Vol. 22, No. 3 July 1994 FREMONTIA A Journal of the California Native Plant Society FREMONTIA Vol. 22 No. 3 July 1994 Copyright © 1994 California Native Plant Society Phyllis M. Faber, Editor • Laurence J. Hyman, Art Director • Beth Hansen, Designer 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 endangered 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: publication of a quarterly journal, Fremontia, and a quarterly Bulletin which gives news and announcements of Society events and conservation issues. Chapters hold meetings, field trips, plant and poster sales. Non-members are welcome to attend. The work of the Society is done mostly 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. EDITORIAL The lead article in this issue, "California's Living Land- scape," by Michael Barbour and Valerie Whitworth, was written for the forthcoming book California's Floral Heri- tage, which the California Native Plant Society will publish in early 1995. The article is published here full length, and provides an overview of the vegetation of California and some of its special plant communities. Two pieces that follow will be of interest to botanists: the first on the joys of being a botanist, by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, excerpted from the New Flora of North Ame- rica (1836); and the second, an account of the Laperouse expedition of 1786, financed by France to explore the coast of California and collect "curiosities." Though the expedi- tion met a tragic end in the Solomon Islands, some of the seeds did get back to France and became the first known and botanically described plants from California. Finally, there are two accounts of the battle against the invasive and aggressive non-native plants that are increas- ingly threatening the native flora of this state: the first, by Cameron Barrows, recounting successes in battling tamarisk in the Coachella Valley; the second, by Arthur Comings, on successful techniques in battling French broom. Phyllis M. Faber TABLE OF CONTENTS California's Living Landscape 3 by Michael G. Barbour and Valerie Whitworth Early Botanical Explorations: 1790-1850 14 Tamarisk Control: A Success Story 20 by Cameron W. Barrows New Fellows 27 John Thomas Howell 25 by Elizabeth McClintock Growing Natives: Blue Curls 28 by Nevin Smith Fighting Invaders with Bare Hands 30 by Arthur Comings Notes and Comments 31 Books Received 32 THE COVER: Spanish dagger (Yucca schidigera) grows in the warm Mojave desert at loshua Tree Monument in a photograph by Gerald and Buff Corsi/Focus on Nature. V1 * *' Black oak (Quercus kelloggii) is common in coastal and Sierran foothill woodlands. A handsome specimen is shown here in Yosemite Valley. Photo- graphs by Gerald and Buff Corsi/Focus on Nature. CALIFORNIA'S LIVING LANDSCAPE Michael G. Barbour and Valerie Whitworth THE EXTRAORDINARY botanic wealth of California is a reflection of environmental diversity and rich- ness, perhaps unparalleled in the temperate world. The state's topography includes the lowest and the highest points in the continental United States. Spanning more than ten degrees of latitude and extending over a hundred million acres, California is a bridge between cool-temper- ate, foggy, dimly-lit temperate rain forests and open, parched, hot, sunbathed, subtropical deserts. This array of California vegetation, which exist in close juxtaposition, is tied to dramatic physical gradients of elevation, climate, soil, and bedrock. The bedrock of California has come from many sources: volcanic ejections of lava and ash, wind-blown sand, fault- ing and uplift that brought ocean-floor sediments and deformed crustal rock to the surface, rock left behind by melting glaciers, and coarse sand and fine clays deposited by erosional forces. Each substrate has its own set of chemical and physical characteristics, so the soils that develop from these substrates are diverse. For example, California has all eleven of the world's major soil groups and ten percent of all named soils in the United States— approximately 1,200 different soil series. Some of these soils are exceptionally old, as much as half a million years. Some are chemically unique, being high in toxic elements, low in essential nutrients, or ex- tremely acidic or basic. While most plants are unable to tolerate such soils, others are genetically so well adapted that they are unable to maintain themselves on normal soils nearby. Some well known California plants can grow only on special soils. These include the pygmy bolander pine {Pinus bolanderi) of Mendocino County on ancient, VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 3 acidic sandstone; shore pine {Pinus contorta subsp. contorta) on the far north coast on droughty coastal sand dunes; picturesquely twisted Sierran juniper (Juniperus occidentalis var. australis) on solid granite outcrops; mas- sive valley oaks {Quercus lobata) in the Central Valley on deep, well drained, structureless sediment within thirty feet of groundwater; and stands of ghost-like grey pine {Pinus sabiniana) on island outcrops of chromium and nickel laden serpentine soil amidst a sea of foothill brush. Not only do most species faithfully follow substrates to which they are specially adapted, but so do entire suites of species. These groups make up the vegetation type of which each species is a part. For example, the shrubby, fire-prone foothill chaparral vegetation type consists of dozens of shrub species and typically grows on coarse, shallow soils. Valley grasslands, with greater than one hundred species of grasses and forbs, occurs on finer, deeper soils. The high-elevation conifer forest, with a rich suite of tree, shrub, and herb species, occupies young, relatively unweathered soils. Coastal marshes and mountain meadow vegetation are found on anaerobic, organically rich soils. Lowland riparian forests cover natural levees built from centuries of flood-deposited sand and loam. Each of these suites of species or vegetation types occupies a distinct habitat with a characteristic soil and local climate. Climate and soil interact to create the mo- saic of vegetation types that characterize each of California's regional landscapes. Vegetation Types and Plant Communities Vegetation is the plant cover of a region, a thin clothing over the land that is at once durable and fragile, able to repair and reproduce itself over centuries. In contrast to many other states, California has dozens of vegetation types. Each is named after a geographic location and a dominant plant form—for example, riparian forest, upper montane conifer forest, Central Valley annual grassland, foothill woodland, alpine tundra, coastal salt marsh, and warm desert scrub. Each type also has a characteristic architecture created by the growth forms of the dominant plants and the layering of associated species. For example, lower montane conifer forest grows at middle elevations throughout the mountains of California. This vegetation type has four layers of plant canopies: a patchy overstory of ponderosa pine {Pinus ponderosa), Douglas-fir {Pseudotsuga menziesii), incense cedar {Calocedrus decurrens), sugar pine (P. lambertiana), and white fir {Abies concolor) about 150 feet tall; a scattered understory of winter-deciduous black oak {Quercus kelloggii) and mountain dogwood {Cornus nuttallii) twenty to thirty feet tall; a denser shrub layer with greenleaf manzanita {Arctostaphylos patula), and dwarf tanbark oak (Litho- carpus densiflorus var. echinoides); and an open layer with herbaceous perennials such as violets (Viola spp.) and orchids (Corallorhiza spp.). Although each canopy is incompletely closed, nearly all of the ground is obscured from above by the combination of layers. Within a vegetation type there usually are smaller units called plant communities. Each plant community is char- acterized by species that make up the dominant plant growth form, and the community is named after these species. Communities within the lower montane conifer forest include ponderosa pine forest, Douglas-fir forest, white fir forest, mixed conifer forest, and giant sequoia forest. Wherever the habitat repeats itself, the same gen- eral cluster of species recur, generally with the same architecture. Every community, then, has a predictable habitat, species composition, and vegetation structure. Some communities have such narrow habitat require- ments that they are rare, while others are widespread and common. According to a plant community classification used by the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and the Cali- fornia Department of Fish and Game (DFG), more than 300 plant communities are found in California. Many of these attract visitors to California from all over the world: dripping wet coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forest along the north coast; twisted Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) forest on the Monterey peninsula; pungent sage (Artemisia californica) scrub on precipitous coastal slopes; Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana) groves at the lip of ocean-facing bluffs; live oak (Quercus agrifolia) wood- land in foothills of Coast and Peninsular ranges; vernal pools that add brilliant color to spring grasslands; mixed chaparral densely covering interior foothills; looming gi- ant sequoia (Sequoiadendron gigantea) forests of the Si- erra Nevada; bristlecone pine (P. longaeva) subalpine woodland high in the White Mountains; an ocean of sage- brush (Artemisia tridentata) scrub throughout northeast- ern California; and fan palm (Washingtonia filifera) oases in remote desert canyons. Plant Communities and Biotic Diversity Plant communities are important for the conservation of biotic diversity. Most plants occur where they do, not by chance, but because the environment meets their re- quirements. A nearby area that appears similar yet does not support one particular species on closer examination often will be seen to differ in subtle but important ways: soil depth, texture, or nutrient status; history of distur- bance; slope direction; intensity of shade; or proximity to drainage water. As a rule, we cannot transplant a rare plant outside its natural habitat, nor can we recreate that habitat elsewhere. Habitats evolve and represent such a complex internet of soil, climate, microclimate, plant interaction and other intangibles that re-creation of habitat is a very young science and not very precise. Therefore, habitats 4 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 A riparian corridor of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) follows an otherwise hnlik-n \\.\w\ ili.im.igi- down the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. must be preserved, along with plant communities, if spe- cies are to be preserved. Diversity of habitats or plant communities is quite different from diversity at the species level. A community can be rare without consisting of an individual rare species if the particular mix of species is rare. If we focus only on rare species, we might miss a rare habitat, a rare assem- blage, or the habitat critical to a rare species. VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 5 In addition, the ecological importance of any one spe- cies often extends through its community and is thus magnified. Neighboring plants that have symbiotic or com- petitive relationships with each other will be affected by what happens to one another, as will insects that pollinate its flowers, soil microbes that digest its litter, or grazing animals that feed on its roots or stems. It is best to assume that every species within a community plays some vital role in the existence of others in that community. California's Vegetation: A Legacy of Change California's landscapes have changed dramatically over the vast panorama of geologic time. The topography and shape of California were modified by fluctuations in sea level, periods of mountain building and faulting, glacial advances and retreats, and the movement of the conti- nents. Sixty million years ago the region was less moun- tainous and the climate was more tropical. Tree ferns, palms, cycads, and large-leaved tropical plants—plants whose closest relatives today occur in southern Mexico and Central America—dominate the fossil record from that period. Only a few relicts from the fossil record, such as fan palms and ironwood trees (Olneya tesota) in the desert and flannelbush {Fremontodendron sp.) in the foot- hills, still remain in California. Forty million years ago the topography was more var- ied and the climate was cooler. Fossils of spruce, pine, fir, and winter-deciduous hardwoods such as beech, elm, and maple dominate the geologic record from that time, indi- cating that rich, mixed conifer-hardwood forests covered the land. Relatives of these fossil plants still occur in California along the cool, wet coast and at high elevations in the mountains. Some famous endemic California spe- cies, such as coast redwood and the giant sequoia, date to this time. About ten million years ago a semi-arid flora became dominant in the fossil record—close relatives of the mod- ern madrone, live oak, pinyon, and chaparral and desert shrubs, which apparently moved into California from Mexico as our Mediterranean climate became more pro- nounced. Today descendants of this flora dominate low- elevation vegetation throughout much of the state. Most of our endemic plant species evolved in place over the past several million years from this semi-arid flora. One to two million years ago an ice age, with several glacial advances and retreats, produced cooler tempera- tures than at present, and desert vegetation was pushed far to the south. Many mountain features were carved then by glaciers that descended as low as 4,000 feet. The last glacial retreat ended 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, coincid- ing with the arrival of human immigrants from Asia and the disappearance of many large grazing animals. About 3,000 to 8,000 years ago the climate became drier and several degrees warmer than at present. As a result, desert vegetation expanded and timberlines were pushed to higher elevations. Precipitation and temperatures have continued to fluc- tuate in the past few thousand years, but within narrower limits. According to one study of tree rings from big-cone Douglas-fir in Santa Barbara County, there has been no cumulative, long-term change in rainfall in California over the last 400 years. There have been decades of wet or dry weather. A drought during the period 1840-60 was especially damaging because it coincided with the rapid influx of Euroamericans, the conversion of wildlands to agriculture, the introduction of aggressive weedy plants, the replacement of native grazing animals with domesti- cated livestock with a resulting increase in intensity of grazing, and a change in the frequency and intensity of fires. Many landscapes were permanently damaged during this time, and degradation has continued to the present. There is evidence of a global warming trend, possibly due to human activity that has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide by nineteen percent over the past one hundred years. Within the past two centuries explorers and colonists accidentally or purposely brought with them plants from their countries of origin. Approximately 1,000 of these species now grow naturally in California, some in such high numbers that they have changed forever the face of the landscape. Grasslands, for example, were once domi- nated by native perennial bunchgrasses, but they now consist largely of introduced weedy annual grasses and other types of plants. There is hardly a plant community or habitat left in California unaffected by introduced plants, particularly the most aggressive and invasive species. The Coastal Mosaic California's western edge is a restless interface between land and sea. Landforms along the 1,100-mile coastline are spectacular and diverse: sandy bays, muddy tidal flats, precipitous cliffs, undulating dunes, terraced grasslands, steep shrub-covered hillsides, and dense forests fringing riverine bottomlands. The coastal mosaic of vegetation covers about fifteen percent of the area of California. Beaches and dunes. Beach plants at the leading edge of vegetation must be tough enough to withstand the violent coastal environment. Salt spray, abrasive sand blast, sand substrate, low soil nitrogen, and high light intensity are some of the stresses strand plants face. As a result, beach vegetation is open and prostrate, made up of a handful of species at any one location. Gentle sand hummocks are splattered with perennial herbs that spread vegetatively by runners and rhizomes or by clumps of beach grass. Most of the grass is European beach grass (Ammophila arenaria), brought here in 1869 to stabilize sand dunes for San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and now the most abundant beach and dune plant from Big Sur to Oregon. 