October 1989 FREMONTIA A Journal of the California Native Plant Society FREMONTIA Vol. 17 No. 3 October 1989 Copyright © I989 California Native Plant Society Phyllis M. Fabcr, Editor Laurence J. Hyman, Art Director Beth Hansen, Designer EDITORIAL California Native Plant Society Dedicated to the Preservation of the California Native Flora The California Native Plant Society is an organization of laymen and professionals united by an interest in the plants of California. It is open to all. Its principal aims are to preserve the native flora and to add to the knowledge of members and the public at large. It seeks to accomplish the former goal in a number of ways; by monitoring rare and endangered plants throughout the State; by acting to save endan- gered areas through publicity, persuasion, and, on occasion, legal action; by providing expert testimony to government bodies; and by supporting financially and otherwise the establishment of native plant preserves. Much of this work is done through CNPS Chapters throughout the State. The Society's educational work includes: pub- lication of a quarterly journal, Fremontia, and a quarterly Bulletin which gives news and announcements of Society events and conser- vation issues. Chapters hold meetings, field trips, and plant and poster sales. Non-members are welcome to attend. The work of the Society is done by volunteers. Money is provided by the dues of members and by funds raised by chapter plant and poster sales. Additional donations, bequests, and memorial gifts from friends of the Society can assist greatly in carrying forward the work of the Society. Dues and donations are tax-deductible. The lead article in this issue of Fremontia by Jerry Emory is about the Carrizo Plain, a place many readers will not have ever visited but which they will enjoy through Jerry's vivid descrip- tions. To date the Carrizo Plain has escaped the heavy develop- ment of the San Joaquin Valley because of its geographic isolation. Californians are fortunate that The Nature Conserv- ancy has recognized the ecologic value of this isolated plain and is focusing attention on protecting it. The CNPS State Board is going through a long-range planning process to set directions for the future of the organization. What are the short- and long-range goals of CNPS? Does our program fully implement these goals? Should the organization assume a greater activist role in conservation and should there be more staff to help? Should there be a greater effort in the field of education? There are many decisions that need to be made so that we can most effectively protect the flora of California. The Board solicits and welcomes your views and opinions. We do know that we need a larger base of support; each member can help with that task by adding new names to our membership list. We need new members to share the workload in chapters and to add new energy and ideas to the organization, as well as to add to our financial base. How about adding CNPS memberships to your Christmas giving list this year? As our membership has been growing, so too has our effectiveness throughout the state. The task is enormous and we encourage everyone's participation. ^PLlix*^. >-et- Phyllis M. Faber ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Jack H. Burk, professor of botany at California State University, Fullerton, is currently working on the ecology of rare and endangered plants. Everett Butts was a close friend of Forest Sheehan and is the owner of the Wapumne Native Plant Nursery in Lincoln. Ronald A. Coleman is an electronics engineer for the Hughes Aircraft Co. and author of a series in Fremontia about orchids. Jerry Emory is a freelance writer in the Bay Area and a frequent contributor to Pacific Discovery. C. Eugene Jones is professor of botany at California State University, Fullerton. His field is pollination ecology and he is particularly interested in the reproductive biology of rare and endangered plants. Elizabeth McClintock is a research associate at the University of California at Berkeley, chairman of the CNPS Exotic Plant Committee and a past contributor to Fremontia. Marshall D. Murray has worked in forestry in the Pacific Northwest (Washington) for the past thirty years and is a past contributor to Fremontia. John Wheeler is a graduate student in the botany department at California State University, Fullerton, where he is studying the ecology of rare and endangered plants. His thesis is on the demography of the Santa Ana woolly-star. The cover photograph of Painted Rock by Phoebe Eng was taken on the Carrizo Plain, the subject of the lead article in this issue ofFremontia. 2 £&^JWJ* ¦'//f' h *^ 0* * ^ ST": f lP*3Sfc: ?**Wf*'-£ *#"5fe^.. -ass*--*% -% -¦. -,;w Looking north toward the Carrizo Plain from the slopes on Mt. Pinos, stands of pinon pine (Pinus monophylla) interface with a juniper associ- ation (Juniperus californicus) at lower elevations. This, in turn, yields to annual grassland on the faulted hills of the middle distance. Saltbush scrub and alkali sink are in the distant haze. Photograph by Robert F. Holland. THE CARRIZO PLAIN: A THIN SLICE OF CALIFORNIA'S PAST by Jerry Emory On a cold, still, winter afternoon, a cloudless pale- blue sky signaled a far colder night to come on the Carrizo Plain. At first a distant whistling sound was barely perceptible, but it soon separated into thousands of sandhill cranes as they made a choreographed descent onto the open, flat plain. Elsewhere, this annual display of life and power might pass unnoticed. But in the center of California's empty quarter, in the barren and at times hauntingly quiet Carrizo Plain, the sight of falling gray lines of trumpeting cranes on that winter afternoon grabbed me like two strong hands, commanding my attention, encouraging humility. That the Carrizo Plain exists in a relatively natural condition is impressive in itself. Flanked by rural communities, the San Joaquin Valley oil and agricul- tural fields to the east and rich coastal valleys to the west, the Carrizo is home to one of the greatest concen- trations of rare and endangered plants and animals in California. Too arid for intensive agriculture, and sufficiently remote to discourage casual visitors, the stark, treeless Carrizo Plain survives as one of the last wild valley ecosystems and as a thin slice of a once-wild California landscape. Isolated by the Temblor Mountains Hidden away roughly 225 miles southeast of San Francisco on the border between San Luis Obispo and Kern counties, the Carrizo would have been a small sideshow of the impressive San Joaquin Valley if not for the bare-knuckled Temblor Mountains, which dominate 3 the plain's eastern edge. Rising to over 4300 feet, the Temblors isolate the plain from neighboring valleys while allowing limited passage to plants and animals from the east. The mountains' sun-baked slopes set the Carrizo apart from what remains of its closest ecological equivalent: the southern San Joaquin Valley of several centuries ago. To the west of the Carrizo Plain, the La Panza and Caliente ranges reach elevations of 5100 feet, shield this ten-mile wide depression from the cooling influence of the Pacific. The little rain the Carrizo does receive-on average less than ten inches annually-squeaks in with effort. Early Chumash Indians, forefathers of the Chumash people who first greeted Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo's expedition off the coast in 1542, frequented the plain 7000 years ago, and probably earlier. From the alkali shores of Carrizo's then-larger Soda Lake, strung out midway between parallel mountain ranges, these first inhabitants could look north to smooth waves of grass- covered hills and remnants of a stream bed. Tectonic uplifting at the northern end of the Carrizo, and a gradual trend toward a drier climate, turned a semi- verdant valley of 10,000 years ago into a dry yet ecologically rich basin forty-five miles long. Deprived of both its outlet and previously abundant runoff, Soda Lake began to shrink and mineralize. Today it is one of the state's largest undisturbed alkali wetlands. To the south, the first Californians, standing amongst bunch grasses and saltbush on the valley floor, could eye the tapering of the Calientes and Temblors toward more grass and chaparral-covered hills. Unlike the formations to the north, these were gargantuan by-products of the Tehachapi Mountains and Transverse Range uplift, crowding and surging thousands of feet to the pine-clad summit of Mt. Pinos. A Spiritual Center for the Chumash It was to this remote plain of subtle opulence that the Interior Chumash seasonally traveled to hunt, gather, trade, and worship. The spiritual importance of the area to these largely coastal Indians and their ancestors is evidenced by a solitary physical feature, Painted Rock. Dr. Georgia Lee of the Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes, before vandalism began in the late 1800s, "Painted Rock was probably one of the finest aboriginal rock paintings in North America." That is quite a statement, but for anyone who has visited this horseshoe-shaped chunk of sandstone rising an abrupt fifty feet from the plain, it is understandable- the outcropping is striking testimony to Chumash cosmology and the more mundane activities of everyday living. The significance of its womb-like portal was not lost on the Indians, who attributed deep meaning to uniquely-shaped rocks. Atop Painted Rock, Chumash elders could have greeted visiting Yokuts from the east, or Salinans from the north. After paying homage to animal deities, perhaps young hunters set out from the mouth of the rock to kill abundant game as their predecessors had done with projectile points and atlatls. Chert or "flint" hand tools and arrow heads, quarried from the neighbor- ing Temblors and shaped by Chumash hands, have been found throughout the former territory of the Chumash: present-day San Luis Obispo south to Malibu Canyon and seaward to the northern Channel Islands. A wonderful environment indeed. Before the full social and biological impact of the Spanish arrival was felt in the early 1800s, the Carrizo Plain-and most of California-supported enormous herds of pronghorn Suiim.-! mvr Ilic Carri/o Plain willi lln- Temblor Mountains in llic distance. Photograph courtesy of The Nature Conservancy. Carpets of owl's clover (Orthocarpus purpurescens) and goldfields (Lasthenia sp.) border Soda Lake in the spring. Photograph by T. Hesseldenz. antelope, tule elk, and mule deer. Grizzly bears, mountain lions, and wolves stalked mid-plain through luxuriant bunch grasses, while resident and migrating waterfowl, shorebirds, and landbirds competed for insects and seeds. Georgia Lee believes the nearby Yokuts visited frequently from the San Joaquin Valley and the Kawaiisu and Tubatulabal Indians ventured from the southern Sierra Nevada and present-day Lancaster to hunt the fertile plain now called Carrizo. Between 1769 and 1823, twenty-one Spanish mis- sions were built along coastal California from San Diego north to Solano County. Prospering far from the Carrizo, the missions' influence penetrated the hidden valleys of the central Coast Range and into the heart and soul of the Chumash and their country. By most accounts the Chumash were unusually kind to the Spaniards, but disease, and the stress upon an embattled culture, eventually decimated the population. By the middle of the 1800s the surviving Chumash were suffering from what anthropologist Alfred Kroeber described in 1925 as a broken spirit and deep inward depression. Besides Catholicism and the attempt to substitute mission life for traditional ways, Spaniards introduced livestock and exotic grasses to the Carrizo, and most of the western United states. Cattle, horses, sheep, and wild oats (Avena spp.)-powerful symbols of any contemporary western scene-were biotic newcomers, Old World immigrants homesteading in a distant yet familiar Mediterranean climate. Between 1800 and 1840, tens of thousands, and at times hundreds of thousands, of semi-feral cattle and horses grazed around the missions and well into the Central Valley. Up to five million cattle were killed for their hides and tallow during this forty- year period. By 1825, over one million sheep were cropping the increasingly bare hillsides of California. Carrizo Plains Hidden Away Even with a substantial and early Spanish presence in "Alta California," descriptions of the Carrizo are surprisingly absent from mission records. However, archaeologist and mission archive specialist John. Johnson, of Santa Barbara's Museum of Natural His- tory, believes one of the first military governors of California, Pedro Fages, passed through the region in 1772. The first known account of the Carrizo-then infrequently called the "Llano Estero," or Salt Marsh Plain-did not appear until after the end of Spanish and Mexican rule. "Still further to the east is found another remarkable feature," wrote Lieutenant John G. Parke during an early 1850s railroad survey, "the Estero, a broad, smooth plain, destitute of timber and shrubbery, cut off from Estrella and Cuyama, and also from the 5 Tulare [San Joaquin] valleys. .. .This plain had the appearance of a basin, having a broad and shallow lagoon near its centre, whose waters were evaporated during the dry season..." Parke's description could hold true to this day: it is the "remarkable" Carrizo, but without the lively encamp- ments of Chumash or the alert game herds present a century before. By the early 1880s, only a small percentage of the Chumash people survived at several missions. Forcefully separated from their customs and native religion, diluted and destitute, the descendants of skillful hunters learned to tend cattle while others drifted aimlessly between coastal settlements. The pictographs of Painted Rock, cosmological interpreta- tions of countless Chumash shamans, silently endured as records of another life the remaining Indians could not comprehend. The west facing slopes of the Temblor Mountains (right) support a desert scrub community with yucca (Yucca whipplei) (shown here), and mormon tea the dominant plants. Photograph by Alan McCready. The desert candle ( Caulanthus inflatus) (below) grows well in years of gentle spring rains. Its close relative, the rare and en- dangered California jewel flower ( Caulanthus californicus) was re- discovered in the spring of 1988. Photograph by Saxon Holt. i \i li i H in 11 i i|||i|i|||W||H By 1861, William Brewer, in his classic account of a rapidly changing California landscape, reported that "Game was once very abundant-bear in the hills, and deer, antelope, and elk-like cattle in herds___All are now exterminated, but we find their horns by the hundreds." Demand for Meat Not all the game had been exterminated of course, but nearly so. The discovery of gold in 1848 drew tens of thousands of fortune-seekers to California. Between 1849 and 1857, nearly 400,000 people traveled to Califor- nia by ship alone. Their arrival marked the beginning of the decline for many wildlife species and set the tone for both Parke's and Brewer's observations. A skyrocketing demand for fresh meat in San Francisco and the Sierran gold mining regions lured professional hunters into the back country, combing the state in an all-out war against any animal that could be cooked and eaten. With its native tule elk, pronghorn antelope, and predators essentially removed, the Carrizo Plain of the 1880s was open territory for far-ranging herds of cattle, horses, and sheep. What fed these animals, however, was not the bunch grasses favored by the area's former grazers, but a hearty array of introduced grasses that hitchhiked north in the baggage of Spanish explorers and missionaries, and in the hair, hooves, and stomachs of their livestock. Red and ripgut brome {Bromus rubens and B. diandrus), foxtail barley {Hordeum lepor- inum), soft chess (Bromus mollis), and wild oats (Avena fatua and A. barbata) - plants that had survived thousands of years with domestic grazers in the Old World-now dominated. They would forever change the character of California's grasslands. Step onto any sidewalk, stroll through your neighborhood park, or venture out across the Carrizo, and introduced annual grasses will almost certainly monopolize the ground cover. A Nature Conservancy Preserve In most respects, today's Carrizo Plain is not greatly different from that of the 1880s. "The whole Carrizo, the whole plain, has been grazed. Every square inch of it," admits Ken Wiley, Central Coast Representative for The California Nature Conservancy. For an estimated fourteen million dollars, joint Bureau of Land Manage- ment and Nature Conservancy efforts have recently preserved 180,000 acres of the Carrizo, essentially its southern, least developed and driest half. Painted Rock, and the surrounding Painted Rock Ranch, are now owned by The Nature Conservancy as part of the Carrizo Plain Preserve. "But in a relative sense," emphasizes Wiley, "compared to what exists on the east side of the Temblor Mountains, the Carrizo Plain is pristine." That "relativity" acknowledges that portions of the Carrizo were plowed under starting in 1885, and with particular determination during the two world wars, for the dry farming of wheat. "They farmed every piece of land that you could even believe you could get a tractor on," states Ann Chadwick, Carrizo resident and botanist. "They were farming slopes along the foothills where the tractors actually rolled over." Wiley's statement also concedes to the short-lived turn-of-the-century struggle to convert Soda Lake's blinding-white shorelines into a commercially-viable sodium sulphate operation. Barely a trace of this operation remains. In the early 1960s, real estate developers purchased large tracts of land just north of Soda Lake and scratched out road, complete with street names. Twenty-five years later, 200 people call the amorphous California Valley settlement home; thou- sands of plots remain vacant. Colonizing plants, ground squirrels, and an occasional badger have moved in. Transmission lines from the controversial Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant ride stiff-legged towers Painted Rock, a spiritual center for the Chumash Indians, once prob- ably contained some of the finest aboriginal rock paintings in North America. Photograph by Phoebe Eng. .