one exception, later to be mentioned, it must remain in its natural state. Let me cite, with reference to our crumbled rock, the cases of two specific high-Sierran plants. One is a tree, the Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis); the other, our tiniest bush wintergreen, Gaultheria humifusa. Neither of these species will grow for long in the soil of our botanic garden. Even when brought down from the mountains with ample quantities of their own sandy granitic soils about their roots, they will not survive. The difficulty is that their native Sierran soils have no magic in them. What they do have is lethal: they have the same fine texture as the local soils in our botanic garden — soils that, as I've already said, support soil pathogens. Those pathogens, uninhibited by coarse, well-aerated rock, move right into the ball of soil brought from the Sierra. The next phase the Sierran plant enters is usually rigor mortis. However, if we dig Whitebark Pine and wintergreen, wash all of the soil from their roots in the nearest mountain stream, and bring them down to a sea level garden and plant them in fungus-free rock, they will, with additional treatment to be later outlined, thrive. How deep should this crumbled rock be? Very deep, we used to think, and accordingly laid it into beds going down four or five feet. In fact, we were afraid that the roots of such trees as Whitebark Pine might have to be completely encased in clean rock to their lowest reaches and, moreover, throughout the lives.of the trees. We now know better. Mere lenses of rock — not sunken, just simply lying on the ground, and having maximum depths, depending upon the plant, of one to two feet — are all that is necessary to grow most of the montane plant species. The reason for this is simple enough. In most cases, it is only the root crown of the alpine plant that needs protection from harmful soil organisms. Most of the rots that wipe out touchy plants quite plainly attack them at the soil surface, right at the point of transition from root to stem. If the soil surface at this critical point is composed of clean rock, such fungus attacks are rare. It is hardly necessary, then, to have a great depth of rock beneath the plants. Rather, two feet, as we have said, is the most that is required. It is pleasant to see one Sierran species after another, planted in clean rock beds, come to healthful terms with local conditions. Trials in our local soils with the Curl- Leaf Mountain-Mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) have proved it to be entirely unadaptable to loamy soils. But plant this charming evergreen, especially its dwarf form from the high Tioga country, in full sun on a mound of crushed andesitic rock, and that is the end of horti- cultural trouble with that species. Water Having provided a clean rock base for those plant species that are susceptible to fungus, we have already gone a long way toward solving another of our most pressing problems in alpine horticulture. Consider this experience, so common among those who collect alpines. When, after bringing their small charges down to the low country and putting them in highly organic soils, our buffs give them thorough water- ings, the plants die of root rot. Such defeats almost inevitably bring on second trials of the same species. Having supposed that their original collections died from overwatering, our hobbyists then move, logically enough, to the position that little if any water should be given the next. If they act accordingly, their plants die of drought. The would-be grower finds himself, then, on the horns of a dilemma: his plant in black soil dies, if he waters it thoroughly, of root rot; if not thoroughly, of drought. The trick is, first, as already submitted, to set the alpine plant in a fungus-free bed of crushed rock and, second, to water the devil out of it. The second part of this formula involves a problem based on a seasonal illusion. Almost all Californians enjoy visiting the high Sierra in the two summer months when the weather in the mountains is at its warmest and driest. "But I found it on a dry ridge!" cries the prospec- tive grower who has lost an alpine to summer drought in his lowland garden. The dry ridge where he procured his little rock plant is perhaps dry only in the month of his visit, and even then the soil in that vicinity will be found 17 to be not too dry at a little distance beneath the surface. The high Sierra normally receives more than sixty inches of precipitation — almost three times as much as the San Francisco Bay Area and more than six times as much as San Diego County. It is well to remind ourselves that alpine regions are soaked with water for a good nine or ten months of each year. The plants are under blankets of snow for at least six months, and often longer. In the mountain spring, for three months more, they receive water from this snow as it melts. In many years, they receive consider- able amounts of water from summer thundershowers; then come the autumnal rains. The lives of alpine plants at elevations of 8000 feet and higher are wet ones. Picture the alpine water curve this way: a line that starts to climb around May, reaches a high point in mid- July, and then levels off and only very gradually declines through August. Now let us make a natural-water graph for our home areas. In this graph, the curve is at its highest during the winter months, no water being locked up and unavail- able as snow or ice. Our line runs levelly across the chart until April 15, and then descends rapidly to summer drought. And now, keeping these pictures in mind, let us con- sider those notable montane plants, the Red Fir (Abies magnified), White Fir (A. cor/color), Noble Fir (A. pro- cera), and Alpine Fir (A. lasiocarpa). Fir trees, along with other montane plant species, set resting buds through winter. These buds do not open in the Sierra until July, when spring arrives in the high country. In our coastal gardens, they behave the same way, no matter how warm and bouncy our long spring season may be. They do not heed the warm weather, but rather rely on their built-in mountain time clocks for the opening of their buds. If they do not receive water at the time of bud opening and after, they may very well break their dormancy, but they will not grow very much. Half an inch, maybe. In fact, it is not uncommon, when springtime water is lacking in local gardens, for true mountain firs, as if throwing in their hands to wait for a better deal, to open their buds and then reset them in almost the same places without making any growth at all. And please note here that whatever increase in size the trees achieve in a year (it can, of course, be consider- able) occurs only in that short interval between the opening and the setting of the buds. Is springtime water lacking in local gardens? If, by "springtime," we mean the springtime of the high Sierra, the springtime that begins in July — and we do — then few will need even to glance at the second water graph to deliver themselves of a thumping affirmative. Yet, if you do look at this graph, and then at the first one, you will see how, by contrast, the first profile fits the firs' growth program