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| FEBRUARY 2021 NEWSLETTER |
Calling all Plant Nerds - Help Rename Femontia
CNPS is changing the name of its scientific journal, Fremontia, and it wants your suggestions for the new name. Suggestions will be accepted until February 16th. The name Fremontia has been a point of concern and discussion at CNPS since last winter, when CNPS leadership learned some disturbing facts about John C. Frémont, an American explorer, military officer and US Senator from California in 1856. Multiple sources, including the State of California Native American Heritage Commission, have found that Frémont was responsible for brutal massacres of Native Americans in the Sacramento Valley and Klamath Lake. As a result, the CNPS board of directors voted unanimously to rename Fremontia. [READ MORE]
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Follow the 26th Annual Flyway FestivalThe 26th Annual San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival, Wildlife Exploration & Birding Expo will be held this year on February 5-7, 2021. The Festival celebrates the winter migration through San Francisco Bay of more than one million shorebirds and hundreds of thousands of ducks, geese and other wildlife. The Vallejo Times Herald recently featured this story on the Festival's leader, Myrna Hayes.
Organizers are putting together an entirely virtual program of exciting and creative presentations - some presented live via Zoom or Facebook so participants can comment and ask questions, others prerecorded to showcase projects and initiatives around the Bay Area. The Jepson chapter has previously participated in the Flyway Festival with a booth in the Expo hall. This year we donated funds to support the event.
To follow the festivities online, click here or search “Virtual San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival 2021” on Facebook and hit “Join Group.”
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Save the Date: The Spring Native Plant Sale is May 1The fall online sale was so successful we’re going online again for the spring native plant sale. We will begin taking online orders in the last week of April. The nursery gnomes have been propagating like crazy to ensure we’ll have a wide variety of plant available to customers. Packaged seeds will also be added to our sale offerings. So start daydreaming now about all the lovely natives you’ll put in when the weather warms up - and watch this space!
 Jepson Chapter nursery nomes volunteer at the nursery on most Mondays and Thursdays.
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Spring Garden Tour Season Approaches Everyone loves to visit native gardens in the spring to see what's in bloom, the different designs, and to compare notes with friends. But how can we do it safely during the pandemic? David Bryant, CNPS Campaign and Engagement Manager, has found a way. First, he will provide CNPS members with the technology and training to make our own 360 degree virtual reality garden tours. In addition, State CNPS staff will film 10 - 12 gardens around the state in mid-March, and will unveil these 360 virtual garden tours during Native Plant Week, April 17-25.
To sign up for the free training on the 360 equipment and software on Thursday, February 18 at noon, email David at dbryant@cnps.org. The meeting will be recorded for anyone who can't make that training opportunity. If you want your garden to be a candidate for filming in 360, reach out directly to David, or you can take the training, film it yourself, and submit it to contact@jepson.cnps.org for posting on our chapter website.
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2021 Willis Linn Jepson Chapter Board of Directors is FormedAt their January meeting, the Willis Linn Jepson Board of Directors certified the results of the election of officers to serve the Chapter in 2021. The winners are as follows:
In addition, the Board confirmed volunteers from the Chapter to serve on the Board as follows:
Contact us at contact@jepson.cnps.org if you are interested in serving on the Board in 2022 as either an elected officer or a volunteer for a Board Committee. Nominations for elected officers will be considered in September. Volunteer positions on the Board can be filled at any time.
 Chapter officers for 2021, left to right, Steven Goetz - President, Mary Frances Kelly Poh - Vice President, Pam Muick - Secretary, Kathleen Catton - Treasurer.
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NATIVE PLANT NEWS FROM THE WEBHabitat Restoration Projects Featured on the Presidio Time Machine: This website invites you to explore the park’s past and present using re-photography — a process that blends historic and contemporary images to visualize how the land has changed over time. Many images feature habitat restoration projects which have transformed over 100 acres of creeks, grasslands and saltmarsh with native plants.
 Tennessee Hollow is one of the projects featured on the Presidio Time Machine website. The creek was daylighted and restored with 16,00 native plants in 2016.
Help Cleanup & Restore Vallejo's Lake Dalwigk: This project is a community-based effort to enhance a park and stormwater detention basin with native plants and to protect wildlife. The Vallejo Watershed Alliance is recruiting volunteers to help on Saturday, February 20 from 9 a.m. to noon. Tasks include removing trash and raking mulch over the new trees. Wear comfortable clothes, sturdy shoes, mask, gloves, hat and sunscreen, and meet at the park entrance at Lemon and 5th Streets. Instructions, tools and snacks will be provided. Click here for more information.
 Lake Dalwigk is a former tidal wetlands now maintained as a park, flood control basin and wildlife habitat.
 Solano Land Trust Docent Training for 2021: The Solano Land Trust is offering a virtual Docent Training via Zoom. Members of the community are invited to an upcoming recruiting event on February 6 at 9 am to train fresh, new, and enthusiastic volunteers to become Solano Land Trust Docents. Participants will also be trained to lead guided tours throughout the year on protected Solano Land Trust properties, each featuring native plant habitats that make Solano County unique. Click here for more information.
The photo to the left is of Jepson Prairie in the spring.
 Honeysuckles (Lonicera spp.) in the Garden: The common and popular honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) that populates so many of our gardens is so well known that it's easy to forget that there is a world of other honeysuckles out there. In fact, more than 180 species of Lonicera are spread out over North America and Eurasia. The Regional Parks Botanic Garden is home to eight singular native species, and the January newsletter of the Friends of the Regional Botanic Garden takes a closer look.
The photo on the right is Lonicera hispidula (Pink Honeysuckle)
 Life and Times of Willis Linn Jepson: The Vacaville Reporter published this story of the Chapter's namesake, homegrown botanist, UC Berkeley professor and author of the Jepson Manual, the first and most comprehensive guide to the identification of California native plants. The story was compiled by the Vacaville Heritage Council and focuses on Jepson's life in Vacaville.
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Plant of the Month: Ascelpias spp. (Milkweeds)This month we feature three plants from the Asclepias species (milkweeds). You probably already know that monarch butterflies are in desperate decline and that milkweed is the only food that monarch caterpillars can eat. One way to help reverse this decline is to plant native milkweeds. There are over 150 species of milkweed, 19 of them native to California. The Willis Linn Jepson chapter nursery is busily building up a stock of three milkweed species native to Solano County that we hope you will buy and plant, thereby nourishing and supporting the monarchs and other butterflies.
Milkweeds are winter deciduous herbaceous perennials, containing a milky substance that oozes out when you break the leaf or stem of the plant. The three featured species range in size from one to six feet tall, with flowers ranging from a pink-tinged white to a dark reddish-purple. All have seed pods which split open to spill flat, oval seeds with silky hairs to disperse the seeds in the wind. [READ MORE]
 Asclepcias cordifolia (Heart Leaf Milkweed) is one of three native milkweeds found in Solano County and will be available for purchase at the Spring Native Plant Sale on May 1, photo by US Bureau of Land Management (CreativeCommons).
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Upcoming Native Plant Events
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CNPS Statewide Website | Jepson Chapter Website     
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