*.'*" ¦:;:¦:• **-. r. •¦ ¦ "¦' z . ¦ ¦ ¦••i. . .,'¦'¦¦-'.. A-i ¦•¦¦ v •-.¦ ¦ '¦ ¦ * ¦ * ^f*fi-.'-', r * V*U> j%*>^ V-*1- «>*WE * . .^1 --«.*¦ "" * - . i j ? S f ' ¦ - - .*. »_. ...»¦,* .f ' ¦ i ¦- 7 across Parke's "smooth, broad plain," high-stepping from west to east over the empty ranchette plots to a Central Valley substation. A few miles to the northwest, before the Carrizo begins to roll and buck into a swell of foothills, Arco Solar's 170-acre array of photovoltaic panels silently supplies PG&E's power grid. Home for Endangered Species Desiccating summers, with their typical ninety- degree days, and lip-cracking winds, come and go. If winter rains are even slightly favorable, and Soda Lake's crystalline basin fills, a quarter of the state's wintering sandhill crane population may dally well into the spring before migrating north. The crane's distinctive music echoes above the plain like the drawn-out rattling of old hollow bones-an ancient voice, once common above Pleistocene shorelines. Sharing the crane's austere habitat are a host of native species that, after shouldering the environmental changes of the past two centuries, are becoming increas- ingly rare in other parts of their dwindling range. The region's list of endangered, rare, and threatened animal species is sadly impressive by any standard: San Joaquin kit fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica), blunt-nosed leopard lizard {Crotaphytus gambelia), giant kangaroo rat (Dipodomys ingens), and San Joaquin antelope ground squirrel (Ammospermophilus nelsoni). The endemic Jared's peppergrass {Lepidium jaredii), described as one of the world's most highly localized plant species, along with several of California's rarest plants, the California jewel flower (Caulanthus califor- nicus) and the Lost Hills saltmat (Atriplex vallicola), San Joaquin kit fox pups outside their den on the Carrizo Plain. This is one of several animal species severely endangered by man's ac- tivities in the area. Photograph by Tupper Ansel Blake. miraculously survive in the Carrizo. Other endemics living in the plain include San Joaquin woolly-threads (Lembertia congdonii) and Hoover's woolly-star (Eriastrum hooveri). Before the entire population was removed into a last- ditch captive-breeding program, the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) was known to use the southern Carrizo as a foraging ground. Amply stocked with sheep and cattle, and offering few obstacles save the occasional hump of a Basque sheepherder's trailer, the plain once served as a custom-made fast-food runway for these 747s of the avian world. Old timers tell of windless days when condors, crop-heavy after dining on well-seasoned Carrizo mutton or beef carrion, wad- dled to nearby knolls seeking sufficient breeze to fill their nearly ten-foot wingspans. Backed with a $250,000 grant from the Flintridge Foundation, The California Nature Conservancy is conducting baseline studies of the Carrizo's rare plants, wildlife, and soils. Results will be entered into the Bureau of Land Management's geographic information computer base and used to formulate management plans and guide the Conservancy in reintroducing native plant and animal species. "Our end goal," states Nature Conservancy ecologist Rich Reiner, "is a balance of what was out there and what is needed to perpetuate these endangered species." A Restoration Challenge Preeminent field zoologist Joseph Grinnell noted the absence of various species in the Carrizo during a 1912 visit. In his unpublished field notes, Grinnell made particular mention of pronghorn antelope. "[The Carrizo Plain] is mostly unfenced and is yet but very sparsely settled.. .it looks like an ideal range for antelope." Seventy-six years later, over 300 pronghorn antelope from California's Modoc Plateau were relocated to the Carrizo area. Although many of the animals took off running, bypassing the plain for the grazing lands at its outskirts, biologists from California's Department of Fish and Game are confident the animals will eventually settle in. In what may turn out to be a considerable challenge, The Conservancy hopes to plant saltbush, a bluegrass (Poa scabrella), and needlegrass (Stipa spp.)-natives which may have once been more abundant. Core sam- ples taken from Soda Lake are stratified with plant pollen. An uncommon procedure called opal phytolith analysis is used to determine grass species which may guide The Nature Conservancy ecologists in their revegetation efforts. However, as rangeland expert L. T Burcham once commented in the 1950s, the species composition of California's former grasslands (and therefore the Car- «^&^*%&^W&^'jdU Alkali larkspur (Delphinium parishii) grows in the alkali wetlands and grasslands around Soda Lake and is on the CNPS List IB, rare, threatened, or endangered in California. Photograph courtesy of The Nature Conservancy. rizo) might remain a matter of conjecture. Range ecologist James Bartolome explains: "The botanical explorers and other people that described California's vegetation simply showed up too late to describe the original grassland." It is not surprising that experts remain divided over the former extent of native grasses, and the relative ecological importance of native versus introduced perennial and annual plants to today's grasslands. Some range specialists and botanists call California's exotic plants "new natives"-they might as well, as there is no getting rid of them. Although some evidence argues that several exotic grasses may have taken root even before the arrival of missionaries in 1769-after rafting to land from early maritime expeditions, or being left behind during brief onshore sojourns by man and horse-the bulk arrived with or in the wake of the. padres. By 1860, there were an estimated 130 alien plants in the state. Today, there are well over 1000. Should Man Intervene? Not everyone agrees that manipulative management scenarios are necessary for the Carrizo. Rancher, naturalist, and California Academy of Sciences' Fellow Eben McMillan was born and raised just north of the plain. He has known the land intimately for over eighty years. "What you need in the Carrizo is a good-sized preserve you can walk away from and leave alone, regard- less of what happens," McMillan declares. Although he would like to see strategic fencing against livestock grazing on certain areas of the preserve, McMillan prefers nature's slow and tedious efforts to revegetate. He believes it would be easier, and far more interesting and instructive, to allow the Carrizo's native plants and animals to find a new equilibrium on their own. Why even worry about what the Carrizo looked like in the past? For a landscape with the same physical structure of 250 years ago, why write management plans, talk of restoration, or reintroduce native plants and animals? What about the native bluegrass and needlegrass? Perhaps they too were once intruders. Why preserve the Carrizo? Of California's fourteen biogeographic provinces, only the Great Central Valley-where a meager four percent of the terrain remains unaltered-is not rep- resented by a large park or preserve. "The Carrizo would be that preserve," claims Steve McCormick, Director of The California Nature Conservancy, "It is self-contained. It is protectable. It is almost like an island on the mainland." 