6 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 The growth form of beach primrose (Camissonia cheiranthifolia) is typi- cal of dune vegetation, open and prostrate—adaptations to the stresses of sand, wind, and salt spray. Salt marshes and other wetlands. Prior to 1900 there were four to five million acres of wetlands in California. Today less than a fragmented ten percent of our coastal wetlands and a meager two percent of our interior wet- lands still exist. Of these, sixty percent are severely de- graded. It is no coincidence that twenty-five percent of plant species and fifty-five percent of animal species des- ignated by state agencies as threatened or endangered have wetlands as their essential habitat. The term wetland does not mean that a single vegetation type or a single plant community will occur there. It is a legal term that currently applies to any habitat where the soil surface is saturated with water to within eighteen inches of the surface for a period of at least one week a year. Wetlands are periodically waterlogged, and plants that grow there must be tolerant of low levels of soil oxygen. Only a small subset of California's flora is flood-tolerant. The presence of flood-tolerant species is a good indication that the site is a wetland even if the ground appears to be dry most of the year. Other kinds of wetlands include seagrass beds, interior salt marshes, brackish water marshes, fresh- water tule marshes, vernal pools, riparian forests, montane wet meadows, and desert oases and playas. Coastal prairie and scrub. Inland from the tide, surf, and moving sand of the beaches, coastal cliffs and terraces and rolling hills have surfaces that are vegetated with different species, growth forms, and plant communities. This is the region of coastal prairie and coastal scrub. With the arrival of Euroamericans in the mid-nineteenth cen- tury, the coastal prairie was transformed into a grassland of introduced species. Euroamericans brought fire sup- pression, invasive weeds, and heavy year-round grazing by cattle and sheep. Weedy herbs, particularly those that cattle find unpalatable, spread indiscriminately in the ab- sence of fire. In this way milk thistle, wild artichoke, and Klamath weed came to dominate millions of acres of former coastal prairie, drastically reducing the biological and economic value of the land. Shrub-dominated vegetation (scrub) covers steep slopes and may invade the margins of coastal prairie on terraces and in valleys. Northern coastal scrub extends north of Big Sur. It is a dense, two-storied assemblage of shrubs, vines, herbs, and grasses. Dominant plants are coyote brush {Baccharis pilularis), salal {Gaultheria shallon), Califor- nia coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica), cow parsnip {Heracleum lanatum), and bush lupine {Lupinus arboreus). This vegetation also has been modified in the past century by introduced plants, especially pampas grass, gorse, Scotch broom, and eucalyptus. Southern coastal scrub extends south of Big Sur. It is a lower, more open community than northern scrub, and it is dominated by drought-deciduous sage {Salvia spp.) and sagebrush {Artemisia californica). Near the Mexican bor- der succulent plants are an added element: century plant {Yucca spp.), live-forever {Dudleya spp.), and several kinds of cacti. This vegetation type is fast disappearing as the gentle hills and terraces of this community are converted into housing and commercial developments. Coastal forest. A series of coastal forests, including redwood, Douglas-fir, and closed-cone conifers, occupy lowland pockets and mountain slopes farther from the ocean. These are unique forests, relicts from ancient times, coddled by a moderating maritime environment in a sea of seasonal fog. Conifer trees here have the fastest growth rates of any in the world. The most famous of these is the coast redwood forest, which forms the southern tip of a magnificent conifer forest that blankets a strip of coastal slopes and flats from Alaska to Monterey County. Old-growth redwood forests are uncommon today. Only five percent of the original two million acres remain, mostly in state and federal parks. The rest have been logged once or twice and support second-growth redwood forest or young forests converted to faster-growing Dou- glas-fir. Most of the old-growth Douglas-fir phase of the mixed evergreen forest has been cut for timber. The results are dense stands of pole-size hardwoods, especially tanoak and madrone, since these are capable of stump sprouting following disturbance. Young second-growth forests are not ecologically the same as old-growth forests. When people stand in an old growth forest, they immediately sense the difference. Closed-cone conifer stands are another type of forest occurring in coastal mountains. Most closed-cone conifers are coastal in distribution, and most grow on droughty or nutritionally poor sites with sandy, salty, acidic, shallow, or serpentine soils. They are relatively small trees with life VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 7 Coastal redwood forests (Sequoia sempervirens) are relicts from ancient times. Little old growth forest remains today because of extensive logging. spans of seventy-five to 300 years. A few have economic value, for example, Monterey pine, planted as a lumber tree in many parts of the world, and Monterey cypress, widely planted as an ornamental. Other closed-cone coni- fers include knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata), Coulter pine (P. coulteri), Sargent cypress (Cupressus sargentii), and the pygmy cypress (C. pygmaea) of Mendocino County, which forms the overstory of a scraggly forest sometimes only three or four feet tall. Interior Mosaic of Grassland, Chaparral, and Woodland Inland from the fog belt in the Coast Ranges, summer heat becomes more extreme and a typical Mediterranean climate prevails. The texture of interior foothills and val- Western azalea (Rhododendron occidentale) is often found growing in moist coastal forests along with redwood trees. 8 FREMONTIA leys is a patchwork: woodland with scattered trees of gray- green pine and blue-green oak, muddy green chaparral with densely rigid shrubs, or open and golden brown grassland. Collectively, the three vegetation components of this interior mosaic cover one-third of California. While all three vegetation types occur within the same climatic and elevational zones, they vary with soil depth, soil texture and slope face. Fire history is another impor- tant factor in creating this landscape, and many species have adapted to fire. Grassland tends to occupy the gen- tlest slopes with the deepest and most finely textured soils, and it may burn every few years. Chaparral tends to cover the steepest slopes with the shallowest and coarsest soils, and it burns with an intermediate frequency of fifteen to twenty-five years. Foothill woodland grows on intermediate slopes and soils, and it burns at intervals much longer than twenty-five years, perhaps longer than fifty years. Interior grassland. The original interior grassland blan- keted much of the Central Valley and low elevations along the central and southern coast. It covered more than thir- teen million acres and an additional nine to ten million acres underneath oaks in the foothills for a total area representing one-fourth of California. The interior grass- land was dominated by several species of bunchgrasses, particularly purple and nodding needlegrasses (Nassella spp.). Between the grasses were some annual and peren- nial herbs, lush and colorful in spring. This grassland no longer exists, except in small pre- serves that show only a portion of the pristine panorama. Beginning in the nineteenth century, livestock were kept at high numbers, year-round, in fenced pastures. Some grassland was plowed and farmed. Fire was controlled, and weed seeds were accidentally introduced. In a dra- matically short time the bunchgrass prairie was converted to an annual grassland of introduced European species. Vernal pools. Vernal pools are islands in a sea of grass. Found on gently rolling topography underlain with a hard- pan that prevents percolation, they fill with water in win- ter, supporting a meadow vegetation that grows up through standing water to flower in rings around the pool as water evaporates in spring. Every northern California county in the Central Valley contains vernal pools, as do several southern California counties. These pools occur within other vegetation types, such as oak woodland and chapar- ral, as well as in grassland. Two hundred years ago vernal pools may have covered one percent of California, but conversion to agriculture and urbanization have removed eighty percent of this habitat. Foothill woodland. If residents of California were to select a state vegetation type, foothill woodland would be the logical choice because of its historic importance, the large area it covers, its wide familiarity, and its endemic trees. This is a two-storied vegetation with an open tree canopy shading only a third of the ground and a carpet of grasses and wildflowers beneath. Close to the coast the Nodding needlegrass (Nassella cernua), shown here (top) growing at the Sutter Buttes, once blanketed much of the Central Valley. Douglas's meadow foam (Limnanthes douglasii) (above) grows in many of the vernal pools of California. It often creates a springtime illusion of white foam across green meadows. dominant trees are Oregon oak (Quercus garryana) and California black oak (Q. kelloggii) in the north and coast live oak, Engelmann oak (Q. engelmannii), and California walnut (Juglans californica) in the south. Along drier interior foothills the dominant trees are blue oak (Q. douglasii), interior live oak (Q. wislizenii), valley oak, grey pine (Pinus sabiniana), and buckeye (Aesculus californica). The trees are a mix of evergreens and deciduous hard- woods. The deciduous species, such as blue oak and valley oak, seem to be in decline; few young trees have become VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 9 established in the last century. If this pattern continues for another century, mature oaks will have reached the end of their natural life spans, and these oak woodlands will become either grassland or more dense woodland domi- nated by evergreen oaks. The causes of this decline may include exploding populations of root-eating pocket go- phers, browsing deer and cattle, and competitive intro- duced annual plants. Chaparral. Chaparral vegetation is a single layer of impenetrable shrubs four to eight feet tall with intricately branched, interlacing evergreen canopies. The most com- mon shrubs in northern California are chamise (Adeno- stomafasciculatum), scrub oak (Q. dumosa), toyon (Heter- omeles arbutifolia), California coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica), and more than twenty species each of man- zanita (Arctostaphylos spp.) and ceanothus. Yucca, red shanks (Adenostoma sparsifolium), laurel sumac (Malos- ma laurina), and lemonadeberry (Rhus integrifoUa) are additional elements in southern California. The ground is nearly bare of plants, and only an occasional bay tree, clump of cypress, or knobcone pine overtops the shrub layer. Mosaic of Montane Vegetation California mountains are not uniformly covered with a continuous forest, but are a mosaic of oak-filled canyons, brushy ridges, meadows in wet flats, riparian woods, and conifer-forested slopes. Only about half of our montane area, which covers twenty percent of California, supports conifer forest. Ti ffrcv pine (Piins n'. common tree in the upper montane forests of California Four zones of climate and vegetation are found in California mountains, changing with increasing eleva- tion: lower montane, upper montane, subalpine, and al- pine. Every thousand-foot climb in elevation is equivalent to moving 300 miles north, and the vegetation varies accordingly. Lower montane mixed conifer forest. A mixed conifer forest occupies much of the lower montane zone, which lies between 2,000 and 5,000 feet in northern mountain ranges and between 5,000 and 8,000 feet in southern ranges. Frost is common in this zone, and about one-third of the annual precipitation falls as snow. The growing season in six to eight months long. Six conifers—ponde- rosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), sugar pine (P. lambertiana), white fir {Abies concolor), Douglas-fir, incense cedar, and giant sequoia—coexist and shift in importance from stand to stand. For this reason the community is not named for any one of them. John Muir, among other early naturalists, described these forests: "The inviting openness" where trees "stand more or less apart in groves, or in small irregular groups, enabling one to find a way nearly everywhere, along sunny colonnades and through openings that have a smooth, park-like surface..." The forests Muir saw are rare today because of logging and fire suppression. Half the original acreage of the mixed conifer forest has been cut at least once in the last 150 years. The overstory conifers once averaged more than three feet in diameter and 100 feet in height, but second-growth forests are more crowded, with smaller overstory trees. Upper montane forest. The upper montane zone re- ceives the maximum amount of snowfall in California. About eighty percent of all precipitation during the year falls as snow, which builds eight- to thirteen-foot-deep snowpacks that stay on the ground for up to 200 days. Saplings must tolerate burial under snow until they are tall enough to stand above it. Upper montane forests are simple, with just two cano- pies: an overstory tree layer and a scattered herb layer. Common trees are lodgepole pine and Jeffrey pine (P. Jeffreyi) throughout the state, joined by red fir (Abies magnified) and western white pine (P. monticola) in north- ern California. Ancient, twisted mountain junipers (Juniperus occidentalis var. australis) seem to spring full grown out of solid ridge rock. Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) and black Cottonwood (P. balsamifera subsp. trichocarpa) cover narrow riparian corridors. Their shim- mering, deciduous canopies turn golden in fall. Aspen can also invade clear cuts, where conifers once dominated, but conifer seedlings gradually appear in the aspens' shade and in time the site returns to conifer forest. Mixed subalpine woodland. Trees reach their upper elevation limit in the subalpine zone, where special stresses are tolerated by few species. Lodgepole pine and western white pine continue upslope from the upper montane, joined by mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana), five- needled whitebark (P. albicaulis) and limber pine (P. flexilis), foxtail pine (P. balfouriana), and bristlecone pine (P. longaeva), which are endemic to the subalpine zone. Not all of these species are found together on the same mountain. Sometimes a single species will dominate; else- where the species mix together in different ways. For this reason the vegetation is called mixed subalpine woodland. Of all subalpine species, only lodgepole pine is found all the way from Oregon to Baja California. Subalpine tree seedlings struggle to survive because the growing season is so stressful. Few succeed, and those that become established grow very slowly for centuries. Average life spans are 500 to 1,000 years. Foxtail pines attain ages greater than 3,000 years, and the bristlecone pines of the White Mountains can exceed 5,000 years. Alpine tundra. The alpine zone is a thin fringe of green FREMONTIA 1 1 Drummond' s thistle (Circium drummondii) is found in the vegetation rich meadows of Carson Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains. tundra near the limits of plant life. The growing season is measured in weeks and days, not months: six to ten weeks or forty to seventy days. Even during the growing season, frost can occur nightly. Plants hug the ground and seques- ter most of their stored food underground in root or rhi- zome systems. Alpine tundra is a meadow type of vegetation rich in sedges, rushes, grasses, and perennial herbs. Woody dwarf willows and white and mountain heathers are present but not dominant. Away from wet basins and areas of snow- melt, the environment becomes drier and tundra gives way to a fell field of scattered bunchgrasses and cushion plants— herbs with tiny, densely arranged leaves pressed against the soil surface, such as buckwheat (Eriogonum spp.), spreading phlox (Phlox diffusa), cushion cress (Draba Pine nuts in cones of single-leaf pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla) are sometimes easily found in pinyon-juniper woodlands that are found where the steep rocky slopes of California mountains drop down to deserts below. 1 2 FREMONTIA lemmonii) and pussypaws (Calyptridium umbellatum). Alpine plants are small but tenacious; they can live twenty to fifty years. In California about forty percent of the total number of alpine species are widespread, ranging north into the North American mountain chains or all the way to the polar tundra. Another fifteen percent are endemic to California, and so must have evolved in place as mountains rose during the past ten million years. These endemics prob- ably evolved from desert plants downslope. Gradient of Desert Vegetation Desert-facing slopes of California mountains are steep, rocky, and more arid man other slopes at the same eleva- tion. The eastern rainshadow intensifies as elevation drops, and by 6,000 feet trees reach a low-elevation timberline. This timberline, the last gasp of montane trees before the unrelenting aridity of desert scrub below, is an open wood- land of Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) and single- leaf (Pinus monophylla), two-leaf (P. edulis), and four- leaf (P. quadrifolia) pinyon pines. Beyond the pinyon- juniper woodland is desert scrub vegetation, occupying about one-fourth of California's land area. Desert climate and vegetation are not uniform within such a vast region. There are three types of desert in California: cold, warm, and hot. Cold desert. The cold desert, or Great Basin Desert, is a high desert lying above 4,000 feet elevation between the Sierra-Cascade axis on the west and the Wasatch Moun- tains of Utah on the east. Winters are cold, with most precipitation falling as snow. Summers are dry and warm. It is a land of dark volcanic rock, pronghorn antelope, and sagebrush. Cold-desert vegetation has been significantly modified over the past century by overgrazing, accidental introduction of aggressive weedy species such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), and increased frequency of wildfire. Warm desert. The warm Mojave Desert lies just south of and at elevations below those of the cold Great Basin Desert. The meeting ground of the two is the place of Joshua tree woodland and blackbrush scrub, but as eleva- tion drops further the landscape becomes dominated by creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), burrobush (Ambrosia dumosa), brittlebush (Enceliafarinosa), more than twenty species of cacti, and a great diversity of winter annual wildflowers. Localized habitats such as sand dunes, saline basins, and desert washes support rarer plant species. Hot desert. The hot Colorado Desert occupies the south- eastern corner of California at elevations below 1,000 feet. The region receives summer rains from subtropical storms originating in the south, and the terrain is low enough to be free of frost. As a result, the Colorado Desert is home to a greater variety of plants than the other two deserts. Win- ter-deciduous small trees, arboreal cacti, evergreen and drought-deciduous shrubs, rosette-shaped leaf succulents, VOLUME 22, NO. 3 Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) are a landmark plant at the Joshua Tree National Monument at the edge of the Mojave Desert. subshrubs, small cacti, and winter and summer annual wildflowers all grow here. The overwhelmingly dominant species are creosote bush and burrobush. Must California's Unique Flora Vanish? From a distance, as from a jet flying over the state at great elevation and speed, California's vegetation cover might still appear continuous and healthy. Areas of oak woodland, desert scrub, montane forest, chaparral, wood- land, and grassland still exist. Urbanization, agriculture, clear cuts, and pavement have not replaced all of our natural vegetation. Although only ten percent of old-growth forests, less than ten percent of coastal wetlands, and two percent of interior wetlands remain, even these vegetation types are not the same as those that greeted the first Euroamericans two or three centuries ago. Desert scrub is degraded by overgrazing and off-road vehicles. Montane forests have flammable, dense under- stories because of fire suppression and overstories weak- ened from drought, insects, and atmospheric pollutants. Square miles of chaparral have been converted to grass- land or homesites, coastal scrub to suburbs, and perennial grasslands to weedy annual pastures or farmland. The quality of remaining fragments has been compromised by adjacent development. About one-fourth of our native plant species are threatened with extinction, and so are a similar fraction of our plant communities. It is time to question our relationship with the environ- ment. It is not prudent to degrade or destroy whole ecosys- tems in our rush to settle the land or to sacrifice long-term ecosytem stability for short-term benefit. It is not our human right to exploit and eliminate other living species. Should one generation extinguish forever habitats that future gen- erations will never experience? To reclaim some portion of the original biotic richness of California, we need to begin a process of restoration and enhancement of areas well be- yond the few preserves in existence today. California's unique and exquisite flora does not need to vanish from tomorrow's world. Each of us can make a difference. Michael Barbour and Valerie Whitworth, Box 757, Winters, CA 95694 VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 13 EARLY BOTANICAL EXPLORATIONS 1790-1850 [The prologue to the New Flora of North America (1836) and portions of an introductory chapter in Botanical Exploration of the Trans-Mississippi West, 1790-1850 by Susan Delano McKelvey were originally published by the Arnold Arboretum in 1956 and reprinted by the Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon, in 1991. They are reprinted here with permission.