like a glove. Lowland gardens, then, are on the shorts just when their high-mountain species need water the most. I'm sure you already see the solution. To cope with this disgraceful lack, we give our gardeners the blanket order to water generously all fir trees (except, or course, Abies bracteata) and all other high-mountain plants from the first of May through summer. A single rule is wedged into the mind of any gardener charged with the care of high-mountain trees and shrubs: "On and after May 1, think melting snow." Light We now come to the discussion of light as it affects alpine plants. I believe that improper handling of light is the stumbling block of most prospective alpine gardeners. Visitors to the Regional Parks Botanic Garden bring in sad stories of the slow departure to Valhalla of some favorite mountain dweller, and many of their tales end in a standard sentence: "I found it in the full sun in the Sierra." Their statement is true. But when we lower a plant's home from around 10,000 feet of elevation to sea level, we have to think about light in relation to the drastic change. Some species of high-mountain plants will grow in full sunlight along our seaboard — White- bark Pine, Sulphur Buckwheat, or the tiny buckwheats from above timberline, such as the marvelously compact Oval-Leaf Buckwheat (Eriogonum ovalifolium) from eleven thousand feet of elevation, and the wonderful high-mountain form of Arctostaphylos uva-ursi are safe species that come to mind. But they are exceptions. Until the contrary is proved, local sunlight should be considered dangerous to an alpine plant. The simplest way to approach the light problem is to say, first of all, that full sun in the Sierra is not to be equated with full sun in the lowlands. It is not the heat or the intensity of mountain sun that concerns us, but its duration. "Duration" is the key word in under- standing local light effects on montane plant species. It must be obvious that with snow blanketing the small plants in alpine habitats for well over half of each year — often from November 1 to June 30 — they are under the 18 sun's full brilliance for only three or four months: June, perhaps — then July, August, and September. All right: and maybe part of October. But when we bring such plants down to local gardens and plant them in full sun, the light situation is reversed: they can very well be exposed to sunlight's full intensity for eight months beginning in February and ending in late September or early October. Again, it is not the intensity of sunlight of any particular day or week that these plants cannot withstand, but the month-after- month duration of the sunlight. Let me illustrate the effect of local sunlight on alpines: The easiest plants to work with are the dwarf mountain willows. Mono Willow (Salix monica), East- wood Willow (S. eastwoodiae), and Snow Willow (S. nivalis), among others, offer us material that grows in full sunlight in the high Sierra and is easily obtained in the form of cuttings. Furthermore, these cuttings are quick to root, showing clear results in a single year's time. In our botanic garden, we long ago performed a number of experiments, using mountain willow cuttings one foot in length and one-half to three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The cuttings were simply angle-staked into the earth for two-thirds of their length, watered generously at all times, and left to grow on their own. And they grew, beautifully and cleanly, much as they do in the mountains. At the end, however, of three months of local summer sunlight, these willows, almost with the regular- ity of clockwork, exhausted their light tolerances and withered away. Given abundant water, they showed no great aversion to intense sunlight during their first three months, but at the end of that time they had plainly shown that they were not about to put up with it for- ever. The light-sensitivity of willow cuttings planted in spring is not a seasonal thing; on the contrary, fresh cuttings planted at any time in the sunny months will grow very well until their three months of sun tolerance has been expended. If that time arrives before weakened sunlight and cool weather arrive to give them relief, they simply burn up. How, then, to protect our small montane plants from this kind of light sickness — a sickness caused by dura- tion, not intensity, of light? There is more than one way. We may give our alpines only morning light and never afternoon light, thus making their light-exposure pattern a series of fractions — a system that very simply extends their tolerance for sunlight to six months. Very sensitive mountain plants we can, by artificial shading, allow only quarter days of sunlight. (Incidentally, the easiest way to test the light toler- ance of any species of mountain plant is to place experi- mental specimens in containers and then move them into and out of sunlight as their condition indicates.) Timing of the sunlight that strikes alpine-plant beds is important. Many plant species that grow in full solar exposures in the Sierra can be grown below 1000 feet elevation only if their sunlight is limited to morning sun, to two hours of sun daily, or to no direct sun at all. It used to be thought that the Pinemat Manzanita (Arctos- taphylos nevadensis) could not be locally cultivated. But it can be, if its sunlight is restricted to about two hours a day. The yellow-flowered, shrubby Bush Cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa), which grows in full sunlight at 10,000 feet elevation, thrives with us when given only three hours of sunshine daily. So, much to our wonder- ment, do Squaw Carpet (Ceanothus prostratus), Fresno Mat (C. fresnensis), and Sierran Sedum (Sedum obtu- satum). Soil temperature in alpine-plant beds can be critical. Although high local temperatures at the soil surface affect some alpines not at all — for example, the alpine form of Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, buckwheats, and some species of Lewisia — they can be very harmful to those with close-to-the-surface rootlets — for example, some species oiPenstemon, Red Mountain-Heather, and White Mountain-Heather — no matter how tolerant of heat the shoots may be. During local heat waves, the tempera- tures in our plant beds are raised to the searing point by ground-reflected sunlight to the damage or death of some of our best alpine plants. I would remind you that no one ever lost in alpine-plant culture just because his soil was cool. In the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, we now have our best displays of dwarf alpine plants in rock-garden beds that receive an hour or two of morning light, then several hours of filtered light, and no afternoon light. The species in the rock-garden beds include White Mountain-Heather (Cassiope mertensiana), Red Mountain-Heather (Phyllodoce breweri), Dwarf Ameri- can-Laurel (Kalmia polifolia var. microphylla), the wintergreen Gaultheria humifusa, Western Labrador-Tea (Ledum glandulosum var. California um), Mountain Spiraea (Spiraea densiflora), Mountain Columbine (Aquilegia pubescens), Western Blueberry (Vaccinium occidentale), Alpine Lily (Lilium parvum), Twinberry (Lonicera conjugialis), many