9 Saltbush (Atriplex polycarpa) scrub (top) near the margin of Soda Lake on the Carrizo Plain. White crust is salt that precludes plant growth. Looser soil mounded around the saltbush supports intro- duced annual grasses as well as several native annual forbs. Photo- graph by Robert F. Holland. Needlegrass (Stipa speciosa) (above), a native perennial bunchgrass may once have been more abundant on the Carrizo Plain. Photograph by Saxon Holt. The Carrizo obviously meets several prerequisites for land-deserving preservation. It embodies all the proper superlatives: it is awesome, inspiring, and good to remember when back in the city. And yet its roads, small communities, and history of intense grazing shatter the typical image of a wild area or preserve, especially one that harbors so many endangered plants and animals. With a diminishing cross-section of wild lands remain- ing in California, places like the Carrizo-landscapes that evoke visions of wilderness, and a feel of isolation, while actually being quite tame and accessible-will command increased attention as lands with the makings of a wild area worth preserving. It could be that the current interest in the Carrizo comes down mostly to dimension. "I was so impressed with its size," Steve McCormick recalls, recounting his first spring visit to the Carrizo. "It was startling to me that a flat area, so close to agriculture and to develop- ment, was so untouched. That day was very dramatic, with dark clouds hanging overhead. It had rained recently, and wildflowers were already in bloom. Larkspur was all over the ground. So you had a wonder- ful green, a dark kind of green, because the sky was so dark, and the Temblor Range and the Caliente Range lining out as far as you could see." The San Andreas Fault On a late October afternoon I made my way along the eastern edge of the Carrizo, surprising a beautiful brown golden eagle tearing at a jackrabbit between flexed talons. Running and pumping along the ground, the eagle caught wind, soaring toward the Temblors. At the mountains' western edge, a series of offset valleys indicate the presence of the San Andreas Fault. Like the hunched, knobby vertebrae of some subterranean levia- than, the San Andreas rips down the length of the aptly- named Temblors, quietly terrifying the land. Nowhere else does the fault surface more dramatically. That evening, I camped high up on the Temblors by Midway Peak. To the east, the Central Valley towns of Taft and Bakersfield, islands of light on the patchwork valley floor, began to glow under the backdrop of the southern Sierra. On a cold, thick wind, the smell of oil derricks, thousands of them, worked its way up the mountains' dry eastern flanks from the petroleum fields of Fellows. Westward the setting sun offered a startlingly different scene. This was another California, one without con- gested freeways, urban sprawl, and artificial landscapes. Slight changes in terrain, plant associations, and differ- ences in soils-basic elements that color a walk through the Carrizo-blended in the slipping light. Two thousand feet below, uniform silence and aspect covered the plain, like a thin brown sheet held tight at the corners. 10 'i»* v^ * *tf * ^*\l; ** 'w „¦•¦ '^jSrt - **W • ' The forests of the San Gabriel Mountains are open and parklike. Photographs by the author. CONIFER FORESTS IN THE SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS by Marshall D. Murray Conifer forests grow above the chaparral in the San Gabriel Mountains, part of the Transverse Ranges of Southern California that separate the coastal plain from the desert. South of the San Gabriels is the sprawling Los Angeles metropolitan area stretching from the sea to the lower ramparts of these towering mountains. North of the San Gabriels is the scorching Mojave Desert. The conifers of the San Gabriel Mountains, now isolated from their counterparts in the Sierra Nevada by broad areas of grassland,-Tshaparral, and desert, are remnants of a more widespread forest when the climate was more moist. As the climate has changed and become more arid, conifers have become restricted to the high mountains where moisture is adequate for their survival. Rising to elevations up to 10,084 feet, the San Gabriel Mountains, some forty miles from the Pacific Ocean, intercept moisture from passing storms. Useful to Early Arrivals Native Americans living in the shadow of the San Gabriels were familiar with the conifers, as their trails follow the canyons and high ridges that penetrate into the mountain range. The Spanish learned of the conifers from the Indians, and used timber from the mountains to build their missions. After the early 1840s, prospectors, hunters, home- steaders, and government surveyors from eastern states also became acquainted with the trees. In 1864 Benja- min Wilson, an early landowner in the San Gabriel Valley, built a trail to the top of a peak in the San Gabriel Range to harvest the conifers growing there. Although logging of the trees lasted only a few weeks, the trail remained and was used by those seeking recreation in the mountain forests. Thirty years after Wilson built his 11 trail, Samuel Parish became the first botanist to report on the distribution of Southern California trees. This San Bernardino rancher had only a limited knowledge of the conifers growing on the San Gabriel Mountains at that time, and it was not until the 20th century that precise information on the conifer species distribution became available. Twelve Species of Conifers Twelve species of conifers grow in these rugged mountains in an array of habitats ranging from low sheltered canyons to high storm-battered ridges and dry desert borderlands. Trees of the mixed conifer forest include sugar pine {Pinus lambertiana), incense-cedar {Calocedrus decur- rens), Jeffrey pine {Pinus Jeffreyi), and ponderosa pine {Pinus ponderosa). These trees develop best on north and east facing slopes in areas of deep soil and adequate moisture. In this environment the trees are tall and their diameters are large. The largest sugar pine found in the San Gabriels was seven and one-half feet in diameter. On steep, wind-swept slopes and ridges, the trees are short and their tops are flattened. The forest is everywhere open and park-like, except in rare areas of high moisture. Both young and conifer reproduction and herbaceous vegetation are sparse beneath the widely spaced trees. Litter accumulation is low because of the steep slopes. Scattered understory shrubs may include bush chinquapin {Chrysolepis sempervirens), mountain whitethorn ceanothus {Ceanothus cordulatus), green- leaf manzanita {Arctostaphylos patula subsp. platyphylla), and currants {Ribes spp.). In addition to growing with other conifers, Jeffrey pine forms pure stands on dry, rocky upper slopes of the range, and on the lower Mojave Desert border, this pine is associated with single leaf pinyon pine {Pinus monophylla) and two species of mountain mahogany {Cercocarpus betuloides subsp. betuloides and C. ledifolius). Ponderosa pine is less tolerant of drought and low temperatures than Jeffrey pine with which it some- times grows side by side, and is more common in moist areas on the coastal side of the range. Sugar Pine, the Most Splendid Tree Many forest visitors consider sugar pine to be the most beautiful tree of the mixed conifer forest. After discovering this tree in 1826, David Douglas, the great Scottish botanical explorer, wrote that sugar pine is Looking across the San Gabriel Mountains to the north toward the scorching Mojave Desert. 12 unquestionably the most splendid of the American trees. He noted that "the trees have cones hanging from their points like small sugar-loaves in a grocer's shop." Sugar pine cones are large, ranging from twelve to eighteen inches long, or sometimes twenty-four inches, but to one standing on the ground looking up nearly 200 feet in the air to the top of a large tree, the cones may appear to be quite small. The white fir (Abies concolor, heavily infested with a leafy mistletoe (Phoradendron bolleanum subsp. pauciflorum) appears out of place in these arid mountains. On some of the trees mistletoe growth is so heavy there are more green leaves of this parasite than white fir needles. Incense-cedar growing in the San Gabriel Mountains is generally found near streams and springs and on cool north slopes. Many large incense-cedar can be seen along the creek in lower Icehouse Canyon. Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri) grows on dry, rocky slopes and ridges at the lower edges of the mixed conifer forest where repeated fires have converted the forest to chaparral. This California endemic has the world's heaviest pine cones, some weighing as much as eight pounds. Its most extensive occurrence in the San Gabriels is the Coulter pine flats of the Chilao-Charlton Flat-Alder Saddle-Mt. Waterman area. Some observant visitors may notice some scattered knobcone pine Pinus attenuata) growing with Coulter pine at Charlton Flat; this closed-cone pine was planted after a burn and is not native to these mountains. John Muir Visited During an 1877 visit to Southern California, John Muir explored the San Gabriel Mountains by hiking up Eaton Canyon to a high point north of Pasadena. He reached an elevation of about 5000 feet, but the only conifer he saw on his trip was big-cone spruce (Pseudo- tsuga macrocarpa) in one of the canyons. This Southern California endemic, a tree of lower elevations below the mixed conifer and Jeffrey pine forests, was discovered in San Diego County in 1858. At one time it was more widespread in the San Gabriel Mountains on the lower and upper edges of the chaparral zone, but repeated fires have relegated it to protected drainage bottoms and north slopes where it commonly grows with canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis). Big-cone spruce is replaced by canyon live oak after repeated fires and the return of this conifer may require centuries. This remarkable tree has the ability to re-sprout after being completely defoliated by fire, allowing it to persist in many burned In a grove of lodgepole pine (Pinus contortd) at the head of Dorr Can- yon. Though this aggressive pioneer is one of the slowest growing pines, it has greatly expanded its range in California because of the frequency of fires. areas. The record size big-cone spruce, called "Old Glory," grows near San Antonio Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains. This old giant, listed in the National Register of Big Trees, is seven feet in diameter and one hundred and forty-five feet tall. Single-leaf piny on pine, common on the lower desert border of the range, also occurs on the upper slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, reaching an elevation of 6700 feet. Scattered stands grow in the East Fork drainage of the San Gabriel River, near Mt. Waterman, in the North Fork of Lytle Creek and on Pinyon Ridge east of Crystal Lake. Subalpine Forest on Highest Ridges Above the mixed conifer forest on the highest ridges and north slopes of the range is a subalpine forest of limber pine (Pinus flexilis) and Sierra lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta subsp. murrayand). This subalpine forest is also open and park-like. In denser stands a small orchid (Corallorhiza maculata), and three mem- bers of the heath family, pine drops (Pterospora an- dromedea), snow plant (Sarcodes sanguined), and various species oiPyrola can be found. Weather at the highest elevations is severe, soil is shallow and rocky, and the growing season is short. Tree growth is slow in this harsh environment, but limber pine at the very top of the mountains attains large size and great age. In 1961 it was discovered that some of these weather-beaten veterans are over 1000 years old. Many limber pines are scattered along the summit of 9400-foot Mount Baden- Powell and the high ridge that extends westward to Mount Burnham, Throop Peak, and Mount Hawkins. Sierra lodgepole pine has a wider distribution than limber pine and reaches Timber Mountain southeast of Mt. San Antonio, the highest peak in the range. An interesting stand of Sierra lodgepole pine grows on a talus slope of shattered granite at the head of Cedar Canyon on the northwest side of Telegraph Peak, a high crest near Timber Mountain. Gnarled, picturesque western junipers (Juniperus occidentalis subsp. australis) are found scattered on dry, rocky, exposed ridges and slopes in a limited area in the high country north and south of Mt. San Antonio. A western juniper in Icehouse Canyon, growing at a relatively low elevation of 7700 feet, was the most unusual conifer in Southern California. This rare tree, reported to be fifteen feet in diameter, seventy-three feet tall, and possibly 3000 years old, was destroyed in the Thunder Mountain Fire of 1980. In contrast to the high elevation western juniper, stands of California juniper {Juniperus californicd) occur on alluvial fans and lower slopes at the desert edge of the range. Hikers on the trail from Dawson Saddle to Little Jimmy Springs pass through the heart of the San Gabriel conifer forest. This trail follows a high ridge through stands of sugar pine, white fir, Jeffrey pine, and large incense-cedar. At the head of Dorr Canyon draining northward to the desert is a forest of Sierra lodgepole pine and five-needled, cinnamon-colored limber pine. The conifers of the San Gabriel Mountains are an island of cool-temperate forest in an arid land and have great value for watershed protection, recreation, and inspiration. References Brown, D.E. (ed.). 1982. Biotic communities of the American Southwest-United States and Mexico. Desert Plants Vol. 4, Nos. 1-4. 14 EARLY PLANT EXPLORATION IN THE WEST Part I. by Elizabeth McClintock In less than a century, eighty-nine years to be exact, from the year 1790 until the close of the period of the Great Surveys in 1879, the trans-Mississippi West changed from an unknown and unmapped wilderness belonging to England, France, Spain and later Mexico, to a settled part of the United States. During these years, and certainly early in this period, when the country was unsettled and the wilderness dangerous, plant collec- tions for both botanical and horticultural purposes were made in association with exploring expeditions, pioneer settlements, early commerce such as fur trading, and military movements. Golden Age of Horticultural Exploration The activities of the plant collectors were often associated with historical events. However, since it was the enthusiasm and energy of the individual plant collec- tors which gave them the needed impetus for carrying on against many obstacles, their accomplishments and the plants which they made known will be related here with only casual mention of the historical events. Four early expeditions or voyages of discovery from Europe, usually referred to by the names of their commanders, Laperouse, Malaspina, Vancouver, and Kotzebue, set the stage for later individual collectors sent out for the purpose of bringing back to Europe some of the new and unusual plants from the Pacific Coast of North America. The individual collectors including Douglas, Coulter, Hartweg, Jeffrey, and Lobb first brought to Europe many western American plants which are still grown there. The period of their activities, the second quarter of the 19th century, has been called the Golden Age of Horticultural Exploration in the Amer- ican West. During this period European botanists including William Jackson Hooker (earlier of the University of Glasgow and later the first director of the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew), and Augustin Pyrame DeCandolle (director of the herbarium and botanical garden in Geneva) worked on the scientific collections brought from western North America to Europe by these early collectors. Information brought back to Europe from the third and last voyage of Captain Cook influenced the forma- tion of the ill-fated Laperouse expedition which was shipwrecked and did not return. In August 1785, the French navy sent out a well-equipped expedition under the command of Jean Francois Galaup de Laperouse to circumnavigate the globe. There were two vessels, the Boussole and the Astrolabe, and a scientific staff of seventeen, which included a botanist-gardener, Collig- non. In mid-September of 1786, the expedition visited the Spanish mission settlement at Monterey, California. The Spaniards were cordial and helpful and Laperouse wrote that they reciprocated with gifts, among which were some potatoes from Chile. This probably repre- sents the first introduction of the South American tubers to the Pacific Coast of North America. Collignon made a collection of a few plants and seeds from Monterey, and among these was seed of the rose-red sand-verbena. From this seed a plant was grown at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris which the French botanist Lamarck named Abronia umbellata. This was the first plant from California to be grown in the Old World and also the first one from western North America to be de- scribed and named. Malaspina from Spain and Menzies A Spanish voyage of discovery under the command of Alexandra Malaspina left Spain in July 1789. There were two vessels, theDescubierta and the Atrevida, and a staff of six, including two botanists, Luis Nee and Thaddeus Haenke. One of its objectives was to search for an oceanic connection across northern North America. The summer of 1791 was spent along the coast of Alaska and southward, looking unsuccessfully for the mythical northwest passage. They eventually reached Monterey Bay in California, where they were received cordially by their fellow countrymen and spent several days in September. While in Monterey, Haenke made a collection of plants which included the Oregon grape Berberis pinnata. From the Pacific Coast the expedition proceeded around the world and returned to Spain in 1794. Haenke's Monterey collections were the earliest made in California and gave him the honor of being the first botanist to visit this state. Luis Nee stayed in Mexico while the expedition traveled northward along the Pacific Coast in 1791. We are certain that he did not visit California, although in 1801 he published in a scientific journal in Madrid the first descriptions of two oaks from California (Quercus agrifolia, the California live oak, and Q. lobata, the California valley oak). 15 CE.FaJxm ,h-L California live oak (Quercus agrifolia), illustrated in Silva of North America by C.S. Sargent, was first collected by the Malaspina Expedition in 1791 and in 1801 was named by Nee in Madrid. Courtesy of the Helen Crocker Russell Library at Strybing Arboretum. 