} Prologue "I always travelled with my botanical collecting book and reams of paper to preserve my plants...I have been enabled to collect in 20 years...a most valuable Her- barium, rich in new species, rare plants, and complete Monographs... "During so many years of active and arduous explora- tions, I have met of course all kinds of adventures, fares and treatment. I have been welcomed under the hospitable roof of friends of knowledge or enterprise, else laughed at as a mad Botanist by scornful ignorance... "Such a life of travels and exertions has its pleasures and its pains, its sudden delights and deep joys, mixt with dan- gers, trials, difficulties, and troubles. No one could better paint them than myself, who has experienced them all... "Let the practical Botanist who wishes like myself to be a pioneer of science, and to increase the knowledge of plants, be fully prepared to meet dangers of all sorts in the wild groves and mountains of America. The mere fatigue of a pedestrian journey is nothing compared to the gloom of solitary forests, where not a human being is met for many miles, and if met he may be mistrusted; when the food and collections must be carried in your pocket or knapsack from day to day; when the fare is not only scanty but sometimes worse; when you must live on corn bread and salt pork, be burnt and steamed by a hot sun at noon, or drenched by rain, even with an umbrella in hand, as I always had. "Musquitoes and flies will often annoy you or suck your blood if you stop or leave a hurried step. Gnats dance before the eyes and often fall in unless you shut them; insects creep on you and into your ears. Ants crawl on you whenever you rest on the ground, wasps will assail you like furies if you touch their nests. But ticks the worst of all are unavoidable wherever you go among bushes, and stick to you in crowds.. .other obnoxious insects will often beset you, or sorely hurt you. Hateful snakes are met, and if poisonous are very dangerous, some do not warn you off like the Rattlesnakes. "You meet rough or muddy roads to vex you, and blind paths to perplex you, rocks, mountains, and steep ascents. You may often loose your way, and must always have a compass with you as I had. You may be lamed in climbing rocks for plants or break your limbs by a fall. You must cross and wade through brooks, creeks, rivers and swamps. In deep fords or in swift streams you may lose your footing and be drowned. You may be overtaken by a storm, the trees fall around you, the thunder roars and strikes before you. The winds may annoy you, the fire of heaven or of men sets fire to the grass or forest, and you may be surrounded by it, unless you fly for your life. "You may travel over an unhealthy region or in a sickly season, you may fall sick on the road and become helpless, unless you be very careful, abstenious and temperate. "Such are some of the dangers and troubles of a botani- cal excursion in the mountains and forests of North America. The sedentary botanists or those who travel in carriages or by steamboats, know little of them; those who merely herborize near a city or town, do not appreciate the courage of those who brave such dangers to reap the botanical wealth of the land, nor sufficiently value the collections thus made... "I never was healthier and happier than when I encoun- tered those dangers... I like the free range of the woods and glades, I hate the sight of fences like the Indians! "The pleasures of a botanical exploration fully com- pensate for these miseries and dangers, else no one would be a traveling Botanist, nor spend his time and money in vain. Many fair-days and fair-roads are met with, a clear sky or a bracing breeze inspires delight and ease, you breathe the pure air of the country, every rill and brook offers a drink of limpid fluid.. .What sound sleep at night after a long day's walk, what soothing naps at noon under a shaded tree near a purling brook! "Every step taken into the fields, groves, and hills, appears to afford new enjoyments, Landscapes and Plants jointly meet in your sight. Here is an old acquaintance seen again; there a novelty, a rare plant, perhaps a new one! greets your view: you hasten to pluck it, examine it, admire, and put it in your book. Then you walk on thinking what it might be, or may be made by you hereafter. You feel an exultation, you are a conqueror, you have made a conquest over Nature, you are going to add a new object, or a page to science. This peaceful conquest has cost no tears... "Such are the delightful feelings of a real botanist, who travels not for lucre nor paltry pay... "When nothing new nor rare appears, you commune with your mind and your God in lofty thoughts or dreams of happiness. Every pure botanist is a good man, a happy man, and a religious man... 14 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 "To these botanical pleasures may be added the antici- pation of the future names, places, uses, history, etc. of the plants you discover. For the winter or season of rest, are reserved the sedentary pleasures of comparing, studying naming, describing and publishing. A time may come, when if all plants are well known, little will be left to be done, except seeking rare plants or occasional deviations and varieties; but a long while will elapse before this may take place, since so few of our plants are completely known as yet..." Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, 1836 The First Plant to be Described from the Laperouse Expedition [From the Introductory Chapter of Botanical Explora- tion of the Trans-Mississippi West 1790-1850.] In 1786, about four years before my story opens, a French expedition arrived on the west coast of North America and spent ten days, September 14-24, at Monterey, California. It was commanded by Jean-Francois de Galaup, Comte de Laperouse, an eminent navigator, and had been sent out by Louis XVI during the period of comparative quiet preceding the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. It was at Monterey five years before the Spaniard Malaspina, with whose arrival my story begins, visited the same port from September 13 to 23, 1791. The Laperouse expedition ended in disaster. In 1797 Louis Marie Antoine Distouff, Baron Milet- Mureau, edited and published in Paris the Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde, a four-volume work. It con- tained an account of the origins and purposes of the expe- dition and included such records as had been sent back to France before the ships and those aboard disappeared in the South Pacific. In 1937 the Institut Francais of Washington, D.C., published, under the title Le voyage de Laperouse sur les cotes de VAlaska et de la Californie (1786), a reprint of such portions of the Milet-Mureau work as relate to the visit of the expedition along our west coast. It was edited by Gilbert Chinard and because of its generous format and the editor's enlightening footnotes, is a more readable volume than the earlier work. Both editions contain a frontispiece portrait of Laperouse. The engraving in Milet- Mureau, taken from a miniature, suggests a younger man than the one included by Chinard, which was taken from a portrait, but both portray a cheerful face with twinkling eyes, humorous mouth, and cheeks and chin tending to- wards the stoutish. Milet-Mureau spells the name "La Perouse." But Chinard tells us in his introduction, that, although many variants have appeared, "Laperouse" was the spelling ac- ceptable to the commander himself and to his family, and I follow the usage adopted on such excellent authority. Jean-Francois de Galaup, Compte de Laperouse, celebrated navigator and captain of the ill-fated expedition that collected seeds and specimens of the earliest known plants of California for European botanists. Courtesy of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. Unless otherwise stated my facts are taken from Milet- Mureau. Laperouse was born at "Guo pres d'Albi," in Languedoc, France, not far from Toulouse, on August 23, 1741, and was put at nine years of age in the college of the Jesuits at AM. In 1756 he was made "garde de la marine," which seems to have meant entrance into the Royal Navy. Between 1778 and 1783 he fought against the British in the American Revolution. Soon after, he was appointed by the king to head the expedition in which we are interested. This voyage, perhaps inspired by the reports of Cook and other English navigators, was largely scientific in purpose although the "Memoire du Roi" of June 26, 1785, indicates that information was desired as to the location, extent, condition, power and purposes of the Spanish possessions on the west coast of North America. The possibility of establishing French settlements and of participating in the fur trade also needed investigation. The Academy of Sciences issued full directions. It was hoped that, in botany, research would be directed towards such useful objectives as a knowledge of the plants which the inhabitants of different countries used VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 15 for food, medicine or the arts; collections were to be made in regions where the temperature did not differ appreciably from that of France and whose plants, natu- ralized in the French climate, might some day serve to ornament its plantings. The Medical Society also proposed matters needing solution and information, the section dealing with "Matiere medicale," in particular, itemizing aspects of the flora de- serving study: the flavor and the fragrance of roots, woods, barks, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds, of the saps flowing from trees, and so on. In addition to the herbarium for the botanists, one was to be made for the Medical Society, for botany and medicine went hand in hand in that day.1 There was also a "Memoire pour diriger le jardinier dans les travaux de son voyage autour du monde; par M. Thouin, premier jardinier du jardin des plantes."2 This covered not only the introduction of plant material into the countries visited, but also the acquisition of all forms of plant life, advice on how such might best be transported, sown, and so on. Chinard, writing of Thouin's instruc- tions, comments in his introduction that the list of plants, seeds and young trees to be distributed in the course of the voyage was curious and may perhaps explain the presence of European plants in regions where one would least expect to find them. The scientific books entrusted to Laperouse are enu- merated. Those concerned with botany included Linnaeus' Genera et Systema plantarum, Philosophia botanica, and Supplementum, Forster's Genera plantarum, Plumier's Plantarum genera, and others. There were two frigates, La Boussole, commanded by Laperouse, and L'Astrolabe, commanded by De Langle. The scientific staff ("Ingenieurs, Savans et Artistes[e]) in the first numbered ten; among them, and to us important, was "Collignon... Jardinier-botaniste." In the second were seven "Savans et Artistes," including a "Docteur en medecine, botaniste" De la Martiniere, a naturalist Dufresne, and two artists—one a "Dessinateur pour la botanique, Prevost, oncle," the other his nephew3 of the same name. Sailing from Brest, France, on August 1,1785, the ships went round the Horn and then north, by way of Chile and the Hawaiian Islands, to Alaska, reaching about 60 degrees of north latitude. From there they moved southward. The fog lifting, they were able on June 23, 1786, to see Mount Saint Elias [coast of Alaska]. On July 3 they were in a bay to which Laperouse gave the name "Port des Francais." Here, ten days later, a tragedy occurred when six officers and fifteen men were drowned while attempting to pass through the entrance in canoes. Their comrades erected—on what they called "L'ile du Cenotaphe"—a monument to their memory, burying at its base a bottle containing a short account of the disaster written by De Lamanon, physician of the Boussole. It began with the lines: "A l'entree du port ont peri vingt-un braves marins; qui que vous soyer, melez vos larmes aux notres." It ended: "Emus par le malheur, et non decourages, nous partons le 30 juillet pour continuer notre voyage." They were now on their way to California, to Monterey, where they were to replenish their supplies of wood and water before sailing across the Pacific. Although points southward along the coast are men- tioned, fog was nearly constant and weather overcast and they made no landings until, on September 14, 1786, they anchored in the Bay of Monterey. Laperouse devotes two chapters to Monterey, and I give the substance of some of his remarks. He reported the shores along the bay to be low and sandy, the sea rolling to the base of the dunes with a noise that was to be heard more than a league distant; land to the north and south of the bay was elevated and covered with trees inhabited by the most charming birds; the soil was of an indescribable fertility and all manner of veg- etables grew with perfect success; the crops of corn (mats), barley, wheat and peas, could only be compared with those of Chile—European growers could not picture such fertility; fruit trees were still rare despite the fact that the climate was entirely suitable. The expedition enriched the gardens of the governor and of the missions with different seeds brought from Paris. A few indigenous trees are mentioned: "Les arbres des forets sont le pin a pignon, le cypres,4 le chene vert, et le plantane d'Occident: ils sont clair-semes, et un pelouse, sur laquelle il est tres-agreable de marcher, couvre la terre des ces foret..." From the time of arrival the party had been busy acquir- ing water and wood; of the latter they were permitted to cut all that the ships' boats would hold. The botanists occupied every moment enlarging their collections of plants. But the season was unfavorable, for the heat of summer had dried up everything and seeds had been scat- tered over the ground. Those plants that the gardener Collignon was able to recognize were: "la grande ab- sinthe, l'absinthe maritime, l'aurone male, le the du Mexique, la verge d'or du Canada, Faster (oeil de christ), la mille-feuille, la morelle a fruit noir, la perce-pierre (criste-marine), et la menthe aquatique5..." Collignon left mementos of the visit, giving the mis- sions some potatoes from Chile, perfectly preserved— Laperouse considered this to be not one of the least of their gifts. He believed that the root would succeed admirably in the light soil about Monterey. De Langle, too, having seen the native women grinding corn, a slow and laborious task, made a present of a mill to the missionaries; it was believed that no greater service could have been rendered for it would make it possible for four women to do the work of one hundred, and time would be left for them to spin yarn from the wool of the sheep and to make rough cloth. Up to now the missionaries, more occupied with celestial than temporal matters, had greatly neglected the commonest "arts." De Langle, writing the "Ministre de la Marine" from Monterey on September 22, 1786, reported that, when wind was light, two men could turn such a mill. 16 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 View of the Island of Bourou in the Solomon Islands, taken from the road, was originally published by I. Stockdale, Piccadilly 13th April 1800. Courtesy of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. On September 24, after a stay of ten days, the expedi- tion sailed westward, exploring the eastern shore of Asia from China to Kamtchatka, from which point a member of the scientific staff was sent overland to France bearing Laperouse's journal and other records to date. From Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia, in February of 1788, Laperouse sent still more records, important journals, etc. Guillaumin states that Collignon wrote a last letter from that port on February 15, 1788—its content is mentioned later in this chapter. No more was heard of the ships after their departure from Australia. Donald Culross Peattie has stated that the famed zoologist Charles Alexander Lesueur, who left the expedition at Botany Bay, was the sole survivor. Search was made when the disappearance of the expe- dition had become a matter of certainty. But it was not until some forty years later that Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont d'Urville and his party, sent to make further investigations, discovered the remains of one ship lying encrusted with coral off the island of Vanikoro, one of the Solomon group; his search had been directed to that point by a sea captain named Dillon, who had found relics of the expedition. Dumont d'Urville's party recovered an an- chor, a cannon and other metal objects from the sea floor, and learned from the natives of the sinking of two French ships. The leader was finally convinced that he had found the scene of the disaster. The story is told in Dumont d'Urville's Voyage pittoresque autour du monde, pub- lished in Paris in 1834 and 1835. Guillaumin recounts that even