ferns, and other alpines too numerous to mention. All of these species grow and flower well here because we have carefully modulated their exposure to summer sunlight. It is significant that many plant species in the high Sierra — White Mountain-Heather is an outstanding example — prefer to grow in the shade along the north sides of boulders and logs even in the "cool" sunlight prevailing up there. We should show equal wisdom in the garden placement of our alpen-prizes. Some of them we can plant in the shade of rocks, letting them choose whether to remain in the shade, to move out into full sunlight, or to play safe and enjoy some sun and some shade. It is not always advisable to use living material to shade alpine plants. Once we planted Nuttall Willow 19 White Mountain-Heather (Cassiope mertensiana), from 10,500 feet elevation in the Sierra Nevada, blooming in the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, April 1972. (Salix scouleriana) to shade some alpine-plant beds in our mountain meadow. The willows grew rapidly and seemed to perform their job admirably. To their shade we entrusted, in descending order of size, the mountain- ash Sorbus californica, the wild rose Rosa ultramontana, Labrador-Tea (Ledum glandulosum), Sierra Bilberry (Vaccimum nivictum), and the strawberry Fragaria platypetala. The willows appeared to thrive for some three or four years, but, being themselves high-mountain plants, were eventually burned by our overstrong summer sun. Their deaths left the other plants in the open. Before I realized their danger and could install a burlap shade, a domino effect had taken place: the wild rose shrubs burned away, then the mountain ash, and then the tiny alpine plants. The lesson is clear. Shade for alpine plants is best provided by rocks, small redwood picket fences, or other permanent structures. If living plants are to be used for shade, they should be selected and time-tested for their longevity under local garden conditions. Three native tree species that we use for permanent shade on the south sides of our alpine-plant beds are Jeffrey Pine (Pinus jeffreyi), Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii), and Incense-Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). Because all three of these tree species grow in high-mountain areas, their water requirements are similar to those of many alpine plant species. We have never lost a single specimen of any of them in thirty years of mountain-plant gardening. Acid Having satisfied three of our basic requirements, those of soil, water, and light, we can still not grow alpine plants to any degree of satisfaction unless we follow through on a final critical requirement. Soil acidity is, in general, required for the finest culture of high-mountain plants. The soils at high elevations in the Sierra are usually acidic in character and, moreover, very often without humus in their makeup. But our coastal soils are usually close to neutral or slightly alkaline in character and generally produce acid reactions only where much leaf mold is deposited, as under oaks or Coast Redwoods. And we have already learned that such organic matter is not wanted in our alpine-plant beds. I know of no city water systems along our seaboard that provide an acid reaction for our gardens. On the contrary, our water not only is slightly alkaline but, if used for some years, will build up alkalinity in our soils to such a level that we might as well be trying to grow acid-loving plants under limestone conditions. This will certainly not do, and the answer to it, much though I dislike saying so, is the use of chemicals. We use chemical acids because they are clean. We already know that we must add no humus, other acid organic matter, or fertilizer to our crushed rock lest, by doing so, we invite some deadly fungus into the picture. The acidification of most alpine plants can be very pleasantly achieved by adding common aluminum sul- phate crystals to the soil surface and then watering in the applied material. The results with most alpine plants are quite pleasing. One mountain plant that is supremely useful in illustrating a lack of acid is Sierra-Laurel, or Black-Laurel (Leucothoe davisiae). This small evergreen is easily grown in ordinary soils at low elevations. It is not dis- turbed by soil fungi and, therefore, does not require a crushed-rock bed for good health. However, after a year or two of water from the local tap, the leaves of Black- Laurel begin to turn yellow. Over a period of time, the shrubs, deteriorating, begin to show many dead spike- tops. The decline will end in death, if not stemmed by the addition of acid. Leucothoe davisiae has, I surmise, the highest toler- ance for the rawest, dirtiest, crudest aluminum sulphate crystals the chemical industry can provide. When powdered aluminum sulphate is spread copiously and watered in around very sick individuals of this species, their recovery is dramatic. 'New shoots appear at the bases of the stems, any remaining leaves higher in the plant turn to a healthy green, and, as long as the acid dominates the picture, the plants stay restored to robust good health. We seem never to get around to our Black- Laurels until they are in the last stages of decrepitude, whereupon someone runs up with the bag of aluminum sulphate and gives them a liberal dose. In our garden, we refer to the process as "death and resurrection." Light dressings of aluminum sulphate, applied twice yearly and watered in, greatly benefit Red Mountain- Heather, White Mountain-Heather, Dwarf American- Laurel, all mountain huckleberries, and other alpine species too numerous to mention here. I would caution, however, that some montane plant species — happily, their number is very small — are damaged when aluminum sulphate crystals come into contact with their 20 leaves. The most acid-sensitive of our delicate mount- aineers is the small bush wintergreen Gaultheria humifusa. Direct application of aluminum sulphate crystals to this diminutive plant burns all of its tiny leaves black as coal. The small plants recover very strongly from such burning — which indicates that they require the acid, but that it is being given to them in much too crude a form. We solved that problem by making a weak solution of aluminum sulphate — a cup of the material in two gallons of water, stirred thoroughly — and then watering the small bush wintergreens with it at short intervals — six or eight times a year. Under such acid treatment, the little brutes will thrive. Lately, we have been watering most of our alpine plants with this weak acid solution instead of plying them with the raw crystals. The advan- tage of using the crystals is that the acid effect is much longer lasting; but the weak solution, although more trouble, is a much safer and more sightly means of pro- viding the acid for our rock-garden plant beds. All that must be remembered here is that, if the solution is used, the acid applications must be made more frequently. Drip-Basin Gardening There are some Sierran alpine-plant species that do not require fungus-free rock at their roots. Doing well in our local soils, although not under ordinary garden con- ditions, the species are generally