16 Two British expeditions visited the Pacific Coast of North America in the late 1780s and early 1790s. The first, actually for the purpose of fur-trading, was under the command of Captain Colnett on the Prince of Wales and although its accomplishments in the field of natural history were small, its surgeon was Archibald Menzies. The Prince of Wales arrived at Nootka in July 1787 and there Menzies found the flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum), a rose {Rosa nutkana), and a wild raspberry (Rubus nutkanus). After his return to England, Menzies was appointed naturalist by the British government to accompany Captain George Vancouver on the Discovery. Menzies was given careful instructions by Sir Joseph Banks for the investigation of the natural history of all countries visited. In April 1792, Menzies was back on the Pacific Coast, subsequently landing at Port Discovery (in May), where a valerian growing on the beach attracted his attention. For three years the Discovery spent winters in the Sandwich Islands, returning each spring to the Pacific Coast of North America. Menzies collected about 300 species on the Pacific Coast and was the first to find many trees such as the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), the California laurel or Oregon myrtle (Umbellularia californica), the grand fir (Abies gran- dis), the big-leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), the madrone (Arbutus menziesii), the Nootka cypress (Cupressus nootkatensis), the wax-myrtle (Myrica calif ornica), the Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), the Douglas-fir ([Pseudotsuga menziesii), and California holly or toy on (Heteromeles arbutifolia). Chamisso and Eschscholtz Early in the 19th century the Russian government sent out a well-equipped expedition which visited the Pacific Coast. Under the command of a young lieutenant in the Russian navy, Otto von Kotzebue, the vessel called the Rurik sailed in 1815 on a voyage of discovery which lasted three years. Among the scientific staff were the naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), the surgeon Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz (1793-1831), and a draftsman, Louis Chloris (1795-1828). Many plants were collected for the first time around San Francisco by Chamisso and Eschscholtz, and of all the important contributions resulting from this expedi- tion none was more important than those in botany. Among the plants which they collected and described, the best known is surely the California poppy, which Chamisso named Eschscholzia californica in honor of his friend on the voyage. In addition to this poppy, Chamisso named more than thirty new species collected in San Francisco, and in 1829-1833 he published a five- volume account of the voyage of the Rurik around the world. (See Fremontia, January 1979.) Douglas, Coulter, and Hartweg David Douglas (1799-1834), a native of Scotland, was the first of several collectors sent out from England to the Pacific Coast. Douglas was trained as a gardener and it was at the Botanical Garden in Glasgow that he came under the influence of Dr. William Jackson Hooker. It was through the recommendation of Hooker to Joseph Sabine, honorary secretary of the Horticul- tural Society of London (which in 1866 became the Royal Horticultural Society), that Douglas was sent by the Society to North America. Douglas was instructed to collect living plant material to be used in the gardens of the British Isles and dried specimens to be used by botanists, particularly Hooker, who was working on a flora of North America. Douglas left England by ship, the William and Ann, July 26, 1824, for the Pacific Northwest. The ship's surgeon, Dr. John Scouler, for whom the Pacific Coast leather-fern (Polypodium scouleri) was named, was already known to Douglas, and the two shared common interests. Before leaving England, Douglas had become familiar with the plants collected by Menzies and later by Lewis and Clark in the region of Fort Vancouver and the Columbia River, and therefore was somewhat prepared for the trees and other plants which he saw along the ninety miles from the mouth of the Columbia to Fort Vancouver, a Hudson's Bay trading post (on the opposite side of the river from today's Portland, Oregon). Douglas used Fort Vancouver as his base for two years and received help and courtesies from the company's officers. During this time he found the Douglas-fir and the madrone, already seen by Menzies, and a shrub which the natives called "salal" (Gaul- theria shallon). Douglas returned to England in 1827 and in 1829, again under the auspices of the London Horticultural Society, he left for a second trip. Toward the end of 1830, he arrived in Monterey, California, where he made his headquarters for two years, collecting over 800 species in many parts of the state. Toward the end of 1833 he sailed for the Sandwich Islands, where he met his death on July 13, 1834 through an unfortunate accident. Douglas' accomplishments were so great that he overshadowed those who followed him. Among the many plants which he collected, some of which he introduced to English gardens, are several firs (Abies grandis, A. lasiocarpa, A. nobilis, A. amabilis), the vine maple (Acer circinatum), one of the service-berries (Amelanchier alnifolia), and two which had been earlier discovered by Menzies, the Sitka spruce (Picea sitchen- sis), and the California wax-myrtle. Dr. Thomas Coulter (1793-1843), a native of Ireland, was one of the important early botanical explorers in North America, particularly in California and Mexico. He had studied in Dublin and Paris and then went to 17 Geneva, where he came under the influence of DeCan- dolle, to whom he later sent his botanical collections. Coulter went to Mexico in 1824, as physician to a mining company. It was from Mexico in 1828 that he sent a collection of cacti to Trinity College, in Dublin, for its botanical garden. These may represent his only horticultural introductions. In November 1831, he arrived in Monterey, where he met Douglas. The two botanists explored and collected together during the following winter and spring. Among Coulter's many discoveries, some of which were named for him, are the Coulter pine (Pinus coulter!), which is remarkable for its large heavy cones, and the Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri), a handsome, large, white-flowered poppy occasionally seen in gardens. The Horticultural Society in London, which had sponsored Douglas, sent Karl Theodore Hartweg (1812- 1871) first to Mexico and then to California. The society specifically requested Hartweg to look for the "beautiful Zauschneria and the evergreen Castanea"; the latter probably refers to the giant chinquapin (Castanopsis chrysophylla), discovered in 1831 by Douglas. At Monterey Hartweg collected the first recorded specimen of the endemic Monterey cypress (Cupressus mac- rocarpa), which resulted in its introduction to England. The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), which had been seen earlier by Menzies and Douglas, was intro- duced into England by Hartweg. The canyon oak or maul oak (Quercus chrysolepis), and the knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata, synonym: P. tuberculata) were discov- ered by Hartweg while he was at Monterey, and the black oak or Kellogg oak (Quercus kelloggii) near Sonoma. He found Zauschneria californica as well as the giant chinquapin and sent seeds of both to England. However, Hartweg's introductions were probably of lesser importance than his collections of dried botanical specimens which, at least those from California, were worked on and published by George Bentham, one of the leading English botanists of the day. Bentham's enumeration of Hartweg's plants, in the publication with the title Plantae Hartwegianae, was one of the impor- tant early publications dealing with California plants, and included about 400 species, about eighty of which were new. John Jeffrey The widespread interest in the plant introductions of Douglas to the British Isles led to the formation in 1850 of an organization in Scotland known as the Oregon Botanical Association, or simply as the Oregon Expedi- tion, which engaged John Jeffrey (1826-1854) to go to western North America for three years to bring back seeds to be divided among the subscribers. Early in June 1850, Jeffrey sailed from England for Hudson Bay and, in May 1851, after crossing the conti- nent, he reached southern British Columbia. He explored here and in northern Washington and among his introduc- tions from there were the white-bark pine (Pinus albicaulis) and the mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana). The following year he went