before the Laperouse expedition had met with annihilation De Langle and eleven of the party had been killed by savages on the island of "Maouna" on December 11, 1787. The largest part of the scientific collections were, of course, lost with the ships. One plant, however, bears, testimony to the California visit. I quote from Milet- Mureau: "Le voyage de La Perouse n'a pu...procurer un grand nombre de nouveaux vegetaux; mais Ton doit distinguer parmi ceux qui ont ete envoyes par le jardinier Collignon, une charmante plante herbacee qui a fleuri et fructifie au jardin des plantes, en 1789. Jussieu, qui l'observa le pre- mier, reconnut qu'elle constituait un genre nouveau, appartenant a la famillie des nyctages, et il lui donna le VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 17 nom d'abronia, mot grec qui signifie en Francais, beau, delicat. Lamarck en a donnee une assez bonne figure dans ses Illustrationes generium, planche 150. Les graines de cette plante avaient ete recoltees en California." Jepson repeats the statement in slightly different words: "Two of the packets of seeds...sent were gathered at Monterey. The seeds of one packet were sown in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and produced a number of 'beautiful herbaceous plants.' This species was first ob- served by Jussieu who recognized it as belonging to his order Nyctagines, and made for it a new genus which he called Abronia, a full diagnosis being given in his Genera, published in Paris, in 1789. Two years later Lamarck in his Illustrationes gave to the new plants its specific name umbellata. Abronia umbellata...is the earliest described Californian plant." Abronia umbellata is, I believe, not only the first plant from California but the first plant from the entire trans- Mississippi to have been described in a manner acceptable to the botanists. This sand verbena with rosy or purplish flowers is common along our west coast from San Diego to the mouth of the Columbia River. Jepson reports also: "The seeds of the other packet came with herbarium specimens of a pine collected at Monterey by Collignon." Of this pine Sargent wrote: "Collignon...in 1787 sent to the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris a Pine cone believed to have been gathered at Monterey, and said to resemble that of the Maritime Pine of Europe, but with the large seeds of Pinus cembra. Twelve plants were raised from these seeds, and were described about 1812 by Loiseleur de Longchamps as Pinus Californiana. Judging by the locality where Collignon is supposed to have obtained his cone, it might well belong to the Monterey Pine; but the large seeds suggest another species, while the description of the plants raised from them might apply as well to several other trees as to this. It is necessary, therefore, to pass over what is perhaps the earliest name of this tree as well as the specific name, adunca, published in 1816, and supposed to refer to cultivated plants raised from Collignon's seeds..." The name now accepted for the Monterey pine is Pinus radiata, bestowed by David Don {Trans. Linn. Soc. Lon- don 17:441) in 1836, and, according to Alice Eastwood, to a plant from the collection of Thomas Coulter. A little more light has recently been shed upon our dim knowledge of the man who collected the Abronia by the publication of an article—"Collignon, jardinier du voyage de La Perouse"—written by Andre Guillaumin, already quoted here. His name was Jean-Nicolas Collignon. He was born at Metz on April 19, 1762, and was the son of a gardener, Pierre-Nicolas Collignon, and of "Barbe Simonin, veuve George..." Guillaumin quotes Thouin to the effect that Collignon was young, active, intelligent, with some theoretical and practical knowledge of gardening, and writing sufficiently well to keep a journal of his observations; he had some knowledge, also, of plants. Letters were exchanged, be Seed of pink sand-verbena (Abronia umbellatum), the first plant to have been described from California in 1789, was one of the few items to reach Europe from the ill-fated Laperuse Expedition. Abronia villosa is shown here courtesy of the Jepson Herbarium. 18 FREMONTIA E 22, NO. 3 fore the departure of the Laperouse expedition and en route (although none are from California) between Collignon and Thouin. The contents of all the letters are not given by Guillaumin but some are stated to have concerned the distribution of plant material, others to have been about seeds to be procured at Madeira and at the Canary Islands. One, dated January 27, 1787, and from Guillaumin's context presumably written at Macao, records that Collignon was shipping, in three boxes of "fer blanc" enclosed in a wooden case, seeds gathered at various points, among others at Monterey. In this ship- ment, states Guillaumin in a footnote, was "le type d'un genre nouveau de Nyctaginacees..."—in other words the notable Abronia. The last letter cited by Guillaumin was dated from Botany Bay, February 15, 1788, and in it Collignon noti- fies Thouin that he was continuing to revise his journal but that, in conformity to Laperouse's orders, was not ship- ping it to Europe. During the years following the disappearance of the ships Collignon's mother and sister, according to Guillaumin, became impoverished and were obliged to turn to Thouin for assistance. He also records that "Pirolle," writing in his Horticulteur Frangais, mentions that C. de Tschudy gave Collignon' s name to a particular graft which that celebrated native of Metz ("ce celebre messin") had conceived ("avait imagine"). According to Jepson, "The genus Collignonia [now Abronia], which includes some six species of herbs and undershrubs of the temperate region of the Andes from New Granada to Peru, was founded by Endlicher in his Genera Plantarum (1836-40). The type of the genus is Abronia parviflora, Kunth." Laperouse's scientists were interested in more fields than botany when in California. Stillman mentions that during the ten days at Monterey, Laperouse made "a good survey of the Bay of Monterey, which was pub- lished with his narrative, and also a rough sketch of San Francisco Bay as furnished him by the missionaries. This sketch of San Francisco Bay is the earliest printed, and the southern shore is the only part that is even approxi- mately correct..." Alden and Ifft comment that ornithology was not ne- glected and that Laperouse "writes that many birds were seen and collected. Three are beautifully figured in the Atlas, two...easily identified...the California quail and the California thrasher." They remark also that De la Martiniere, in his "Memoir concerning certain insects" (published in Milet-Mureau) was "obviously out of his field, but is highly excited over polyps, siphonophores, nudibranch molluscs, and many other inhabitants of his bucket of sea water..." Collignon's sand verbena—a lowly plant and perhaps unimportant by comparison with the gigantic trees, spec- tacular shrubs and showy flowers which were later to be discovered—was, nonetheless, the first from the trans- Mississippi west to be considred worthy of a place in the floras still to be written by the botanists. As the first, it assumes an importance all its own and, if only as a me- mento of Laperouse's tragic story, deserves remembrance. Notes: 1 In the "Memoire physiologique et pathologique sur les Americains" written by "M. Rollin, Docteur en Medecine, Chirugien-major de la fregate la Boussole," and included in Milet-Mureau (4:36-61) is a long description of a plant used by the natives of California as a cure for venereal diseases and known to the Spaniards under the name gouvernante. To this description Chinard appends a footnote suggesting that this might well be a description of the creosote bush which, though not indigenous about Monterey, might have been brought there by Indians of a neighboring tribe—per- haps from the San Joaquin valley where it does grow. Al- though Rollin's description is not altogether accurate, this may be true, for the name gouvernante—like the name gober- nadora—is often applied to the Larrea tridentata (or Covillea tridentatd), the creosote bush. If so, Rollin's description must be a very early one of the species in California. 2 According to Bretschneider: "The starting point of this cel- ebrated Garden [the Royal Garden at Paris], now generally known under the name of 'Jardin des Plantes,' dates from the year 1626, when Herouard, First Physician to Louis XIII, obtained from the King letters [of] patent authorizing the establishment of a Botanical Garden in the suburb of St. Victor, of which Herouard became Superintendent..." Also we are told that Andre Thouin became "Chief Gardener at the Royal Gardens" at the age of seventeen and held the post until his death in 1823. 3 Guillaumin states that the nephew always refused to paint anything but plants and that, in a letter written from Macao on January 9, 1787, De la Martiniere complains of this fact. 4 Laperouse here mentions the Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa Hartweg) which is such a conspicuous feature of the Monterey region. Sargent states in The Silva: "Al- though its seeds appear to have reached England in 1838, Cupressus macrocarpa was first made known to botanists in 1847 by Karl Theodor Hartweg, who had found it at Cypress Point [Monterey] the previous autumn." 5 Alice Eastwood, familiar with the flora of the Monterey re- gion, made the following determinations of the plants which Collignon was said to have recognized: "L' absinthe maritime, Artemisia pycnocephala DC; L'armoise, Artemisia hetero- phylla Nutt.; Le grand absinthe, probably Artemisia californica Less.; L'aurone male,, perhaps Artemisia ludoviciana Nutt. (This was the identification of the white-downy artemisia re- lated to A. heterophylla of Asa Gray in the Synoptical Flora of North America); La verge d'or du Canada, Solidago californica Nutt. Goldenrod; L' aster (oeil de christ), probably Aster chilen- sis Nees; La morelle a fruit noir, Solanum Douglasii Dunal. Nightshade; La perce-pierre (criste-marine), Salicornia ambi- gua Michx. Samphire; La menthe aquatique, probably Mentha canadensis L.; Le the du Mexique, Micromeria Chamissonis (Benth.) Greene. Yerba Buena; La millefeuille, Achillea Millefolium L., Milfoil or Yarrow." VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 19 TAMARISK CONTROL: A SUCCESS STORY by Cameron W. Barrows THE CONTROL of tamarisk, or salt cedar (Tamarix ramosissima), is a controversial issue. There are several reasons for this. One is the presumed futil- ity of control efforts. If tamarisk control is a lost cause, why devote precious money and labor to the effort? Another is that in areas that are heavily infested and have a long history of manipulation, it is often difficult, and may even be impossible, to determine just what the historic ecosystem was like. In addition, there are questions about the recovery of native vegetation and recolonization by animals on sites from which tamarisk has been cleared. Under what condi- tions will the community recover more or less on its own? When is a more active program of restoration called for? What techniques are most likely to be effective? Despite these uncertainties, in 1986 we initiated a tama- risk control project in a heavily infested ten-hectare wet- land in the Coachella Valley Preserve in Riverside County, California. While the project is just nearing completion, the results so far have been encouraging and suggest that, while complete and perpetual eradication of tamarisk is unlikely in most situations, control followed by restora- tion of historic vegetation is a viable option in many watersheds. The Site, Recovery and Restoration Our project was conducted entirely within the bound- aries of the Coachella Valley Preserve, a 7,600-hectare preserve system owned and managed by The Nature Con- servancy, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Game, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation. While the main purpose of the preserve is the protection of blow-sand habitats, there are also eleven protected palm oases within the sand-source areas. When the preserve was dedicated in 1986 many of these oases and associated riparian habitats were moderately or se- verely infested by salt cedar. The heaviest tamarisk infestation, and the focus of this management effort, was in Thousand Palms Canyon, a roughly ten-hectare, linear wetland in the center of the preserve. Within this approximately 1.6-kilometer long wetland there are three clusters of native desert fan palms (Washingtoniafilifera) totaling nearly 1,000 palms. Tama- risk first appeared in this area soon after the turn of the century, probably brought in by early settlers and railroad construction crews to create wind breaks. In 1986 there was a severe (greater than eighty percent cover) infesta- tion of tamarisk over about seventy percent of this wetland 20 FREMONTIA habitat, threatening the native riparian community of palms, willow (Salix exigua), cottonwoods (Populus fremontii), common reed (Phragmites australis), and mesquite (Pro- sopis glandulosa and P. pubescens). The balance of the wetland had from ten to forty percent cover of tamarisk. In addition to the major effort in Thousand Palms Canyon, we also undertook smaller salt cedar control efforts at Hidden Palms (three-hectare palm oasis, fifty percent cov- erage), Pushwalla Canyon (six hectares of palms, mes- quite, and willows, fifty percent coverage), Indian Palms (one-hectare palm oasis, ten percent coverage), and Biskra Palms (three-hectare palm oasis, ten percent coverage). In addition to tamarisk, both Thousand Palms and Pushwalla Canyons had small infestations (less than five percent coverage) of giant reed (Arundo donax). Tamarisk Removal Recipe Tamarisk removal began in the spring of 1986 and was concluded, with the exception of a maintenance-level ef- fort, in the winter of 1991-1992. Throughout this period the removal effort was confined to the cooler months of November through April and was most intense from fall 1987 through spring 1990. Tamarisk was removed on six to ten weekend "bashes" per year. Most of the removal effort was carried out by volunteer or California Conservation Corps crews. This was diffi- cult work; after safety training for all crews, we cut each tree as near to the ground as was feasible with a chainsaw or pruning shear, immediately sprayed the cut surface with A volunteer for The Nature Conservancy clearing tamarisk debris. Pho- tographs by the author. A fan palm (Washingtoniafdifera) oasis heavily encroached on by tamarisk (Tamarix ssp.). herbicide from hand-held or backpack sprayers, and then hauled the debris to centralized piles (somewhat euphe- mistically referred to as quail and sparrow cover). Doing this work by hand, though time consuming, made it pos- sible to cut selectively, leaving all native shrubs that had managed to survive the tamarisk infestation, softening the appearance of an otherwise clear-cut post-bash site, and, more importantly, possibly hastening the natural revegeta- tion of the site. Roughly three hectares were so heavily infested with tamarisk (greater than ninety-five percent coverage) that we felt retention of natives was fruitless. We decided to scrape these three hectares with a bulldozer provided by the Fish and Wildlife Service, removing all above-ground vegetation. The entire effort spanning approximately five years involved approximately 5,000 person-hours of volunteer and staff time, and consumed thirty gallons of herbicide. November through January proved to be the most effec- tive time to achieve first-time kills of tamarisk; apparently because plants are entering dormancy at that time and translocating resources into their roots, the herbicide was more likely to be pulled into the root system, thus killing the below-ground portion of the plant. The herbicide we used was almost most effective when applied to the sur- face of the stump immediately following cutting; waiting more than just a few minutes seemed to increase the likelihood of subsequent resprouts. Well over half the cut stumps did resprout at least once after the initial treatment, partly because our protocol for treatment was not always followed precisely, and partly because tamarisk is simply very hard to kill. Resprouts were treated with herbicide by preserve staff using backpack sprayers. The backpack sprayers were much easier than the repeated bending over that hand sprayers required, and carried much more herbicide at a time, reducing the amount of mixing and pouring required in the field, when spilling was most likely. The herbicides we used, Garlon 3A and 4 (Dow Chemical), are consid- ered relatively safe by industry standards for both the applicator and the environment, and we found them effec- tive at killing tamarisk as long as proper protocol and safety measures were followed. The safety measures we used included protective clothing, hand, face, and eye protection, and washing with fresh water any skin area that VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 21 came in contact with the poison. Roundup and Rodeo (Monsanto) are reported to be equally effective and safe herbicides, although we are just beginning to do the field tests necessary to make any definitive judgement. If it turns out to be effective at killing salt cedar, Rodeo may be the best choice where spray may reach open water, since it is non-toxic to aquatic organisms. All of these chemicals are expensive; to reduce costs we diluted the herbicide in water at a ratio of one part herbicide in two or three parts water and still found that it killed tamarisk effectively. Others have diluted Garlon with diesel fuel, but we chose not to due to the increased environmental toxicity and safety hazards. The removal of salt cedar resulted in tremendous amounts of cut branches and trunks that needed to be dealt with. Hauling the debris to landfills proved prohibitively expen- sive. Burning the material on site may be an option in some situations, but working near the palm oases we were con- cerned that sparks might enter the dry palm skirts and ignite them. Consequently, we chose to pile the debris in incon- spicuous locations. We hoped that the piles might serve as interim cover for quail and wintering sparrows until reveg- etation of the sites created new cover. The piles were in fact heavily utilized by birds. Over five years the piles have decomposed to about ten percent their original volume. Many people had indicated that tamarisk removal was an impossible task, yet in five years we had eradicated tamarisk from all of the palm oases and associated wet- lands on the Coachella Valley Preserve. We had also removed all of the giant reed using essentially the same method. Because tamarisk is so extensive beyond our boundaries, we realize that seeds