those that grow at the edges of mountain lakes, along alpine streams, and in high-Sierran boggy or springy places. Such plants thrive only if there is an abundance of moisture around their roots at all times. Good examples of such wet-growing species are Western Blueberry (Vaccinium occidentale), Western Labrador-Tea (Ledum glandulosum var. cali- fornicum), Alderleaf Coffeeberry (Rhamnus alnifolia), Mountain-Fly Honeysuckle (Lonicera coerulea), and the very lovely, yellow, double-flowered Helenium bigelovii. Also in this category are the dwarf alpine willows — the gray-leaved Salix orestera and the Mono Willow (S. monica), with its varnished red stems, glossy leaves, and fat winter buds. Some of the mountain lilies, such as Lilium kellyanum and L. parvum, require constant moisture around their bulbs. These alpine wet-growers must be provided with moving or retained water, and the water supply must be constant. It will do no good to plant such alpine stream- side, bog, or lake-margin plants in the belief that we can water them sufficiently to keep them alive. I have found it impossible to do that with hose-watering or pot- sprinkling. The point to be made here is that we delude ourselves into believing that we will always keep the plants watered. That won't work; I know, for I have tried it. We go on vacations, we take days off, we endure heat waves, or we simply forget to water the plants. A few such misses and the plants are dead. Among our early-day failures at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden were Brewer's Miterwort (Mitella breweri) and the pink mountain monkey-flower Mimulus lewisii, both species taken from springy places or brook margins at elevations from 6000 to 8000 feet. We now grow these and other plants exceptionally well in "drip- basin" gardens. These horticultural necessities are con- crete basins from four to six feet long and from three to four feet wide. The basins, which are eight inches deep, have outlets cut into the tops of their walls to a depth of four inches. We have constructed our basins in series, with one basin situated above the other, so that water introduced into the uppermost basin flows into it and, when that one is saturated, flows out of it and into the next one below. At the head of our series of concrete- bottomed soil-holders is a faucet opened to introduce water at a low but constant rate — the rate implied in the term "drip-basin." 21 The cement basins are filled with a mixture of black soil and peat moss. It is not necessary to level the soil mixture in the basins. Raising small mounds of soil here and there will create different kinds of microenviron- ments and, thus, allow many more species of wet- growers to occupy the beds than would succeed there if the beds were level. Our four-inch-deep outlets are plugged with moss or with plants of various alpine species that thrive with water passing through or over their roots. Such living plugs soon fill the outlets tightly and hold back just the right amount of water in the basins behind them. The structure to be visualized here is an eight-inch-deep basin filled with soil, of which the bottom four inches is saturated and the top four is more or less well-drained. Drip basins have enabled us to grow, with full success, Corn-Lily (Veratrum californicum), Sierra Currant (Ribes nevadense), the grass-of-parnassus Parnassia pal- ustris var. californica, the spike-moss Selaginella wallacei, Alderleaf Coffeeberry (Rhamnus alnifolia), the Sierran wild onion Allium validum, and Bush Cinquefoil (Poten- tilla fruticosa). As far as I know, there are presently no other ways to cultivate, near sea level, these and many other species of montane plants that require "wet feet" before all else in their culture. When shaded and prop- erly treated with acid, as already outlined for other alpine plant species, they respond to lowland gardens without distress. The drip-basin garden, then, properly planted and maintained, has given us unqualified success in our botanic garden with many alpine plant species hitherto considered "difficult" to grow. It also does something else: it gives us solid concrete no deeper than a mere eight inches below all soil surfaces. Which brings us to the principal obstacle to the crea- tion of good rill beds in our home gardens. In the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, we once provided an inexpensive wet-soil bed for some very delicate Sierran alpine plants by placing them along the sides of a ditch that crossed our North Sierran meadow. Into the ditch we introduced a slow flow of water, thus creating an instant "rill garden." It turned out to be a very expen- sive ditch indeed. Nature took its course, introducing some very tough sedges, rush grasses, Cyperus, and other noxious weeds into the rill-sides. The small alpine plants could not compete. Inside of two years, the ditch was thoroughly choked with rush grasses and sedges so ten- acious of root that nothing short of complete and deep excavation would effect their removal. Such is the fate that overtakes wet gardens without concrete bottoms. These weeds cannot readily take hold in our drip basins. When they appear, we at once core them out with a weeding tool. Because the plants' roots cannot lodge in mud to any depth greater than eight inches, this operation is almost incredibly easy. And, once removed, our intruders have little chance to regenerate from deeply sited roots. I deem such ease of maintenance the most important justification of cement-bottomed, con- stant-drip plant beds. Marsh weeds are the most per- nicious of all weeds; yet the shallow, hard-bottomed beds can be kept free of them with minimal labor. 22 It is pleasant to exploit the possibilities of these shallow beds of rich muck that cannot accumulate exces- sive amounts of water. I would like to tell of just one of the enjoyable ways to use them. On hikes through the high Sierra, I used to see seedlings, young rosettes, or rooted pads of snow-bog or lakeside plants that were too young to identify. I used to pass by many such unidenti- fiable plants, hoping to catch them in bloom at some later date. But we seldom retrace our steps in the high mountains; the seasons are too short for that, and there is too much doing elsewhere in the plant-collecting line. It seems that there is always room in a drip-basin plot for one more plant. For the past ten years, we have not bypassed unidentifiable bog plants in the Sierra simply because they were out of bloom and would not bloom for another month or so. If they seem to be interesting and abundant, we simply pop one or two of them into a plastic bag, bring them to the botanic garden in our traveling icebox, thumb the plants into the muck of a drip basin, wait for them to bloom, and then identify them. This method has brought us some wonderful sur- prises. On one climb along a dry, 9000-foot mountain- side, I found some clusters of plants with yellowish, spoonlike leaves growing in a seep. One of the pads, unidentifiable at the time, I brought to the garden and thumbed into our muck. That is how we learned the cream-yellow-flowered Parnassia palustris var. calif - ornica. After ten years in the drip basin, this little