south to Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, where he discovered the fox-tail pine (Pinus balfouriana) and the Jeffrey pine (Pinus Jeffreyi). Traveling south and east to the Sac- ramento Valley and the central Sierra Nevada (where he spent the summer of 1853), he arrived in San Francisco in October. He remained in San Francisco and vicinity until January 1854, then went south to San Diego and from there to Yuma, Arizona. Yuma was the last place he was heard from and what happened to him still remains a mystery. Jeffrey collected over 400 species of plants and sent home the seeds of many of them. William Lobb During the 19th century and the early part of the 20th, the leading British nursery firm was that of Messrs. Veitch of Exeter and Chelsea. It was notable for its many introductions from America and Asia which became well-known garden plants, and for having trained many fine gardeners. The firm of Veitch sent William Lobb (1809-1863) to North America as one of their collectors. From 1849 to 1853 he was on the Pacific Coast, where he explored and collected in California and Oregon. He arrived in San Francisco in the summer of 1849, a year and a half after the discovery of gold in California, but he had not come for gold. During his first season of collecting, he visited the Santa Lucia Mountains, where he found the Santa Lucia fir, or the bristle-cone fir as it is sometimes called (Abies bracteata, synonym: A. venusta), which had been discovered in 1831 by Thomas Coulter. In addition to the Santa Lucia fir, Lobb also introduced from California several other trees: the giant arbor-vitae (Thujaplicata), the Douglas-fir, and the noble fir (Abies procera, synonym: A. nobilis), all of which had been seen earlier by Douglas. However, the introduction which gave him his greatest fame was of the giant sequoia or the big-tree (Sequoiadendron giganteum, synonym: Sequoia gigantea). Lobb was not the discoverer of this tree but learned of it through Dr. Albeit Kellogg at a meeting of the California Academy of Natural Sciences, and accord- ing to Sargent "immediately started for the Sierra Nevada, where he secured specimens and two living trees, which he carried to England on the first steamer leaving San Francisco," thus heralding the discovery of one of the world's largest, oldest, and most famous trees. (Reprinted from the January 1967 issue of the California Horticultural Society Journal 28(1). 18 •\rW California holly or toyon (Hetewmeles arbutifolia) was first collected by Menzies in 1796. Illustrated in Silva of North America by C.S. Sargent. 1898. Courtesy of the Helen Crocker Russell Library at Strybing Arboretum. 19 NEW INFORMATION ON THE RARE SANTA ANA RIVER WOOLLY-STAR by Jack H. Burk, C. Eugene Jones, and John Wheeler The Santa Ana River woolly-star (Eriastrum de- nsifolium subsp. sanctorum) in the Phlox family is one of California's rarest plants (see The Status of the Santa Ana Woolly-Star, Zembal and Kramer, Fremontia, October 1985). It is now restricted to an area of about eight square miles along the Santa Ana River, north of the city of Redlands. The plight of the woolly-star was acknowledged in the fall of 1987 when it, along with another Santa Ana River species, the slender-horned spineflower (Centrostegia leptoceras), was listed as endangered by the federal government. Construction of the proposed Seven Oaks Dam near where the Santa Ana River emerges from the San Bernardino Mountains will modify the pattern of flooding and sand deposition in woolly-star habitat below the dam. We have been studying the ecology of this species since May 1987 in an effort to estimate its future in the absence of flooding. In 1985 Zembal and Kramer reported that the range of the Santa Ana woolly-star was rapidly shrinking as a result of habitat modification along the Santa Ana River as it flows through San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties. At that time it appeared that the woolly-star was restricted to an area between Norton Air Force Base and the San Bernardino Mountains, with minor populations in the Lytle Creek drainage. The Lytle Creek populations may be hybrids between the Santa Ana woolly-star and perhaps Eriastrum densifolium subsp. elongatum. This makes the Lytle Creek popula- tions no less important from the conservation standpoint but serves to further restrict the known range of the Santa Ana woolly-star to the flood plain north of Redlands. Our studies were directed at understanding the environmental and biotic factors that restrict the plant's distribution. This included detailed mapping of the distribution of the subspecies, identification of environ- mental factors and other plant species that correlated with woolly-star distribution, following patterns of germination, mortality, and seed bank demography, measurement of growth and lifespan, and studies of pollination ecology. Distribution We surveyed an area that extended well beyond known woolly-star populations and produced a map that could be used to suggest environmental factors that were potentially limiting. All existing individuals are located 20 within the areas that could have been flooded and/or received sand deposited by a flood in 1938. A flood of similar magnitude to the 1938 flood is estimated to occur once every 100 years. The most vigorous populations of woolly-star are in sites subject to flooding or sand deposition from a flood such as occurred in 1969. We then established detailed study plots in five areas where we could compare biotic and abiotic features in habitats with and without woolly-star. We also initiated seed germination experiments to determine whether scarifi- cation by flood was necessary to stimulate germination. Plants most often associated with the woolly-star are Croton californica, golden aster (Chrysopsis villosa), and Ericameria (Haplopappus) pinifolia. Woolly-star never occurs in sites with longer-lived species such as sugar bush (Rhus ovata), chamise (Adenostoma fas- ciculatum), holly-leafed cherry (Prunus ilicifolia), or buckthorn (Rhamnus crocea). The cover of European annuals was lowest in woolly-star habitats. Woolly-star appears to grow best on bare sites with high amounts of The Santa Ana River woolly-star in full flower, showing typical basal branching pattern, grows best on flood-scoured sandy places. Photographs by Jack H. Burk. sand and low amounts of silt, clay, and micro-organic material. It appears, then, that the woolly-star is an early successional species that establishes following floods and is replaced by natural succession in the absence of periodic flooding. Demography We have observed over 1700 seedlings that germi- nated from natural seed banks in the fall of 1987. As of early 1989, both the number of seedlings established and seedling survival are highest in the habitats flooded in 1969, considered a 25-year flood. Adult mortality is also lower in more recently flooded habitats. Since habitats that have been established longer have greater cover of both perennial and annual species, competition may become an important component of survival. Removal of competing annuals at one of the younger site increased survival but similar experiments at the oldest site failed to increase seedling survival. Perhaps there is competition at the oldest site from roots of perennials, or there may be allelopathic substances in the soil, or perhaps removal of the competing seedlings at that site unnaturally increased woolly-star mortality. Regardless of the cause, more seedlings are successful in more recently flooded habitat. We estimated seed production in the 1986-87 growing season at 900-1000 seeds per plant and found that ninety-two percent of the seeds produced fell within one foot of the parent plant. The greatest dispersal distance we found was sixty inches. When woolly-star seeds are wetted, the outer seed coat forms a mucilaginous mass that readily attaches the seed to the surrounding soil particles. It is therefore unlikely that woolly-star efficiently disperses into new habitats unless floods carry the seeds greater distances. Seed collected in late summer 1987 was ninety-nine percent viable and no scarification or other pretreatment of any kind was necessary to stimulate germination. The optimum temperature for germination is about sixty degrees fahrenheit. Leaching by simulated rainfall of one inch significantly increases germination when compared with wetted but not leached seeds. Growth and Life Span Reproduction of seed is important only if young plants can establish and reproduce within flood cycles. Growth ring analysis of dead plants showed that the average individual life span was five years and the oldest individual encountered was ten years old. If, as we have suggested, the older habitats were established during the 1938 flood, at least ten generations of woolly-star have occupied