will blow onto the pre- serve and that some will germinate. There is a perpetual maintenance associated with a goal of controlling tama- risk here, requiring our regular vigilance to pull seedlings before they become established, but the annual effort is very small, not more than one or two person-weeks. Revegetating or restoring cleared sites to a native mix of species with natural densities and distributions is so site-specific that attempts at generalizing techniques would be misleading. Salinity levels, species and number of native plants that persist, whether or not natural processes such as flooding are still functioning, and water availabil- ity are all factors that require consideration. At the Coachella Valley Preserve we are fortunate that the natu- ral flood regime is still intact and that water is relatively abundant due to earthquake faults that abound here. Among the native trees occurring with tamarisk on this site were two species of mesquite. We initiated a plant nursery from mesquite seed collected on site to produce stock for planting out at appropriate locations. While wait- ing for our nursery plants to develop we collected seed from all the surrounding native shrubs and trees and scattered it over the cleared areas. The seeds included palm, cotton- wood, mesquite, saltbush (Atriplex polycarpa), quailbush (A. lentiformes), and alkali goldenbush (Haplopappus acradenius). During the relatively wet springs of 1991 and 1992 there was abundant seedling establishment from ei- ther natural seed dispersal and/or our seed spreading efforts (we had no controls established to test the effectiveness of our seed sowing efforts). Inkweed (Suaeda torreyana), saltbush, quailbush, and alkali goldenbush have all become well established on our drier sites, while desert fan palms, willow, cottonwood,and common reed have formed dense thickets in the wetter locations. Interestingly, natives ap- peared more rapidly on the sites selectively cut with hand crews than on those scraped with the bulldozer. None of the sites, however, required any container planting. The seed- lings established their own densities and species matrix, presumably reflecting current soil salinity and moisture characteristics, relieving us of the onerous task of replant- ing. The historic plant species composition has been re- established, and many of the associated mammals, reptiles, and birds have reoccupied the restored habitat. In fact, natives recovered so rapidly from seed that we wound up using the mesquite plants we had started in our plant nurs- ery only sparingly—and with little success. So far, few if any mesquite have germinated and become established on their own, but since seed sources are abundant in the imme- diate area, we have decided to wait for natural establish- ment. Because natural processes and species associations were still more or less intact on our sites, their recovery has been quick and inexpensive. On sites where historic native species are lacking more extreme efforts are needed, in- cluding strategic planting of pole or container stock to provide a seed source. Ideally, restoration efforts can be designed to take advantage of natural processes such as flooding and wind dispersal of seeds in re-establishing the historic plant community. There remains, of course, the problem of characterizing native biota in order to define restoration goals. On our site we had historic descriptions from people who lived on the site prior to the establishment of tamarisk, and who had photos showing the density, distribution, and size of the riparian community from the 1920s to the present. Today there is little left to remind us of the prior domination of tamarisk here. Thousand Palms Canyon may be one of the largest desert riparian areas in southern California in which tamarisk infestation has been effec- tively controlled. Moreover, removal has led to impressive recovery, both of vegetation and of key processes. Water now flows where there was dry ground before. That sight alone makes believers out of even the most ardent naysayers. While not all aspects of this effort are appli- cable at other sites, the results do demonstrate that tama- risk can be controlled and native vegetation restored in some situations at reasonable cost. It can be done. [Reprinted from Restoration and Management Notes, 11:1, 1993.] Cameron W. Barrows, Box 188, Thousand Palms, CA 92276 22 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 NEW FELLOWS MARY ANN (CORKY) MATTHEWS by Suzanne Schettler When Mary Ann (Corky) Matthews of Carmel Valley, a dedicated conservationist, became curious about plant identification, the native flora gained a voice. Corky has long been speaking for the native plants in one of the earliest chapters of CNPS, and in regional and statewide plant conservation circles as well. Corky grew up in Marin County, graduated from Stanford University with a degree in international studies, and later studied botany at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. After teaching at Monterey Peninsula College for several years, she worked as a land use researcher for the Califor- nia Attorney General's Office, where she learned much that she has put to use on behalf of the native flora. Countless decision makers have been persuaded to place California's natural heritage above short-term profit as a result of Corky's articulate and informed presenta- tions. The Ventana Wilderness on the Central Coast and the Monterey Peninsula Park and Open Space District became realities partly because of her leadership. She has been the state CNPS administrative vice-president and has chaired the nominating committee. She currently serves on the Plant Communities Committee, and as CNPS' state Forestry Coordinator she keeps our members informed of policies and actions of the Board of Forestry that merit support or change. Corky's track record with the Sierra Club predates the founding of CNPS, for she was a founding member of the Ventana Chapter in 1963. She has served on various com- mittees and task forces, edited The Ventana, and received the Sierra Club's National Special Achievement Award in 1978 and the Betty Davis Conservation Award in 1983. In 1991 she received the regional conservation award of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Corky is a visionary on behalf of native plants. In the mid-1980s, seeing that the dunes around Monterey Bay might be managed cohesively as one ecological system even though they cross multiple jurisdictions, she co- founded the Monterey Dunes Coalition. In September 1987 she formulated the first CNPS policy concerning the seeding of ryegrass after wildfires. Last year Corky helped Corky Mathews at Reeves Ranch near Fremont Peak. Photograph by Ron Branson. VOLUME 2 2, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 23 found the Monterey Pine Forest Watch, which is working to save the remaining native Monterey pine forest. The group sponsored a symposium this spring to disseminate current information about this rare species. Members and neighbors of her chapter are looking forward to publica- tion of her flora of Monterey County, which is nearing completion. It will be unique in being a field-oriented key, with species illustrated on the page facing their descriptions. Suzanne Schettler, 1820 Graham Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA. 95060 JIM GRIFFIN Oak Savant by Sarah Steinberg Gustafson JIM Griffin, recently retired from his post as research ecologist at the Hastings Natural History Reserva tion, has long been considered the living repository for information on California oaks. Griffin received his Ph.D in botany from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962. In addition to his job as research ecologist at Hastings from 1967 until his retire- ment late last year, Griffin served as resident manager from 1982 to 1988. He and his wife, Joan, a local school teacher, have lived on the reserve for twenty years and raised their two children there. According to his colleagues, Griffin was among the first to document the problems of oak regeneration in California. By collecting, analyzing, and sharing vast quan- tities of field data, Griffin has been able to quietly draw attention to the importance of viewing oaks from an eco- logical perspective. He helped sow this perspective by nurturing a crop of graduate students, several of whom continue oak research. In his twenty-five years at Hastings, Griffin mentored more than a dozen young scientists and influenced the careers of many others. "Jim kept the candle lit," says Pam Muick, a recent student. "He passed on such valuable information ... it was like he touched me with a magic wand." "Instead of publishing lots of little papers, he would wait until he could publish something comprehen- sive," she says. Among Griffin's major works are the oft- cited Distribution of Forest Trees of California, a bibliog- raphy of oak literature arranged according to topic as well as species, and the sections on pines and three other families in the new Jepson Manual. In addition, Griffin authored several papers that helped define the current understanding of oak ecology. Charac- terized by one colleague as "always uncovering secrets," 24 FREMONTIA Jim Griffin at the Hastings Natural History Reservation. Photograph by Mark Stromberg. Griffin's often innovative research typically involved ex- tensive field work under difficult conditions. In one study published in Ecology, for example, Griffin compared xy- lem sap tension at the height of summer in twenty-five stands of oak ranging from rugged canyon bottoms to ridgetops. He found that, contrary to then current dogma, many trees on northern slopes were dryer than those on southern slopes. A less observant, less patient man might have overlooked the question altogether. Though Griffin says he thoroughly enjoyed his field work, some of his most satisfying hours at Hastings have been spent teaching the field classes that visit the site from all over the state. Future students and researchers will benefit from the dozens of research plots Griffin estab- lished at Hastings and on adjacent ranches. From these he has gathered baseline data on plant communities in upper Carmel Valley since the late 1960s. "Jim collected an incredible wealth of information that's going to be extremely helpful to others studying the veg- etation and flora of the area," says Nancy Morin, another Griffin protegee, now assistant director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and convening editor of Flora of North America. "His records are especially important because they are so broad. He is always thinking about the total biological context in which the organisms he looks at are operating." [Excerpted from: Transect, Spring 1993, publication of the University of California Natural Reserve System.] VOLUME 22, NO. 3 JOHN THOMAS HOWELL, 1903-1994 by Elizabeth McClintock John Thomas Howell was an indefatigable collec- tor and student of the plants of California, other west- ern states, and the Galapagos Islands. After he retired as curator of botany at the California Academy of Sci- ences in January 1969, he continued his botanical pursuits until shortly before his death on May 7, 1994, at the age of ninety. Plants were a major interest throughout his life, but he had two other passions, religion and music. As a Roman Catholic he participated in church activities all his life, and listening to concert music was one of his great pleasures. Tom Howell was born November 6, 1903, in Merced, California, and lived there through his high school days. In fall 1922 he entered the University of California, Berke- ley, where he took his first botany course from Professor W.L. Jepson. In 1926 he graduated with a major in botany, and in 1927 he received his Master's degree in that field. The following two years he spent in southern Califor- nia, first at Southern Branch, University of California, Los Angeles (before it became UCLA), where he was an instructor in botany, and then as the first resident botanist at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. At Rancho Santa Ana he founded the garden's new herbarium, but the garden's director and founder, Susan Bixby Bryant, did not appreciate his efforts and chose to terminate his em- ployment. Returning to northern California in 1929, Tom was employed by the California Academy of Sciences as assistant to Alice Eastwood, and in 1930 he was appointed assistant curator of botany, a position he held until 1949 when Eastwood retired at the age of ninety. In 1932 Tom was botanist on the Templeton Crocker Expedition to the Galapagos Islands. His collections, about 4,000, made an important addition to those of Alban Stewart on the 1905-06 Galapagos Expedition of the California Academy of Sciences. He also published papers on several Galapagos plants. In 1932, with Alice Eastwood, he founded Leaflets of Western Botany, a private botanical journal that he edited and published until 1966, when ten volumes were completed. Tom joined the Sierra Club in 1939 and shortly after helped organize the Natural Science Section. Members of the section hiked and held evening meetings at which Tom gave plant instructions. After the retirement of Alice Eastwood, Tom became leader of the Academy's Botany Club, for which, until recent years, he conducted informal botanical meetings and led field trips. Tom believed that local floras were important additions to comprehensive state flora. His Marin County Flora (1949) is still referred to as the bible of Marin botany. Tom began this flora in the early 1940s when he hiked with Sierra Club members, including Hans Leschke, Charles Townsend, and Malcolm Smith. A second edition of the flora was published with a supplement in 1970, and in 1981 additional notes were published with Gordon True and Catherine Best as co-authors. A Flora of San Francisco was published in 1958 with Peter H. Raven and Peter Rubtzoff. Raven, whose botani- cal career began about this time with Tom Howell as mentor, is now director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. The flora went out of print some years ago, but because it is so useful to members of the Yerba Buena Chapter of CNPS, the chapter reprinted it recently. The Vascular Plants of Monterey County, California was compiled by Tom Howell with Beatrice Howitt, who had prepared a manuscript to which Tom contributed. The flora was published in 1964, with a supplement added in 1973. Tom was a co-author of Plants of the Toiyabe Moun- tains, Nevada (1952) with Mary Ann and Jean M. Linsdale, Hastings Reservation, Monterey County. Mrs. Linsdale wrote the account of the Toiyabe plants in 1932; Tom's contribution was to re-examine her collection and bring the names up to date. Hans Leschke (1883-1973), a musician, met Tom through the Sierra Club. The two hiked together in Marin County while Tom was working on the Marin flora. During several summers Dr. Leschke collected in Lassen National Park. In 1961 Leschke, George Gillett, and Tom Howell published A Flora of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Tom's last publication, in 1992, was a flora of Peavine Mountain, Nevada, with co-authors Margaret Williams, Gordon H. True, and Arnold Tiehm. Tom had suggested the project to Mrs. Williams in 1971 when he was working on the Sierra Nevada flora. Unfortunately, Tom's Sierra flora was not completed. Tom gave advice and information to many more people than can be mentioned. Those included here made signifi- cant contributions in collecting plants, in publications, or both. Their collections came to the herbarium of the Cali- fornia Academy of Sciences. In 1953 Ernest Twisselmann (1917-1972), a cattle rancher in the Temblor Range, south- ern San Joaquin Valley, asked Tom to identify plants causing nitrate poisoning in cattle. This led to Ernest's interest in plants, and he published a flora of the Temblor Range (1956) and a flora of Kern County (1967). Henry M. Pollard (1886-1973), a retired teacher of Latin and Greek, made extensive collections in the Ojai Valley, Ventura County, and the Santa Barbara area in the 1940s through the 1960s; Tom helped him in their identification. Pollard later published a paper on plants native to the VOLUME 2 2, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 25 Tom Howell at the Academy of Sciences with Kay Best in the background. Santa Barbara area. Lewis S. Rose (1893-1973) was en- couraged by Tom to collect plants in large sets for an exchange program that brought about 100,000 specimens to the California Academy of Sciences herbarium. Gordon H. True (1908-1984) came to Howell in about 1960 for identification of plant burrs on cattle at his ranch. Several years later, living in Marin County, Tom encouraged him to continue collecting plants in Nevada County. In 1973 Gordon compiled a checklist of the plants of Nevada County. Clare Hardham carried on botanical collecting and ranching near Paso Robles. With encouragement from Howell, she worked on Chorizanthe (buckwheat family) and Monardella (mint family), in which she published several new species in 1966. Javier Penalosa was a mem- ber of the Junior Academy of the California Academy of Sciences when Tom suggested that he make a plant collec- tion on Tiburon Peninsula. With the help of a research grant, Javier published his flora of Tiburon in 1961. Oth- ers whom Tom helped in many ways were Walter Knight, James Shevock, Clifton Smith, Lowell Ahart, Gladys Smith, and Mary de Decker. Tom had a great interest in conservation. Among his conservation efforts was help with preservation of Old St. Hilary's Historic Preserve, a serpentine grassland on Tiburon Peninsula, and particularly the John Thomas Howell Botanic Garden. A flora of the preserve was pub- lished by Tom Howell and Phyllis Ellman in 1972. Tom's plant collections numbered about 55,000, most of which are from California. When he retired he wrote that during the years 1930 to 1969 the herbarium at the 26 FREMONTIA California Academy of Sciences tripled in size. To para- phrase his words: he had not been idle and was never unhappy. Elizabeth McClintock, 1551 9th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122 UP UNDER THE EQUATOR by John Thomas Howell [Reprinted from: Sierra Club Bulletin 27: 79-82, 1942.] It was not until years after I had stood on the highest point of Indefatigable Island in the Galapagos Archipelago that a fellow Sierran exclaimed, "Why, you made a first ascent!" Yes, I had to admit, I was party to a first ascent and a notable one; but, as my mind went back to that day in 1932,1 was hesitant to accept the honor of a first ascent, that distinction so sought after by mountaineers. For, as botanist on the Templeton Crocker Expedition of the California Academy ofSciences, had I not leisurely and with a minimum