charmer, still vigorous and still slowly spreading by underground stems, now forms a rosette some nine inches in diameter. It is only one of our many such successful bog cultures. Sometimes, of course, the sur- prise is a mountain weed, but we learn it, too, and then discard it. Clean Cultures The importance of keeping marsh weeds out of our drip basins and other alpine-plant beds cannot be over- stressed. Their constant threat to successful culture of the wet-growers leads me to bring up one essential point that is hardly ever mentioned in discussions of mount- ain-plant horticulture. It is important to bring clean cultures down from the high country. Most bits of Sierran turf contain — beside coveted small rock-garden plants — sedges, rush grasses, and other hardy weeds and grasses of many descriptions. Where those mountain weeds occur naturally, their aggressiveness is minimized by oppressive environmental conditions. However, the digger who believes that those weeds will remain small near sea level is mistaken. Upon reaching climates with abundant sunshine and no snow, they will immediately take over from those alpine plants that lived in harmony with them in the high Sierra and will proceed first to dominate and then to obliterate them. Clean cultures are, as I have said, the answer. If we are lucky, we will find the streamside or bog plant we want growing all by itself in clean moss or in a small open gravelly or sandy area. If not, we had better exert ourselves to be a little drastic: we had better dismantle the ball of turf we dug, remove our alpine treasure from it, and pack the bare-rooted plant thus secured in clean, moist moss — all before going home. I have never found that the mountain muck thus left behind was in any way superior to what we can mix in our garden's potting shed. 23 NATIVES FOR YOUR GARDEN Redberry [Rhamnus crocea) Habit: An evergreen shrub, dense, uniform in appear- ance, 2 to 4 feet high, and 3 to 8 feet broad. There are many branches, and short, rigid, or spinose branchlets. Leaves: Round to broadly ovate, lA to Vi inch long, dark green, glossy, yellowish-green on reverse, of firm texture, occurring singly or in clusters. Flowers: Tiny, greenish, in sessile umbels, from Feb- ruary to May. Fruit: Globose red berries in clusters, each containing two or three nutlets. Berries are not always freely pro- duced, but they are exceptionally attractive against the dark foliage. Rate of growth: Moderate. Culture: No treatment is required for fresh seed, which has an average germination period of 6 to 20 days. Two months of stratification is said to improve germination. Some wilting, or possible damping-off, has been reported for transplanted seedlings. May be planted in full sun to light shade. This shrub is water-tolerant in coarse, well- drained soils, and grows best with moderate, infrequent summer watering. With more moisture, it will become taller and develop an open habit. Tolerates pruning. Flowers the third year from seed. Estimate of garden value: Those who know it are highly complimentary about this small, glossy-leaved, red- berried shrub. It appears to be free of most garden pests. It can be recommended as a facer shrub, as a low divider or hedge, for dry banks or slopes, or for a large rock garden. Under some conditions, the plants may sprawl, but (according to Lester Rowntree) they do so in an artful and satisfactory manner. In the wilds, on steep and partially shaded slopes, the plants tend to be pros- trate, producing long, draping branches. I have noted this tendency on the shady, western hills of the Santa Clara Valley. There is no information available about whether this may be accomplished by pruning and train- ing, but the prospect should be exciting for adventurous gardeners. Redberry was highly recommended by Howard E. McMinn ("Five More Native Shrubs," Journal of The California Horticultural Society, vol. 10, no. 1, January 1949). It is reported to do poorly in heavy adobe soils. Its natural companions include Holly-leaved Cherry (Prunus ilicifolia), Jim Brush (Ceanothus sore- diatus), Poison-Oak (Rhus diversiloba), and Foothill Ash (Fraxinus dipetala); and it is often found in areas dominated by a scattering of Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia). Distribution: Chaparral, Mixed Evergreen Forest, and Coastal Scrub of dry lower slopes of Coast Ranges, Lake to San Diego counties, and to Baja California. — Marjorie G. Schmidt WHERE DOES TORREY'S BUCKWHEAT GROW? One of California's rarer wild buckwheats is Eriogonum torreyanum Gray. In 1865, John Torrey collected it on a "High Mountain near Donner Pass, Sierra Nevada, Cali- fornia" — presumably on Castle Peak, Nevada County, although the "High Mountain" could have been Mt. Lincoln, which is just south of the pass in Placer County. Between 1865 and 1885, five or six collections were made, as follows: near Webber Lake, Sierra County, by Lemmon in 1873; Mt. Stanford (that is, Castle Peak), Nevada County, by Hooker and Gray in 1877; Donner ("near Summit Camp," according to the label in the Gray Herbarium), by Kellogg in 1870; Tinkers Knob, Placer County, by Sonne in 1881; and the bank of Squaw Creek on the road to Tahoe, Placer County, by Sonne in 1885. (These collections are in the Gray Herbarium and the University of California Herbarium.) Apparently, the plant was not seen or collected again for nearly 50 years, when it was collected on the California Vegetation Type Map Survey by Norman French on July 24, 1934, 1-1/3 miles south of Webber Lake at 7500 feet elevation, Sec. 4, T18W, R14E, Sierra County. This is the latest collection I have seen, and I wonder where this buckwheat is hiding. Because it is a specialized variant in the E. umbellatum complex, I suspect that it may be restricted to a localized ecologic niche (presumably not on granite) that provides selective conditions to its liking. The Torrey Buckwheat is one of the "sulphur- flowers" that are so widespread in the hills and mount- ains of California. Even in this highly variable assem- blage, in which about a dozen named varieties are now recognized for our state, the Torrey Buckwheat is dis- tinctive because of its almost perfectly glabrous leaves (which, in most of the sulphur-flowers, are more or less woolly). Also, the filiform bractlets that are found among the flowers within the involucres are devoid of woolly hairs; the bractlets are glandular-papillate, not plumose-hairy as in the rest of the sulphur-flowers and related species. Jepson recognized E. torreyanum as a species and I do too, but we really do need to know more about this elusive plant that has been collected only once in nearly 90 years. Surely, it hasn't become extinct within a hun- dred years of its discovery! — John Thomas Howell 24 BOOK REVIEW Camping Around California Volume 1: The North; Volume 2: The South by Jim Crain and Terry Milne Fifth Street Press, Berkeley, $3.00 each volume-, 72 pp. each, illus. Because many members of CNPS participate in the numerous field trips throughout the state of California, guides to camping sites may be of considerable value to them in planning where to stay. My own pleasure and professional activities are strongly related to the field