those sites since 1938. Seed reproduction is thus relevant to survival at a particular site and it is important to know factors limiting seed production. Experiments that excluded pollinators resulted in essentially no seed set. Since the pollen is released well before the stigma of the same flower is receptive, pollen gatherers are unlikely to accomplish pollination. Insects from eight families and a hummingbird were observed visiting woolly-star. Field observations indicate that only the hummingbird, digger bees, the anise swallow- tail butterfly, and the giant flower-loving fly are capable of reaching the woolly-star. The giant flower-loving fly (Raphiomidas actoni ssp. actoni) is by far the most abundant pollinator. Raphiomidas also requires a sandy substrate for reproduction and its peak abundance correlates perfectly with woolly-star flowering. It may be that the giant flower-loving fly and woolly-star are mutually dependent and the survival of either depends on the other. The Future The construction of the Seven Oaks Dam will elimi- nate annual flooding and over a few decades all woolly- star habitat will disappear and the subspecies will become extinct. Other impacts such as sand and gravel mining and off-road vehicle activity will shorten the time remaining for the Santa Ana woolly-star. The plant could be saved by applying management practices that would artificially reestablish protected habitat in areas adjacent to aging woolly-star stands. Since this plant occupies the earliest habitats following disturbance, surface applications of fine-grained washed sand to a depth sufficient to eliminate European annuals and seeding woolly-star would rejuvenate the habitat for several decades. We believe that active management of both the physical and biological envi- ronment is essential if the Santa Ana River woolly-star and the giant flower-loving fly are to survive. 21 FAREWELL TO A GENTLE PIONEER AT ROSE RANCH: Forest Sheehan, December 1988 by Everett Butts Forest Sheehan, LaPorte's botanist, looking across the fence at his meadow of wildflowers. Photograph by Linda Dufallena. A bright, warm noon on December 13, 1988 found a small band of family and friends carrying Forest Sheehan to rest into the family graveyard above a meadow at Rose Ranch, twelve miles by a logging road from Strawberry Valley in Yuba County. This hallowed ground in a cathedral of pine, fir, and cedar is no more than fifty yards from the two-room cabin where he was born on April 12, 1904. For those who knew the sweet sounds and silences of the Rose Ranch a yet deeper quietude settles over lighter memories of kerosene-lit window pane, summer campfire, "botanizing," and gentle conversation. Forest Sheehan was a true pioneer, living for the past fifty years at Rose Ranch beside a flower-decked meadow and surrounded by virgin mixed-conifer forest at 4500 feet on the west slope of the Sierra on the boundary of Sierra and Yuba counties. Forest and his wife Mary have been welcoming hosts to groups from the Marin chapter of CNPS for many years, sharing their avid interest in the flowers and trees, and taking them on favorite walks. (See "A Weekend at Rose Ranch," by Thomas H. Harris, Fremontia, January 1979.) Forest's life was keenly attuned to all the whims, shifts, and patterns of the seasons in his beloved mountain home. Early last winter, those same cyclings of nature gathered up our dear friend. Lifetime Students of the Plants Forest and Mary conscientiously studied the flora wherever they set foot. When their four children were small they delighted in seeking out "new plants for Mother and Dad." The Sheehans authored a Plumas County Wildflower Coloring Book (Plumas County Museum, Quincy, 1974). It grew out of a deep child- hood appreciation of the flora which matured into more than fifty years of study, sketching, and photography. During the 1930s and 1950s, Forest worked for the U.S. Forest Service at digging gooseberry (Ribes roezlii) for the control of blister rust {Cronartium sp.) of pines. He turned this hard work into a study of the flora. His family recollects wonderful, fun-filled hours among the hills and in the woods with their parents. His daughter, Anna Weirton, recalls "our long walks in misty, grey, rainy woods" and "all the knowledge Dad shared of flowers, flowers." Heidi Marsh, another daughter, relates how especially thrilled her father was when he found western coltsfoot (Petasites palmatus) along Thompson Creek on the La Porte-Quincy road, and lady slipper (Cypripedium fasciculatum) near and below Lake Almanor. His son, Ormonde, has found them two years before and had told his father, "I logged through big patches of the slippers." Interest by J.T. Howell, from the California Academy of Sciences, and the news from his son prompted a family camping expedition to seek out the orchids. One day after almost giving up Forest found them at his feet and noted that they preferred to grow in a horizontal band around the slopes under western dogwood (Cornus nuttallii). He counted as one of his most memorable finds the 22 coral root orchid {Corallorhiza maculata var. immacu- lata). It was a brilliant yellow form with pure white lips and was found on Red Hill above Belden in the Feather River country. T.H. Harris from the Marin chapter of CNPS jointly authored with Forest "The Yellow Coral Root" {Fremontia, January, 1983). Forest loved the little glen by the ranch that he called Mosquito Run. There the twayblades (Listera conval- laroides) grew with their elongated ventral petals. Fondly, and with impish imagination, he saw them as "little fairies shaking out their little green aprons." Forest and Mary often shared the little glen with their visitors, where they also found themselves in a veritable garden of twin- flower (Linnaea borealis). He was deeply touched by the delicate beauty of angel lily {Clintonia uniflora). On the ranch a large population of Washington lily {Lilium washingtonianum) brought much joy to the family. Forest's inner world was filled with memories of countless explorations with friends and family, some- times with one or more of the four children. There were hanging gardens of lilies, especially one on nearby Mt. Fillmore. It was there he felt a great excitement on finding a tiny, single-flowered gentian {Gentiana simplex). Repeat trips to Mt. Fillmore and Onion Valley (about four miles north of Mt. Fillmore) took him to various of his favorite "flower gardens". Favorite species were steer's head {Dicentra uniflora) and D. pauciflora (the latter in Onion Valley); the rare, tiny, blue-flowered veronica {Veronica cusickii); the bright, pink primula {Primula suffrutescens), the rose-purple to pink heather {Phyllodoce breweri) and the bright rose- purple rose epilobium {Epilobium obcordatum). Some of these trips to Mt. Fillmore were to find old friends rather than new ones. In his last years, near Rackerby, when his strength allowed, Forest searched about on the slopes near his home for surprises and boyhood favorites. He lived for a while among these hillsides as a boy. Away up on a slope which knew the pressures of a boy's footsteps, a pair of unsteady feet and a walking stick-servants to a marvelous intellect and sensitive spirit-sought out the delicate, white Isopyrum occidentale. Not far from his doorstep he was pleased to find a pure white shooting star {Dodecatheon hendersonii). In those same days one of his daughters took him, in season, to find a patch of five spot {Nemophila maculata) and the shrubby moun- tain lover {Paxistima myrsinites) with its tiny reddish flowers, and other lifelong friends. Forest: Craftsman and Shake-splitter Finally, may we celebrate the woodworker and the woodsman and the conservationist whom his friends so much admired? From the native materials at hand, and without benefit of power tools other than a chain saw, Twinflower (Linnaea borealis) forms a veritable garden in a special glen on Rose Ranch. Photograph by Fraser Muirhead. Forest crafted over a dozen violins. He used the wood of big leaf maple {Acer macrophyllum), Douglas-fir {Pseudotsuga menziesii), and incense-cedar {Caloced- rus decurrens). From incense-cedar he also made cedar chests and, from quarter-sawn Douglas-fir, long-board skis (called snowshoes in his country). He supported his family primarily as a shake-maker, as did also his father and grandfather on that same ranch. Forest is believed to have been the last splitter of mountain shakes or miner's shakes in California. Ormonde Sheehan's expert esti- mate places his lifetime production at two million A large population of Lilium washingtonianum brought joy to the Sheehan family and their visitors. Photograph by Fraser Muirhead. 23 ?M. 'Jy\ ------ -JT'Jfl X ^% .26.' . ., 4 ¦ li.iki I Ii.-k- ¦.'..¦!.¦ 111.iik 11• an F Perm _ v 3 5>" 6) ro • "a P 3> rof it O Posta AID C« r3 S3 <^ re 32