of physical effort literally botanized my way to the 2,300-foot summit of Indefatigable Island along a route opened for Crocker and the rest of his party? Moreover, during the course of the expedition we never spoke of ascending the volcano in the center of Indefatigable, always we penetrated Indefatigable. The problem was not one of delicate mountaineering technique, and certainly, at so low an elevation less than a degree below the Equator, it wasn 't a question of skill on ice or snow; it was a matter of perseverance and endurance in traversing the thorny scrub of desert lowlands, in climbing through tangles of upland rain forests, and in crossing the rough and uncertain terrain on the side of a great volcano. It was a problem of penetration. Others had attempted it and had failed: the early explorers, the California Academy of Sciences Expedition in 1905-06, William Beebe in 1923, and Vincent Astor in 1930. The terrain, the cactus thickets, the rain forest, or the upland brush, singly or combined, presented obstacles that had been unsurmountable. Until Indefatigable was penetrated in 1932, little hadbeen known of the middle of the island; maps showed a mammoth volcano which rose gradually and symmetrically on all sides from the nearly circular shoreline of the island. Rumor had it that in the crater was a lake that discharged great floods of water upon the desert lowlands in times of exceptionally heavy rainfall. Actual conditions were found to be quite different. After ten years, as I look back on the Templeton Crocker Expedition, I regard the penetration of Indefatigable Island- the ascent of Mount Crocker- the most important single accomplishment of the expedition. On May 1, 1932, after sailing for two weeks among the southern islands in the Galapagos Archipelago, the Zaca anchored in the picturesque harbor of Academy Bay on the south side of Indefatigable Island. To the southwest, bold lava escarpments rose about fifty feet from the tropic-blue water of the bay or from dense thickets of dark green mangroves, and the VOLUME 22, NO. 3 mesa-like skyline was crowned by a most extraordinary cactus forest with trees twenty to thirty feet tall. To the east, giant swells that rolled northward under the constant pressure of the southeast trade winds broke in a magnificent and booming surf on steep white beaches and jagged fingers of black lava. The innermost reaches of the bay extended to the west and north, where there was a small group of buildings belonging to Ecuadorian and Scandinavian fishermen; and beyond and above all rose the great central mountain of the island. Immediately after our arrival, Crocker formulated plans for the trip to the top of the island, and he engaged an Icelander named Finsen to prospect a route through the forests and upland brush. One great advantage that we had was a trail about three and a half miles long which traversed the very rough terrain and thorn thickets of the lowlands and extended from Academy Bay inland to a plantation known as Fortuna, in the wet zone of the island. And beyond Fortuna we were again in luck. A stream course, which rose high up on the island and which was usually impossible to follow because of jungle-like tangles that choked it, had been swept clear of obstacles by phenomenally high water earlier in the season; it lay an open route through the dense masses of underbrush of the forest belt. Beyond the head of the stream a trail had to be opened across a broad zone of shrubs which was dominated by a single kind belonging to the tropical genus Miconia. Because of the important bits of good fortune, it was just a week after our arrival at Academy Bay that Finsen reported to Crocker that he had prospected a route that would lead to the unknown heart of Indefatigable. The next day we were up and off. Students of plant geography have remarked on the suddenness and completeness with which plant formations change in that borderland between the wet and dry tropics, and in our journey to the top of Indefatigable Island, this was strikingly exemplified. In a climb of about 2,300 feet, in a distance of about ten miles, we passed through four belts of vegetation types as definite and as different as the life zones with which we are acquainted in our California mountains. Even at the head of Academy Bay, the extreme type of cactus desert, which was characteristic of the harbor headlands, began to show features of vegetation transitional to the rain-forest jungle in the increase of mosses, ferns, vines, and undergrowth, although the fabulous cactus trees o/Cereus and Opuntia still dominated the scene with their fantastic forms. The country was rough, with rocky parapets and great tumbled lava blocks, and we gained some idea of its treacherous character by a trailside crevasse in the lava that was so deep that a rock fell silently for three or four seconds. As we went along, moisture-loving vegetation replaced that of the desert. At an elevation as low as 350 feet we were in a tropical rain forest. Large trees were clothed with ferns and mosses, festooned with vines and large woody creepers, dense thickets of ferns and shrubsflourished in deep rich soil underthe trees. Somewhat higher, in a forest clearing, was the plantation, Fortuna. Here we passed the night. The following morning, May 9, we were up at daybreak and off for the top of the island. We followed the dry rocky bed of the providential stream through the midst of the jungle, and along its course we saw great piles of water-washed brush. Not long before, a great torrent must have swept down the mountain. Progress was not difficult, along gravel beds or from stone to stone, or now and again over low cataracts and falls, at only one of which a rope was used. Gradually the trees became lower and more scattered, and at about 900 feet a few indivi- duals of the shrub Miconia appeared. Three hundred feet higher the Miconia was the only woody shrub and, together with giant brakes and low tree ferns, it covered all slopes and ridges with a dense, uniform, monotonous thicket about seven to ten feet tall. As we went along, the loose detritus which had covered the streambed farther down gave way to solid rock where pools of clear fresh water collected in hollows connected by tiny trickles; small rock gardens of flowers and ferns grew in moist crevices. Gradually the streambed became more confined; shortly we left it to use a trail Finsen had cut through the Miconia. Then the vegetative scene changed again. Above 1,500 feet, the Miconia gradually became less frequent and shorter, and above 1,700feet, where it was reduced to a height of only three feet, it was entirely replaced by several kinds of ferns which were about three feet tall and which became the dominant vegetative form. In low wet places where water seeped, sedges were common, and on steep wet slopes Sphagnum formed broad mossy patches of bright yellow-green and a peculiar fluffy lichen f Dictyonema) produced queer mounds of grayish white. The long slender stems of three kinds of club moss (Lycopodium) crept along the ground under the ferns or clambered upward through the fronds. This general type of vegetation, different from anything I had ever seen before, covered everything and continued to the summit of the island. The morning had been cloudy with intermittent showers, and in the early afternoon, when we reached the uppermost part of the island, a mantle of drifting fog concealed the highest ridges. By middle afternoon, however, when the mists rose and broke and the sun shone for a short time, we discovered we were on the floor of what was once an immense crater. The original crater rim was broken by recent volcanic activity and it was much wasted by weathering. The highest of the rim fragments, which was situated at the northeastern end of the crater, was about 300 feet above the mounds and flats of the crater floor and was the highest point of the island. Indefatigable had finally been penetrated and we began the ascent to the actual summit. As we climbed the rim splinter that now bears the name Mount Crocker, the ever-widening panorama was stimulating and the general topography of the center of the island gradually became apparent. Beyond the confines of what was once the crater were numerous other cones and craters. The smaller ones nearby were obviously more recent and parasitic upon the old cone, but some to the west were apparently independent, and these, together with the crater we were ascending, seemed to form a transverse east-west axis across the central highest part of the island. Far beyond stretches of indigo sea other islands became visible, and practically the entire coastline of Indefatigable Island, with all its coves andpromontories, could be seen. While the grotesque cactus groves of the desert lowlands could scarcely be distinguished, the rain forests below the Miconia belt were clearly visible, and the remark- able fern formation crowning the island was everywhere about us. Surely here, where no one had ever been before, was a botanist's paradise. So alluring were the plants1could scarcely keep up with the rest of the party. But eventually, with plant press in one hand and specimens in the other, I arrived on top, and, in traditional manner, added my name to the record of a first ascent. VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 27 GROWING NATIVES: BLUE CURLS by Nevin Smith Genus: Trie ho sterna Family: Lamiaceae (mint family) THE CHAPARRAL—California's dryland, pygmy for est—is not uniformly cherished by Californians. To some it is a wasteland, nearly like the desert, where one might go to shoot a gun, ride a motorcycle full tilt up a mountainside, or generally vent the frustrations born of city life without bothering the neighbors. To those who explore the chaparral more closely, however, it is teeming with wildlife, and a place to find hidden treasures. Some of these treasures, often easily seen, are species of Trichostema, the blue curls. Though they belong very much to the chaparral, they seem to delight in edges and clearings. They do a fine job of colonizing road banks, making them easy for the casual tourist to enjoy, and they thrive in recent burns and bulldozer cuts. Some of their neighbors—the manzanitas, for example—may be more impressive in leaf. But in bloom, blue curls create a spec- tacle rivaled only by that of the much larger wild lilacs (Ceanothus), fremontias {Fremontodendrori), and bush poppies (Dendromecon). Common Features The plants we know as blue curls belong to the genus Trichostema, one of the smaller genera of the mint family but well represented in California. The new Jepson Manual lists ten species in California, of which two are shrubs or subshrubs (plants with woody trunks and nonwoody sea- sonal stems); the rest are annuals. Like many of the mints, they have leafy stems and neatly paired, opposite leaves. All parts of the plants are pungently aromatic, with various combinations of sweet, resinous, and acid scents. Showy violet to blue or lavender, irregular flowers, somewhat resembling those of the garden germanders (Teucrium), are clustered along the upper stems. They are made even more beautiful by the long, colored stamens which arch out and down, well beyond the floral tubes. Let us have a look at our two shrubby species, and give at least passing mention to a couple of annuals you may find interesting. Trichostema lanatum, woolly blue curls, is the only species reasonably familiar to California gardeners. It is found in hotter, drier parts of the coast ranges from Monterey County south. It is one of our classic road bank plants, finding its ideal exposure and freedom from com- petition on barren cuts. It is a densely leafy shrub, with leaves up to three inches, long paired at each node, and Woolly blue curls (Trichostema lanatum). Ilustration by Mary Elizabeth Parson. smaller leaves clustered in the axils. However, individual leaves may be so narrow as to give a sparse or spidery impression in some plants. The branches are straight and stiff, usually angled strongly upward in young plants but gradually spreading to form a rough dome, two to four feet (sometimes more) tall. Drought helps keep them compact; to maintain the same effect in the garden, plants should be pruned hard at least once a year. The leaves are up to three inches long, narrow, and bright to deep green above, with a woolly undersurface. Plants of the better forms are nearly everblooming, being beaten into dormancy by drought in the wild but setting new flowers with each new shoot in cultivation, and continuing for months at a time. As reflected in the common name, the showy parts include not only the flowers themselves but the dense, colored "wool" that coats the flowering portions of the stems and the stalks and calyx of each flower. This comes in a variety of hues, including lavender-blue to violet, pink to purplish rose, and white. From a distance, the effect is that of brightly colored candles in a giant candelabrum. Bud clusters, from which the blossoms open one at a time, are paired at each blooming node. The flowers themselves measure up to an inch long, counting the tube and lower lip, and have curls of stamens nearly twice that length. Their overall color is a clear lavender-blue. With considerable variation in size, compactness, foli- age, and color of the floral wool, it is not surprising that horticultural selections have been made among popula- tions of this species. 'Cuesta Ridge' was selected by Suzanne Schettler for its unusually blue flower stems. It is a robust plant, with fairly narrow leaves. Brett Hall's selections, 'Lion's Den' and 'Salmon Creek,' have the more typical, bright purple coloration. 'Ted's Select' (which deserves a more exciting name) was picked by Ted Kipping for its white wool, contrasting dramatically with the typi- cal lavender-blue flowers. My own offering, 'Fremont Peak,' is a robust plant with relatively broad, bright green leaves and rosy flower stems. There are also unnamed white-flowered selections made at Rancho Santa Ana 28 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 Botanic Garden, one of which will probaMy get a formal introduction soon. Some of the selected clones also show unusually good resistance to disease, an important feature for this often-touchy species. Trichostema parishii, mountain blue curls, is a more southerly species, crossing the border into Baja California and growing both farther inland and at higher elevations— up to about 6000 feet. I had long thought of it as much smaller than T. lanatum, based on populations high in the Santa Rosa Mountains, but find in the Jepson Manual that it is virtually as large, reaching four feet on occasion. Still, it tends to be more compact and slender-stemmed. The leaves are similar to those of T. lanatum but narrower. Where the two species differ most is in the arrangement of the flowers. In T. parishii the flower stems at each node extend out horizontally, giving a more airy, tiered effect. Also the floral wool, though colored like that of T. lanatum, is much shorter. This is a most attractive shrub, with at least the poten- tial advantage of greater hardiness over T. lanatum. How- ever, it is almost unknown to Californians. My own results with some smaller-growing selections were promising. Yet John Dourley describes it as performing poorly at Rancho Santa Ana, and other friends in Southern Califor- nia have found it temperamental. A fair evaluation will require much broader trials. Trichostema lanceolatum, vinegar weed, and T. laxum, turpentine weed, are two annual species I have always liked, though not everyone will share my enthusiasm for them. Vinegar weed is widespread in the coast ranges of California, occupying exposed sites and waste ground; it is a good bulldozer follower. Turpentine weed grows in north- ern California and Oregon, in sandy soils, often near sunny streams and rivers. Both are powerfully scented, even from a distance; actually, I think they both smell mostly like turpentine, though T. lanceolatum may have more of the acid element. They are both usually a foot tall or less, but T. lanceolatum can reach at least twice that height. From midsummer to fall, long after most of our wildflowers have gone, they bear clusters of small (about one-quarter inch) lavender-blue blossoms with much longer curls. Most people would find these plants a bit too pungent for close company, but they are admirably suited to dry banks and large open spaces, especially in poor soils. Culture and Uses Given their ornamental features and moderate size, both of the shrubby blue curls should have a variety of uses in the landscape. Their main limitations, as it turns out, are cultural. Trichostema lanatum has long been known as a fussy and somewhat unpredictable plant; the same is clearly true for T. parishii, but few people have even tried it. The gardener blessed with a steep, bare bank has the perfect site for either species. They blend beautifully with the shrubby sages (Salvia spp.) and sagebrushes (Artemisia), the moderate-sized manzanitas (Arcto- staphylos) and wild lilacs (Ceanothus), and make fine accent plants for plantings dominated by the much larger fremontias and toyons (Heteromeles), assuming care is exercised to avoid crowding and to keep them well ex- posed. The flatland gardener, especially one working with heavy soils, will have to resort to building mounds, amending or replacing the upper few feet of soil around and beneath the plants, just as one must for other shrubs of the chaparral. Blue curls will thrive for a few years in large pots or tubs (five-gallon size or more) of a well drained nursery soil. But by the third or fourth year they will be showing signs of stress. As with many of our native shrubs, plants in the ground should be weaned off regular irrigation as they become established—certainly by the second year—and given a few deep waterings each summer. This will help avoid various lethal fungus plagues. Even given our best efforts, the outcome is never quite certain, or even necessarily explainable. I have seen plants thriving in heavy soil, with frequent sprinkling, while others perished quickly in what seemed to be ideal condi- tions. But every success with plants so beautiful makes a hearty struggle worthwhile. Propagation Propagating blue curls—at least the shrubby ones—is much like growing them in the garden. No particularly exotic techniques are called for, but the results are some- what unpredictable. I have never tried raising either Trichostema lanatum or T. parishii from seeds, since a particular individual has always caught my eye, and perpetuating its features has required the use of cuttings. However, where the wide variation seen in seedling populations is acceptable, or one simply wants to see what develops, seeds are certainly an economical