work that I do in various parts of California some 100 or more days each year. I stay at campgrounds and camp- sites on most of these days; therefore, I was quite inter- ested to see Camping Around California. The book is basically a guide to car camping sites, with a few tips on local points of interest, available maps, and trip planning. In the front of each volume is a state map gridded into numbered squares. Each of these squares (22 for The North and 24 for The South) corresponds to a full- page map that shows the locations of campsites in rela- tion to towns, highways, rivers, and lakes. Opposite each map is a descriptive page with capsule writeups of the campsites in the area. A feature unique to Camping Around California is an insert on each map page showing the appropriate USGS topographic maps for the area. The user, however, must then transfer the USGS grid to the map with the aid of a pencil and ruler; marks along the margin of each map page are provided as a guide. I wonder why these grid lines were printed on the maps in the first place? The names of the USGS topographic maps may be useful if the reader intends to order them from the USGS by mail. But map stores and many mountaineering shops carry topographic maps, and most purchasers prefer to examine each map to see if it fits his needs before buying it. From my own experience, some topographic maps are not needed, even though they may indeed cover a portion of a trip — particularly if the terrain is flat (as in desert areas), or if the road or trail to be used crosses only a corner of a map or goes a half mile or so from the starting point before going onto another map. Therefore, the traveler can, by personal inspection, eliminate buying unneeded maps and, thus, retain his money for other needs. (Indices to the topo- graphic maps of the various states, incidentally, can be obtained free from the USGS or from your local map store.) Each capsule campsite writeup contains the following pertinent information: elevation, location and driving route from nearby towns, number and type of camp- sites, ownership (federal, state, or private), and general kinds of recreation available in the area. Unfortunately, the writeups do not contain information concerning the exact fee charged. Today, nearly all campsites charge a daily fee. Upon examining the campsite listings, I found that they are far from complete. In some cases, they are even inaccurate. Examples of campsites not listed are "Boulder Creek," a very large campground near Brighton Flat in the Stanislaus National Forest, and "Success Lake," a large campsite at Success Lake near Porterville. Both of these campgrounds have been in existence for at least 5 years. Inaccuracies include the listing of "Coffee Camp," on the Middle Fork of the Tule River in Sequoia National Forest, as a campsite, which it is not. There is nothing more discouraging than planning to use a listed campsite in an area you have never before visited and finding, upon your arrival, that it has been closed or changed to a day-use (picnic) area. I had just such an experience in 1968 with "Coffee Camp," which had been converted to a picnic area earlier that year. This makes me wonder if the authors of Camping Around California (published in 1972) actually checked out each campsite. Another erroneous listing: "Sawmill Flat," near Saddlebag Lake in the Tioga Pass area, has been closed and the road into the area has been blocked off, but the book lists it as being open. The majority of listings are in National Forests and State Parks, and a very few are county or private camp- sites. For those people "in the know," the National Forest listings are available in a free 80-page booklet, "National Forest Campgrounds in California." This booklet can be obtained at the headquarters of any National Forest or at the regional headquarters of the Forest Service in San Francisco. Its listings, however, are not always up-to-date. The most up-to-date campsite information and a more detailed writeup may be obtained by writing directly to each National Forest: each can supply you with a 6- to 20-page guide to the campsites within its own boundaries. These guides, which are available only from the Supervisor's Office of the specific National Forest in question, are free of charge. A postcard with your return address and a one- sentence request for the campsite guide and map is all that is needed. Very few of the private campgrounds for hire in Cali- fornia are listed. There are, in fact, numerous private campgrounds throughout the state. Usually, they are cleaner and less crowded than public campgrounds. The daily fees are equivalent to those of government camp- grounds. The back part of the book contains various bits of information about firewood availability, permits, and the like that may be helpful, particularly so to the begin- ner. The information about fees, however, is rather vague, and the section devoted to first-time campers and 25 what to bring is, in my opinion, both too vague and too brief. Living out of doors, of course, is very different from living in houses. When properly done, camping can be a comfortable and cheerful experience, whatever the weather. The price of $6.00 for the two volumes seems extremely high. Another well-known campground guide with a similar format has more listings for California (including private sites), information about the actual fees charged, and listings for all the other western states as well; it is updated yearly (in 1972, it was updated twice) and costs about one-third the price of Camping Around California. And, for less than 50 cents in post- age, one can obtain just as much information from appropriate federal, state, and private organizations. — Ted Niehaus Recently Published: Forest Heritage, A Natural History of the Del Monte Forest, compiled by Beatrice F. Howitt under the auspices of the California Plant Society. Descriptions of the various plants and animal communities from the littoral areas of the shore to the crest of Huckleberry Hill were contributed by Miss Howitt and the research staff of the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford Uni- versity and the Hastings Reservation of the University of California. Archeological notes on the Indian midden sites were presented by Don Howard, and a brief histori- cal resume of the part people have played in the develop- ment of the area was contributed by Frances Larkey. This illustrated 56-page booklet is available for $2.75 (plus 14 cents state sales tax, and 25 cents handling charge if mailed) from Forest Heritage Association, P.O. Box 716, Pebble Beach, CA 93953. FIELD TRIP REPORTS Santa Clara Valley Chapter A CNPS outing in a garbage dump may seem like a scenario for future years, but this was actually how some members of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter concluded an event this fall. Members of the chapter were invited to hear presen- tations about Bay region Quaternary studies by the U.S. Geological Survey given for the Pacific Coast Cell of Friends of the Pleistocene. They learned of the new technique of tephrachronology, which has aided in determining a minimum age for the formation of Mount Diablo. Terraces, faults, and sea erosion rates on the coastline from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay were dis- cussed. The seasonal flow of delta water into San Fran- cisco Bay was shown to be a significant factor in flushing pollutants from the South Bay. Exciting fossil finds from the dump were described, and some members later tried a hand at excavating 21,000-year-old materials from the dump's clay plugs on a field outing. It is hoped that further study of the resins of the recovered cypress and conifer material will aid in their classification. Naturally enough, the next chapter outing, on Octo- ber 14, found twenty-two members meeting after break- fast on the Highway 17 summit to visit the local Valley Chapter, led by Clifford Schmidt, visit the Abrams Cypress (Cupressus abramsiana) locality near Eagle Rock, Santa Cruz County, on October 14, 1972. endemic Abrams Cypress (Cupressus abramsiana) with botanist Clifford Schmidt near Eagle Rock. The mist and rain and occasional sun made a memorable day. After thanking Mr. Vince Locatelli for permission to walk on his property, we went to a site on Big Creek to look at some large California-Nutmegs (Torreya californica). We gathered many of their fruits, and admired a once tall but now fallen "nurse" tree that has sprouted vigorously all along to the very tip. A spring trip to the Sargent Cypress (Cupressus sargentii) of southern Alameda County was scouted with the help of Mrs. Lee Main of Hayward. Soon after, on October 28, a group of us met James R. Griffin in Monterey for a delightful visit to the S. F. B. Morse Botanic Reserve, where Gowen Cypress (Cupressus goveniana) and Bishop Pine (Pinus muricata) grow in an unusual natural habitat, surrounded by Monterey Pine (P. radiata) of the Del Monte Forest. We were later invited to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Larkey of Pebble Beach to see the specimen Monterey Cypresses (Cupressus macrocarpa) growing there. The largest of these was 24 feet around the base, and it was interesting to see evidences that many of the large trees were sprouts from the roots of former trees. 26 Members of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter, led by James Griffin, tour the S. F. B. Morse Botanical Reserve, Monterey County, on October 28, 1972. On November 6, Santa Clara Valley Chapter members Glenn and Gayle Baum, Doug and Gail Cheeseman, Natalie Hopkins, Stuart and Diane Olson, and Sally Casey helped with the new chapter's first plant-salvage effort. Plants were secured from roadsides near Coyote Reservoir, where, the County Public Works Department had informed us, a widening and regrading project was about to remove considerable vegetation from the right- of-way. Some plants are being held for the annual CNPS Plant Sale, but most will be planted in the natural area at De Anza College. We hope that the County will continue to keep us informed of pending roadwork. On November 11, twenty-two members and guests met with H. Thomas Harvey, ecologist and BCDC con- sultant, and Carl Sharsmith, botanist, to bravely walk in the wind in the Palo Alto Baylands. We saw that new Salicornia marsh is developing rapidly on the harbor dredgings, now that a dike has been breached in the Faber Tract area. It was a beautiful day. Members of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter have visited the endemic cypresses of our region and have pondered what cypresses and other conifers might have been here in our valley many years ago when continental glaciers were at their maximum and a much different climate prevailed. We have found time to keep in touch with what is, or might be, happening to the native plants of our foothill and baylands. We have visited Dick Hildreth of the Saratoga Horticultural Foundation to learn of propagation techniques. We have aided the successful campaign to create a Mid-Peninsula Regional Park by serving as plant-walk leaders on Black Mountain at the "Afternoon on a Hilltop" affair, which drew more than 2500 people. We began a series of leisurely Wednes- day walks among our native plants. And we have planned winter outings to the Mt. Hamilton Range and to the Santa Lucia Firs. There is much of interest in our region, and much to be done. — Grace Mason Sacramento Valley Chapter On Saturday, May 13, the Sacramento Valley Chapter of CNPS went to Wheeler Ridge on the Colusa County- Lake County line. We stopped in Bear Valley, where we looked at roadside plants while waiting for the group to consolidate. We were a bit late for most of the valley flower show, but we did see Cream Cups {Platystemon californicus) and some lupines. When all the cars had arrived, we went up onto the ridge, which is made up of serpentine. After looking at quite a number of plants and flowers, we sought shady spots in which to eat our lunches. When we resumed our trip, we drove through a forest of McNab Cypress (Cupressus macnabiana). We were off the serpentine when we stopped to see Mountain- Mahogany (Cercocarpus betuloides), a Fritillaria that was not in bloom, Garrya, and Ceonothus. At our next stop, we were again on serpentine, and Bitterroots (Lewisia rediviva) were all around us, making a lovely show of their delicate pink flowers. This was a hot place, but a little breeze tried to cool us. Nearby were showy Prickly Poppy plants (Argemone munita) and Golden Ear-Drops (Dicentra chrysantha). On June 10, we went to Boggs Lake in Lake County. In spite of the heavy rain on the previous day, we had a good turnout of approximately fifty people. Very few of us had ever heard of Boggs Lake, which is situated to the southwest of Clear Lake. Parking was no problem, so we were soon into waders and headed for the marsh. There is very little open water in Boggs Lake, but the gently sloping shore gave us quite an extensive area to examine. After lunch, we studied the vegetation around the lake above the water line. Jack Major was our botanist for this trip. Father's Day, June 18, was "Operation Salvage" for several members of our chapter. Mr. Ken Mahurin, who is a grandson of the late Carl Purdy, arranged with a real estate developer for us to dig bulbs of Calochortus and Brodiaea. There must be several among us who remember Carl Purdy's nursery operation out of Ukiah. His catalog specialized in wild plants, although he also listed the very latest introductions of "improved" plants of species long in cultivation. At the property, we met Mr. Mahurin, who took us to the best digging spots. We dug Calochortus venustus, Brodiaea laxa, B. capitata, and B. ixiodes. The latter were very few, because gophers had already had most of them for lunch on an earlier day. On July 23, under the leadership of Dr. G. Ledyard Stebbins, we and our guests journeyed to the mountains in the vicinity of Kit Carson Pass. At the foot of the Meiss Lake Trail, Dr. Stebbins called the group together and counted about 75 people. 