technique. Marjorie Schmidt, in Growing Cali- fornia Native Plants, claims that seeds of T. lanatum are easily sprouted but have a poor germination rate. I would suspect that the low apparent rate is in part a matter of variable thickness and density in the seed coats, the denser coats being more resistant to absorption of water. In this event, a pre-treatment to soften the seed coats would give better results than simple sowing. Two common alterna- tives are soaking in hydrogen peroxide for perhaps an hour, or putting the seeds in hot (not boiling) water, then letting them cool and soak overnight. In any case, like other mints, blue curls have small, hard "nutlets" that develop in place of more familiar structures, like capsules or fleshy fruits. These are removed, separated by rubbing them between your fingers, then planted in pots or flats of a well drained mix (this part is critical for avoidance of damping-off, a common fungus plague). The young plants can be trans- VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 29 planted to successively larger pots until they seem large and sturdy enough for the rigors of the open landscape. Cuttings provide a ready, if not entirely dependable, means of propagating a really desirable clone. Made from just-matured shoots, preferably the more slender and less pithy side shoots, they are easy to root but, unfortunately, also easily lost to fungus diseases. A three- to four-node cutting, with at least the basal node firm to the touch and even the tip well beyond the soft, squishy stage, is ideal. Overly soft cuttings will simply collapse, usually from the IN THE WINTER, when the soil is wet, you can uproot almost any French broom (Genista monspessulana, formerly Cytisus monspessulanus) you encounter. My daughter and I have pulled specimens eight feet tall from a moist creekbank in Fairfax. Indeed, one of these saplings went on to earn Tallest Weed honors at the 1993 Marin County Fair. Once spring is well along, and the broom is flaunting its butter-yellow blossoms, however, the soil has begun to dry out. Plants barely large enough to have blossoms cling stubbornly to the soil, challenging us to develop winning strategies or bring the right tool along, if we expect to do business with them. In addition to being tenacious, French broom is also invasive. Multiplying rapidly and growing faster than sur- rounding vegetation, this legume dominates its chosen habitat along north and central coastal areas and the Coast Ranges, shading out coyote brush (Baccharis) and other native species. On warm afternoons toward the end of summer, French broom's prolific reproductive cycle reaches a clamorous conclusion: hairy clusters of sun- baked seed pods explode like strings of tiny firecrackers, spraying shiny black seeds into the hot summer air and producing a sharp crackling sound that can go on for hours. The seeds may remain viable in the soil where they fall for decades. French broom is surely one of California's most successful non-native invaders. In Marin County French broom grows in widely diver- gent sites, from lush sun-dappled canyons to parched hill- sides where little else will grow. The farther you get from paved roads, the more likely you are to run across pioneer populations of broom—isolated plants trying to establish a toehold in an uninvaded area. It is critical to remove such plants before they can distribute a new crop of seeds. Since you can't be expected to carry gardening tools every time you go for a walk, we often must turn to the martial arts. Any oaf with a backhoe can batter nature into submission, but when you have only your bare hands you base, in a short time. Overly hard, mature cuttings will root slowly or not at all. Given the right material, only a mild rooting hormone, or none at all, is required. Insert the cuttings in moist sand or perlite, set them in a shady spot, protected from wind, and sprinkle them just often enough to prevent wilting. Once rooted, they will grow surpris- ingly fast, often making suitable plants for the open land- scape in just a few months. Nevin Smith, 358 Merk Road, Watsonville, CA 95076 must know your enemy more intimately, use his strengths against him, and focus your energy on his weaknesses. Some plants of French broom consist of a large central stalk with secondary branches growing low on the plant; others are composed of several similar stalks emanating from a single root. In either case a well planned approach can exploit both the toughness of the plant and the tenacity of its supple bark to expose the critical cambium layer. A technique I recommend depends on the fact that most broom plants won't survive—even with roots in place—if you top them and strip off enough bark. This strategy avoids disturbing the soil, which helps retard seed germi- nation and is particularly appropriate for exposed hillsides where roots may help to prevent erosion. Here's the plan of attack: First kick down a few times with the heel of your shoe at the point where one of the larger stalks joins the main plant. Whatever this does to the stalk, it usually causes the bark to separate from it. Next twist the stalk so that the bark tears off. If necessary, loosen the bark with your fingernail or a metal object such as a key. Then break off as much of the first stalk as you can. These are tough plants; you want to retard photosyn- thesis as much as possible. Return to the main plant and strip the loosened bark down to ground level, exposing the green cambium layer. Your key may be useful here too. Finally, kick other stalks free from the central core and continue to pull bark away from the base of the plant until there is an exposed cambium layer all around. If the plant you're working on consists of a single stalk, bend it until it snaps off, or until the bark starts to separate from the stalk. Even if the stalk doesn't break in two, the bark will tear enough so that you can begin to peel it away from the base. The goal is to expose the entire circumfer- ence of the stalk at ground level. Finally, break off as much of the upper part of the plant as possible, particularly if there are seed pods or flowers. French broom plants have survived being broken off FIGHTING INVADERS WITH BARE HANDS by Arthur Comings 30 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 near ground level, having their bark stripped off (apparently it can be regenerated), and being twisted and broken. They have also perished in response to a single trauma. Applying all three at once greatly increases the chances of success. Soil conditions are also significant. Dr. Carla Bossard, professor of biology at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, has shown that Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) is most vulnerable to damage when the soil has completely dried out. This may prove true for other brooms as well. Invented by Tom Ness of Grants Pass, Oregon, a Weed Wrench is a cross between a lever and a hefty pair of pliers. The angular bright orange tools range in size from the diminutive five-pound "mini" to the twenty-four-pound, five-foot "heavy," which few users are going to lug very far from their cars. You set your Weed Wrench next to a plant, place its open jaws around the base of the stalk, and pull back on the handle. Few plants can resist the upward force that increases with tightening of the serrated jaws. A well entrenched older specimen may require several tugs before its mas- sive taproot, festooned with broken clods and white nitro- gen-fixing nodules, is torn from the ground. Here is cer- tain success. The most difficult plants to remove are those that have been cut off a few years earlier by someone unfamiliar with French broom. Such plants usually develop an in- creased girth and root structure. If they have been cut off W$**T '.'.* V> A volunteer removing broom using a weed wrench. Photograph by the author. close to the ground they may now be almost prostrate, which adds to the difficulty. But whether using a Weed Wrench or a stem-stripping method of broom killing, the battle is an important one to win. Arthur Comings, 23 Merwin Ave., Fairfax, CA 94930 NOTES AND COMMENTS Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: The April 1994 issue of Fremontia has some interesting and informative articles, and I especially appreciated your printing the important speech by Jack Ward Thomas on future policies regarding ecosystem management by the U.S. Forest Service. The same issue contains several humorous (perhaps unin- tentional) misprints, which Ican't resist calling to your attention. First, on page eighteen, Triteleia laxa is given the common name of ethereal spear, a clever sound-alike for its correct name Ithuriel's spear. Ithuriel, according to the dictionary, is a character from Paradise Lost by John Milton. Second, on page twenty-seven Dr. Frank Blair is said to be a beneficiary of The Nature Conservancy and, indeed—since they named a Lyonothamnus grove after him—he might be considered so, but surely the author meant benefactor instead. Saving the best for last, Peter Kotanen' s article, page fourteen, Effects of Fetal Pigs on Grasslands, has to have one of the all- time champion humorous titles for a scientific paper. The page will be xeroxed and posted in college biology departments everywhere, as enjoyment for all us poor biology majors who were forced to dissect formalin-impregnated fetal pigs for a course in comparative vertebrate anatomy. Unintentional or not, this has greatly lifted our spirits, and we thank you for that. Kenton L. Chambers Emeritus Professor of Botany Oregon State University Dear Editor: I was shocked to learn from the latest issue of Fremontia of the havoc wreaked upon grasslands by fetal pigs. I can only shudder at the thought of the destruction that could be done by newborn, juvenile, and especially adult pigs. Nate Stephenson Three Rivers, CA Dear Editor: After thoroughly enjoying the exciting showy Indian clover article and some other interesting ones in the last issue of Fremontia, I later browsed again and saw the large black lettering in your Table of Contents, lower left of page two, fourth listing down, EFFECTS OF FETAL PIGS ON GRASSLANDS! Poor, poor little verbally abused baby fetal pigs, that your VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 31 publication must so cruelly calumniate one-half to 200 millimeter innocents that have had no chance to do anything in the grasslands yet. Peta and Friends of Animals will get after you for this, even if the pro-liferators don't. Please don't cancel my membership; I'm still chuckling. Patricia Reh Stanford, CA 95373 [Ed. Note: What can a red-faced editor say?] Symposium and Workshop The California Exotic Pest Plant Council (Cal EPPC) announces its third annual symposium, September 30 to Octo- ber 1, at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento, on invasive non-native plant species, problems, and practical solutions related to exotic plants in natural area ecosystems. Peter Vitousek will be the keynote speaker. For information contact Sally Davis (805) 773-2828 or John Randall (916) 684-6821. The Friends of the Jepson Herbarium are pleased to an- nounce a ten-day workshop on Natural Science Illustration conducted by Linda Vorobik, a Jepson Manual illustrator, ait Sagehen Creek Field Station, August 19-29. The course will focus on rendering plants in ink and watercolor and is described as "a marathon of artwork in the high Sierra." Contact the Jepson Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720,(510)643-7008. NatureBase CALIFORNIA PLANT COMMUNITY INFORMATION /Y/TEMX The California System 95 Holland's 1986 "Plant Communities" in one easy-to-use computer program. Also includes community descriptions by Kuchler and acreage estimates by Calif. Dept. of Forestry. All names updated with Jepson synonymy. Listings for each species include family affiliation, common name, and plant growth form. The Desert System $65 Features California desert communities as described by Holland, Barbour & Major, and Kuchler. All names updated with Jepson synonymy. Listings for each species include family affiliation, common name, plant growth form, plus flowering period (for most), elevation range, and habitat. Both systems require MS-DOS operating system & 1.5 megabytes of hard disk space. Simple to use, no typing required. Each screen display describes a single plant community entity in a logical, hierarchical fashion. Species lists and descriptions can be cut and pasted if using Windows 3.1. Prices include tax, shipping and handling. iimiiiniiiiiiiip^^ NatureBase, 2535 Fairfax Avenue Culver City, CA 9D2I3Z-739S Can You Help Earth Share? CNPS will receive approximately $22,000 this year because of its participation in and the fundraising efforts of Earth Share (formerly the Environmental Federation). Last year this organization raised over $2.3 million for its eighty-two member environmental groups, a twenty percent increase over the previous year. How does it do it? By organizing and running campaigns for contributions at the workplace. Employees in corporations or government can support the environment by making an annual contribution to Earth Share through payroll deductions. How can you help? By identifying businesses that have employee giving campaigns where Earth Share might par- ticipate. Many employees are concerned about the environ- ment, and workplace campaigns are easy and cost effective. CNPS benefits directly by the amount of effort we put into the work of Earth Share. Contact Halli Mason (CNPS) at (818) 345-6749 or Earth Share (415) 882-9330 or (800) 368-1819 with the names of companies that might participate or to volunteer your time to the program. Errata: Peter Connors was incorrectly identified in the April 1994 issue of Fremontia. He is a research scientist and reserve manager at the Bodega Marine Laboratory near Bodega Bay on the Sonoma Coast, not a former director. His areas of research have ranged from seabird pollution ecology through behavior, ecology, and systematics of Arctic shorebirds to his recently developing interests in ecology of coastal grasslands. In his article "Rediscovery of Showy Indian Clover," when referring to the preponderance of introduced annuals near the clover, the author's original text stated that "of eleven other species within twelve inches of the plant center, ten were introduced." The edited version incorrectly read "eleven species of introduced annuals were growing in a twelve-inch area surrounding the plant we found." In the same issue, Stephen Langer's article A New Oak on Mount Tamalpais should have stated that Quercusparvula var. shrevei grows up to seventy-five, not twenty-five, feet tall. The article later states that Dr. John Tucker discovered several new populations. The discovery of these populations should have been credited to the author. Also in the April 1994 issue, the correct title for Peter Kotanen's article on feral pigs is "Effects of Feral Pigs on Grasslands," not "Effects of Fetal Pigs on Grasslands." BOOKS RECEIVED A Planner's Guide for Oak Woodlands by Gregory A Giusti and Pamela J. Tinnin (editors). 1993. 94 pages. A valuable document providing biological information, planning principles, and a number of resources important in oak conservation. Available from the Integrated Hardwood Range 32 FREMONTIA VOLUME 22, NO. 3 Management Program, 160 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, Ca 94720. $10 spiral bound. Landscape Conservation Planning: Preserving Eco- systems in Open Space Networks by Sheila Peck. 1993. 72 pages. Important ecological concepts in preserving natural areas are presented with case studies from around the United States. Available from the Integrated Hardwood Range Man- agement Program, 160 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, Ca 94720. $ 10 spiral bound. Coastal Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest by Elizabeth L.Horn. 1994. 187 pages with 200 colorphotographs. A handy guide to 164 common wildflowers and flowering shrubs from the coastal areas of British Columbia to Mendocino, Califor- nia. Available from Mountain Press Publishing Company, Box 2399, Missoula, Montana 59806. 1-800-234-5308. $14 softcover. Unusual and Significant Plants of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties by Dianne Lake. 1994. 103 pages. Status of Rare, Threatened and Endangered Vascular Plants in Ala- meda and Contra Costa Counties by Brad L. Olson. 1994.25 pages. These reports have a good deal of new information and are invaluable tools for anyone assessing plant resources in these counties. Both available from Dianne Lake, 412 Violet Road, Hercules, C A 94547 or from the East Bay CNPS Chapter. $10 velobound. BOOK REVIEWS Flora of North America North of Mexico produced by the Flora ofNorth America Editorial Committee. 1993. Vols, land 2 available from Oxford University Press, New York. $75 each, hardcover. The seeds of this project, so to speak, were first sown in 1965, perhaps as a result of the North American botanists' seeing the first volume of the now complete Flora Europaea. If the Europeans could cooperate successfully on such a collective venture, why couldn' t the North Americans? The first incarnation of the Flora of North America (FNA) project incubated for several years, then died in 1973 when a squabble between the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution resulted in neither organization's offering financial support for the project. Two subsequent attempts to revive the project in association with the Man and the Biosphere project and the National Park Service also failed. The fourth and last revival was initiated in 1982, housed at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and for the first four years was supported by the Garden and other participating institutions; in 1988 external funding was secured and the project acquired a sound financial base. The introductory volume to FNA is a free-standing one containing essays on diverse topics related to the flora and vegetation ofNorth America and the history of the development of botanical knowledge of the continent. The second volume, which covers pteridophytes and gymnosperms, is the first of a projected twelve volumes that will describe the vascular plants and bryophytes that grow "naturally" in the continental United States, Canada, Greenland, and the French St. Pierre and Miquelon islands. Thirty collaborating institutions in the United States and Canada are involved, as are "hundreds" of botanists; this binational effort should be completed in twelve years. The first volume contains an interesting account of various individuals important in developing current knowledge of the North American vascular flora (why equally colorful bryol- ogists are omitted is unexplained). Portraits of many of these individuals are included, drawn from the extensive collection of the Hunt Institute. These portraits bring this history to life. Marcus E. Jones, horsewhip and plant press in hand, covered wagon in the background, wears a facial expression signaling his "defiance" that helped end Harvard botanist Asa Gray's "domination" of western American botany. Jones's visage shares a page with that of easterner N.L. Britton, placidly seated in his herbarium but no less an antagonist of the taxo- nomic tradition of Gray. The colorful Reverend E.L. Greene is credited, along with Jones, with ending Gray's domination of western botany, yet otherwise the two men were hardly allies. In his obituary of Greene, Jones referred to him as "the pest of systematic botany." The authors lament the lack of a biography of Greene, this "western dissident," yet he is well served by the perceptive accounts of him as a person and as a botanist in Landmarks of Botanical History (1983) edited by F.N. Egerton. The circumscription and sequence of flowering plant families in FNA will follow those of A. Cronquist, who provides an interesting commentary on his widely adopted system. There is an overview chapter outlining the Cronquist system, but the eighteen-page tabular exposition of this system lacks an index to families and thus will frustrate prospective users. Indeed, the index to the first volume is very sketchy; in spite of the attention given to Greene, his name does not appear in the index. Clayton, Kalm, Michaux, fire, endemic, Tertiary, and Greenland are also missing from the index, though discussed in various levels of detail in the text. In a chapter reviewing concepts of species and genera, G.L. Stebbins states that it would be useful if the numerous contributors of taxonomic treatments to FNA would work according to the same standards. He warns that "subjective opinions differ so much from one botanist to another as to produce anarchy if every contributor were left to his or her own devices." Wisely, the editors of FNA have not attempted to impose a uniform taxonomic philosophy upon contributors to the project and, happily, anarchy is not evident in the taxonomic treatments of volume two. The general editors for the pteridophytes, W.H. Wagner and A.R. Smith, discuss the bases and background for taxonomic circumscriptions and policies adopted in this diverse group. They argue for a conservative delineation of the fern genera Woodwardia and Asplenium but for disassembling Athyrium. How they convinced authors of their views is not revealed. They admit that some features of their approach "may prove to be... untenable." Gymnosperm editor J.E. Eckenwalder merges the cypress (Cupressaceae) and bald-cypress (Taxodiaceae) families into a single family. Though the arguments for this procedure are convincing, my guess is that tradition will delay its general acceptance for the indefinite future. The treatment of conifers presented me with a few surprises. The most common montane white fir in California is now Abies lowiana, not A. concolor. The rare edaphic endemic pygmy cypress of northern California (Cupressus pigmaea) is "sunk," that is, relegated to synonymy under the more widespread C. VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 33 goveniana. The federally listed Santa Cruz cypress (C abramsiana) suffers the same taxonomic fate, scarcely with comment. Since the intended audience of FNA includes conservationists, a more detailed argument for the non- recognition of these two "sensitive" cypress taxa would have been useful. Indeed, the California Native Plant Society has provisionally agreed to advocate continued protection for several taxa that were not recognized in The Jepson Manual (1993), edited by J.C. Hickman; my guess is that it will adopt the same stance for FNA. Just how state and federal conserva- tion agencies will handle this issue remains to be seen. These problems might be circumvented if legislative language con- cerning rare taxa were extended to include evolutionarily sig- nificant races or populations of species that are not necessarily accorded formal taxonomic status. The keys and taxonomic descriptions in volume two are concise, straightforward, and consistent in format from group to group. Taxonomic treatments are sometimes accompanied by descriptions of breeding systems, chromosome numbers, natural hybridization, economic importance, and other curiosa. I would have welcomed more discussion of geographic varia- tion in morphological and ecological features of the species as well. The format for giving geographic ranges of species risks overgenerosity: Selaginella eatonii is said to occur in Florida in habitats that occur widely in that state, yet its distribution map limits it to extreme southern Florida. The maps are often Native Revival Nursery Specializing in native plants of the bay region 0 Plants for coastal climates 0 Plants to attract wildlife 0 Drought tolerant natives 9 Local plants for revegetation 0 Landscape design and installation Wholesale Trade Monday through Saturday Open to Public Thursday-Saturday 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. 8022 Soquel Drive Aptos, California 95003 (408) 684-1811 34 FREMONTIA problematical: that showing the geographic range of Bishop pine (Pinus muricata) suggests a continuous distribution in California from the Oregon border southward to the Santa Barbara area, yet populations of this species are highly dis- continuous, and only a single small population occurs between San Francisco Bay and central Santa Barbara County, a distance of about 300 kilometers. What will be the shelf life of FNA? Wagner and Smith point out that "approximately 75 species [of pteridophytes] in the flora have undergone a name change" since the 1985 treatment of the group in A FieldManual of the Ferns and Fern-Allies of the United States and Canada by D.B. Lellinger. In addition, fifty-eight taxa have been added to the pteridophyte flora, some newly described, others as a result of revised circum- scriptions or range extensions. Thus, differences between the treatments in Lellinger's book and in FNA, separated by less than a decade, involve about thirty percent of the pteridophyte flora of the region. Perhaps the pteridophytes have received an unusual amount of systematic study in the past decade, but this magnitude of difference suggests that by the time the final volume of FNA appears the earlier ones will already be out of date to one degree or another. A database for FNA is maintained at the Missouri B otanical Garden; although the mechanics and details of its long-term financial support are not described, this database is expected to be continually updated and will be made accessible to the public, the botanical community, and various agencies. This continuing upgrading and free acces- sibility to a broad constituency should instill a form of immortality for FNA. Robert Ornduff University of California, Berkeley [Reprinted from Science, Vol. 263, February 11, 1994.\ CLASSIFIED ADS Classified ad rate: 75 cents per word, minimum $15; payment in advance. Address advertising inquiries and copy to: Sue Hossfeld, 3 Pine Court, Ken field, CA 94904. (415) 453-8243. Publications FLORA OF MENDOCINO County by Gladys L. Smith, 1992. 400 pages. $27.95 ppd. Also Flora of the Tahoe Basin, Neighboring Areas, and supplements. Smith, 1983. Published by Wasmann Journal of Biology, University of San Francisco. $15.75. Available from author, 355 Serrano, Apt. ML, San Francisco, CA 94132. THE SOCIETY FOR Pacific Coast Native Iris is an organization CNPS members would enjoy. For $4 annually, $ 10 triennially, receive our illustrated biennial publication, the Almanac, with information on many aspects of Californicae species and hybrids. Also offered each year: a spring field trip by bus to see them in the wild, and a seed list in the fall. SPCNI, 4333 Oak Hill Road, Oakland, CA 94605. THE MOST EFFECTIVE thing you can do for California's ecology is to grow native plants. Learn how from the personal (and often amusing) experience of long-time growers through Growing Native Research Institute and its elegant, illustrated, bimonthly newsletter. Growing Native. Annual $30 membership brings other benefits, too, including bonus issue, "The Basics of Growing Native Successfully." Mention Fremontia andreceive free wildflower seeds. Write: Growing Native, PO Box 489, Berkeley, CA 94701, or call (510) 232-9865. VOLUME 22, NO. 3 THE FOUR SEASONS, annual journal of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, founded by celebrated writer-conservationist James Roof, devoted to California native botany and horticulture. $ 12 for 4 issues. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley, CA 94708(510)841-8732. "THE WAY IT IS." For more information send self-addressed stamped envelope to "The Way It Is," 130 Anderson Way, Martinez, CA 94553. Proceeds from CNPS members logged for endowment fund for two CNPS's. HAWAII FLORA by Wagner, Herbst & Sohmer. 1990. Two-volune set retails for $85.00. Available at 30% discount from Botanies, 1416 Rockglen, Glendale, CA 91205-2019. Nurseries and Seeds GARVER GARDENS Nursery. Rhododendron occidentale. Please call 707-984-6724 or write to P.O. Box 609, Laytonville, CA 95454 to receive a free catalog of Smith-Mossman, Mike McCullough and other selections and seedlings. Mail order or by appointment. YERBA BUENA NURSERY growing over 500 varieties of California native plants and exotic ferns. Open seven days a week 9-5. 19500 Skyline, Woodside, CA 94062. Catalog $1.00. NATIVE BULBS: SALES by appointment only. C.H. Baccus, 900 Boynton Ave., San Jose, CA. 95117. (408) 244-2923. Sorry, no mail order for 1993-4. MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE. Landscape with hardy California native plants. Economical and convenient mail order shopping. Send $1.00 for our newest catalog to Live Oak Nursery, P.O. Box 815, Knights Ferry, CA 95361, (209) 881-0228. INTERMOUNTAIN NURSERY. In the foothills of the Central Sierra in eastern Fresno County on Hwy. 168. We specialize in local natives such as Carpenteria, as well as other drought tolerant plants. Retail, hrs. 9-5 Tues - Sat, 10-3 Sun. Wholesale, revegetation. 30443 Auberry Rd., P.O. Box 210, Prather, CA 93651. (209) 855-3113. GARDENING AS RESTORING native plant communities. Seeds of grasses, wildflowers, trees, shrubs. Panphlets $3.50 each: Notes on Growing California Wildflowers, Notes on Native Grasses, Notes on a Coastal Garden. Catalog $2.00. Lamer Seeds, P.O. Box 407, Bolinas, CA 94924. (415) 868-9407. OAKS AND TREESHELTERS. Specializing in California native oaks for ornamental andrestoration. Acorns through box size available. Distributor for new U.S.-made "Supertube" treeshelters. Ideal for protection and acceleration of growth of tree seedlings and vines. Call or write for more information. Native Oak Nursery, 20316 Fallen Leaf Drive, Tehachapi, CA 93561. (800) 949-OAKS(6257). MOSTLY NATIVES NURSERY. Growers of coastal natives and drought-tolerant plants. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 9-4:30; Sunday, 11- 4:30. Located in Northwest Marin at 27215 Hwy. One, Box 258, Tomales, CA 94971. (707) 878-2009. Mail order catalogue of West Coast Natives, $3.00. California Native Plant Society MEMBERSHIP Dues include subscriptions to Fremontia and the Bulletin. Corporate......$1,000 Supporting..................$50 Life/Benefactor... $500 Family, Group, International .... $35 Patron...........$250 Individual or Library..........$25 Plant Lover......$100 Student/Retired/Limited Income . $18 ADDRESSES Memberships; Address Changes; Officers; General Society Inquiries: CNPS, 1722 J Street, Suite 17, Sacramento, CA 95814. Tel: (916) 447-CNPS(2677) (FAX) (916) 447-2727 Executive Director: Allen Barnes Fremontia (Editor): Phyllis M. Faber, 212 Del Casa Drive, Mill Valley, CA 94941. Tel. and FAX: (415) 388-6002 Fremontia (Advertising): Sue Hossfeld, 3 Pine Court, Kentfield, CA 94904. (415)453-8243 Bulletin: Carol LeNeve, Box 1012, Carmel, CA 93921. (408) 624-8497 CNPS Botanist, Data Base: Mark Skinner, 1722 J St., Suite 17, Sacramento, CA 95814. (916) 324-3816 or (916) 447-2677 EXECUTIVE COUNCIL President................................David Magney Vice President, Administration...............Joan Stewart Vice President, Finance.....................Bob Burka Vice President, Conservation..................Ray Butler Vice President, Legislation........................Vacant Vice President, Plant Programs................Jim Shevock Vice President, Publications................Phyllis Faber Vice President, Chapter Relations.............Halli Mason Vice President, Education..................George Clark Recording Secretary........................Sara Timby Legal Advisor..............................Ken Bogdan DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE Jacob Sigg, Eric Fritsch, Michael Lindsay, Joanna Clines, Cathy Cort, Jennie Haas Chapter Presidents are also members of the Board. CHAPTER PRESIDENTS (AND DIRECTORS) Alta Peak (Tulare)......................Janet Fanning Bristlecone (Inyo-Mono)...................Betty Gilchrist Channel Islands............................Pat M'Daniel Dorothy King Young (Gualala)...................Joan Curry East Bay.................................Glenn Coppe El Dorado................................Phil Corson Kern County..........................Randi McCormick Los Angeles/Santa Monica Mountains.......George Stevenson Marin County...........................Bonnie Nackley Milo Baker (Sonoma County)................Eric Fritsch Monterey Bay........................Rosemary Donlon Mount Lassen.........................Lawrence Janeway Napa Valley..........................Lucinda LaMaster North Coast.............................Tony LaBanca Northern San Joaquin Valley (Modesto)...........Glen Basey Orange County.........................Tony Bomcamp Redbud (Grass Valley/Auburn)............Chet Blackburn Riverside/San Bernardino counties.........Marty Jacobsmeyer Sacramento Valley........................Karen Wiese San Diego.............................Bertha McKinley San Gabriel Mountains...................Melanie Keeley San Luis Obispo.........................Dirk Walters Sanhedrin (Ukiah).....................Charles Williams Santa Clara Valley........................Lori Hubbart Santa Cruz County......................Fred McPherson Sequoia (Fresno)..........................Joanna Clines Shasta...................................Tom Engstrom Sierra Foothills (Tuolemne, Calaveras, Mariposa). Denise VanKeuren South Coast (Palos Verdes).................Ellen Brubaker Tahoe..................................Steve Matson Yerba Buena (San Francisco).................Jacob Sigg MATERIALS FOR PUBLICATION Members and others are invited to submit material for publication to Fremontia. Two copies of manuscripts, double-spaced, (plus an IBM-compatible disc in Word-Perfect or ASCII file) should be submitted to Fremontia with name, address, phone number, and an identification line for Notes on Contributors. Botanical nomenclature should conform to The New Jepson Manual, with common name followed by botanical name. Black-and-white photographs, preferably 8x10 or accompanied by negatives, or original 35mm color slides. VOLUME 22, NO. 3 FREMONTIA 35 CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California Edited by Mark W. Skinner and Bruce M. Pavlik 1994. 264 pages, softcover. Includes 38 color photos, 20 line draw- ings, indexes fay county, family, CNPS priority list and more. $22.95 Entirely updated the 5th edition is an indispensable reference far conservation' ists biological consultatnts, planners and resource managers Over 300 new taxa have been added to the 5th edition. This comprehensive reference of California's rare and endangered plants remains the nationwide standard for rare plant inventories. CALIFORNIA NATIVE plants, seeds, and books: Available through Theodore Payne Foundation Nursery. Wildflower seed varieties, seed blends, and informative books also available by mail order. To receive catalogs and information, please send $3.00 to Theodore Payne Foundation, 10459 Tuxford Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352. (818) 768-1802. Please call for nursery hours. SPECIALIZING IN SEEDS for California native plants including wildflowers, grasses, everlasting flowers, drought-tolerant mixtures. Catalog $3. Moon Mountain FR, P.O. Box 725, Carpinteria, CA 93014. TURN SEEDLINGS INTO trees—fast! Treeshelters not only protect your trees from animals, machines, and chemical sprays, but TUB EX Treeshelters accelerate growth by providing each tree its own green house. Excellent for all tree planting projects. Call or write for free information. Native Oak Nursery, 20316 Fallen Leaf Drive, Teha- chapi, CA 93561. 1 (800) 949-OAKS (6257). Services EXOTICS CONTROL Specialists. We are a Licensed Pest Control Operator specializing in the control of invasive plant species using non-restricted herbicides (Roundup, Garlon). We have special expertise in killing Gorse, Broom, Pampas Grass, and Ice Plant in wildland areas. Contact Victoria Harris at (415) 327-0429 for more information. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Michael Barbour has been professor of botany at the Univer- sity of California, Davis, since 1967 and has studied coastail, desert, and montane forest vegetation. This past semester he was a fellow of the U.C. Human Research Institute, where he studied the influence of cultural and personal histories on scientists' views of nature. Cameron Barrows is area manager for Southern California with The Nature Conservancy. Arthur Comings is a technical writer for GeoQuest Data Management in Corte Madera and the founder of the Ross Valley Weed Wrenchers. Buff and Gerald Corsi have a long association with The California Academy of Sciences. Avid photographers and travellers, they operate a travel company, Focus on Nature. Elizabeth McClintock is a research associate at the University of California, Berkeley, and a past contributor to Fremontia. Susan Delano McKelvey (1883-1964), a forty-five year patron and associate of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University and cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a longtime friend and correspondant of Alice Eastwood. Robert Ornduff is emeritus professor of botany at the University of California, Berkeley, and past director of the University of California Botanic Garden. Nevin Smith, horticulturalist par excellence, is a frequent contributor to Fremontia'?, "Growing Natives" column. Valerie Whitworth is a language arts consultant living in Winters, California, where she is writing grants for organiza- tions involved in environmental preservation and restoration. -c i/> 5 3 (_ z 3 -n t/5 o «¦' 3 ^ * TJ z = > 2? n o G. — o -h SCO, .10 o 2n era ft oi CO >