27 Because of the large turnout, he asked Dr. Albert Delisle, Lillian Mott, and Don Smith to help answer the many questions that were sure to be asked. We had barely started out on the trail when we stopped to examine our surroundings. Besides a variety of herbaceous plants, we also admired the lovely old junipers, pines, and aspens. Dr. Stebbins pointed out that we were on granite, whereas we would soon be on lava where the plants would be very different. When we got up to the lava, the plants were dwarfed, but a great variety of plants seemed to be adapted to growing in this material. We were too late to see the Beckwith Violet (Viola beckwithii), which is endemic to this area. Around the 8000-foot level, we found the rare Townsend-Daisy or Ground-Daisy (Townsendia scapigera), a charming ground-hugger with large, soft pink flowers. It was the high point of the trip. — Joy A. Kester Sierra—Santa Monica Chapter On February 26 and 27, Helen Witham, Associate Curator of Botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum, led us on a weekend camping trip to Anza- Borrego that was highlighted by a rugged climb to view a group of Elephant Trees (Bursera microphylla), a botan- ical rarity in California. On April 8, Dr. Barbara Collins of the Botany Depart- ment at California Lutheran College conducted our group on a day-long expedition beginning in the Palm Springs area and ending in the San Jacinto Mountains. At one point on this trip, we drove for several miles through an extensive stand of Red Shanks or Ribbon Wood (Adenostoma sparsifolium). This seems to be one of the few places in which this brother to the ever- abundant Chamise (A. fasciculatum) grows in such pro- fusion. The Memorial Day weekend field trip (May 28 and 29) to Eureka Valley and the high desert in Inyo County was a most fascinating and rewarding botanical and per- sonal experience, due entirely to the encompassing knowledge and warm friendliness of the leader, Mary DeDecker. She and her husband, Paul, have lived in Independence for many years, and they know that vast area on the eastern edge of the Sierra with a thorough- ness that one brings only to what one loves. Mary has a flora of the Owens Valley almost ready for publication. We met just north of Big Pine early in the morning and began the car trek east on highway 168. Almost from the beginning, we could see evidence of the zona- tion that is such a striking feature of the western slope of the White Mountains. With each thousand feet of elevation, the zones of vegetation changed. We went rapidly from the valley floor, with its bright yellow Bush Sunflowers (Encelia virginiensis ssp. actonii), to the Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata) association at 5000 feet, where we encountered Sticky Rabbit-Brush (Chrysothamnus paniculatus) not yet in bud and Black- bush (Coleogyne ramossisima), to Shadscale Shrub at 6000 feet, where we stopped to examine Hopsage (Grayia spinosa), Fourwing Saltbush (Atriplex canescens) and Shadscale (A confertifolia), the type plant itself. Then we continued on up to the Sagebrush Scrub at 7000 feet, which included both Low Sagebrush and Basin Sagebrush (Artemisia arbuscula ssp. nova and A. tridentata). Still ascending, we reached the Pinyon- Juniper Woodland at 8000 feet. There we found Bitter- bush (Purshia glandulosa), an important browse plant. The bright yellow flowers proved to be Nevada Viguiera (Viguiera multiflora var. nevadensis). The Sagebrush and Shadscale zones appeared again at higher elevations. These belts of vegetation are apparently the result of adiabatic cooling. For each 1000-foot rise in elevation, there is a temperature drop of approximately 5.5 F. In addition to the obvious influence of temperature on the plants, this cooling affects the storms that manage to cross the Sierra; con- sequently, there is a buildup of rainfall on the upper slopes of these mountains. What seems to be the base of these mountains is actually a series of alluvial fans gradually descending to boulder-strewn canyons cut by various streambeds and smaller waterways. This driest of dry years in a dry country had little to show us in the way of spring annuals. We did see some Yellow-Throats (Phacelia fremontii) and two species of Forget-Me-Nots, Golden and Sulphur-Throated (Cryptantha confertiflora and C. flavoculata). Up a rocky way from the dry canyon floor, we encountered Prickleleaf (Hecastocleis shockleyi), an endemic composite. Most of the color here (yellow) was provided by Prince's Plume (Stanleya elata, with basal leaves) and its next of kin, Desert Plume (S. pinnata, with leaves on the stem). The most numerous species on the comprehensive plant lists provided for us were members of the genus Eriogonum. Paul DeDecker calls the area "The Buck- wheat Kingdom," and we saw each of the eleven species listed, some of them in early leaf, and others, such as Pagoda Buckwheat (E. rexfordii) and Bird's Nest Buck- wheat (E. nidularium), in their complex and fascinating dried form. Way up in the Last Chance Mountains, there were several plants of a low, rounded, gray-green buck- wheat covered with balls of intricate yellow bloom. This may have been E. aurulentum, or it may be a new species — its discoverer, Mary DeDecker. The Last Chance Mountains held other charms. There, we were introduced to Sunray (Enceliopsis nudicaulis), a close cousin of the CNPS emblem, and a 28 rare and unusual parsley (Cymopterus gilmani). Later, at Mary's home herbarium, we saw mounted specimens of both of these species that had been collected in a year with normal rainfall, and we realized again that this was a sadly dry year. At sunset, as we camped below California's largest dune, the long shadows crept down, changing the dune and changing it again. To the east rose a rock mountain striped broadly with chocolate, mocha, and cream. Later, a full moon lit the dune and the striped candy mountain with still another change, as we stared into the flickering flames of our campfire. In the very early morning, at least one of us collected three special dune plants: the boraginaceous Coldenia plicata, which has a bulb at the end of the root for food storage, Brown-Eyed Primrose {Camissonia claviformis), and Eureka Dune Grass (Swallenia alexandrae), which serves to hold the dunes together. And so we started home. We had had a rare and won- derful experience: to learn nearly all there is to know of a part of our state — its history, geology, geography, fauna, and flora — from exceptional people whose beloved homeland it is. On Saturday, June 3, we joined the San Luis Obispo Chapter on an overnight trip, led by Dr. Dirk Walters, through the Cuyama Valley in Kern County. A Sunday morning hike to the moist meadow near the top of Mount Pinos rewarded us with Corn-Lilies (Veratrum californicum), many Western Blue Flags (Iris mis- souriensis), and a creeping meadow monkey-flower, Mimulus primuloides var. pilosellus. There were magnifi- cent Limber Pines (Pinus flexilis) at the summit. — Nancy Dale ERNEST C. TWISSELMANN (1917-1972) Ernest Twisselmann, an active member of CNPS, passed away on November 20, 1972. Mr. Twisselmann was a rancher and life-long resi- dent of Cholame, San Luis Obispo County. About twenty years ago, he became interested in the plants of his ranch and adjacent Kern County; this was the beginning of a second career, that of an excellent amateur botanist. His most important contribution in this field was his Flora of Kern County, which was pub- lished in 1967. — Elizabeth McClintock