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June NewsletterWhat's in this issue: Speaker Series, Message from our President, Plant of the Month, Plant Walk, Volunteer Opportunities |
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Speaker Series
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Bio: Ann-Marie Benz is the Horticulture Programs Manager for CNPS, where she gets to spend her days supporting native plant communities and their people. She has spent a decade and a half serving landscapes and watersheds with nonprofits in California and Arizona. She holds a deep passion for plants and landscapes, having served as the Executive Director of ReScape California (formerly Bay-Friendly Landscaping and Gardening Coalition), a nonprofit educating the large-scale landscape industry throughout Northern California on planning, constructing, and maintaining sustainable landscapes. Prior to that, she was with Prescott Creeks doing watershed planning and riparian restoration in Northern Arizona. Ann-Marie studied Watershed Management and Sustainable Community Development at Prescott College. Much of this work was driven by a childhood without a watershed, but with a diversity of plants and wildlife. One of her fondest wishes is to be a redwood or as much like one as possible.| Follow this link to view past presentations on YouTube |
Message from our President
Last month the Milo Baker Board welcomed a new Co-Chairperson of Invasive plants, Alynn Kjeldsen. Alynn has been organizing a group of ice plant pullers out at Bodega Head every month. She is a wonderful addition to our chapter Board and we so appreciate her enthusiasm and energy.
The Board also had a lively discussion at the last meeting about non-profits like ours and how we can be more welcoming to members of communities we rarely see. This could mean attracting new Board members and participants in our activities. We would love to have more input from all walks of life. Please send us any suggestions you might have of how best to do this. The chapter would be enriched by broadening our base to members of underserved communities and groups.
In preparation for the CNPS Conference to be held in October 2022 at San Jose, the Board voted to cover the expenses (up to $1500 each) of 2 chapter members wanting to attend. The first time I was able to go to a conference it was held in San Diego. It was 2 days of intense seminars on all aspects of native plant conservation. There were art and photo exhibits as well as booths of consultants and chapter merchandise. I met many like minded volunteers as well as academic experts and agency workers. The atmosphere was buzzing with hopeful determination to protect our precious California flora. This year promises to be even more interesting as sessions will address new challenges such as climate change impacts, working within the political landscape, and attracting a new generation of Californians to our work. Watch our website for news of when and how to register for this conference.
As we roll into summer, enjoy the outdoors whether hiking or hoeing in your garden. Hopefully the hot and windy spring will give way to a cool and foggy June.
– Wendy Smit, Milo Baker President
Plant of the Month
California Native Bulbs
On a recent CNPS field trip to Porterfield Creek Open Space Preserve in Cloverdale, I saw several of the beautiful California plants that grow from bulbs. One of the most prized California bulbs is the Calochortus or Mariposa lily. The Spanish gave them the name Mariposa which means butterfly in Spanish. The Latin name is translated as "beautiful grass". Most are native to California, but they are found from British Columbia to Guatemala and as far East as Nebraska.
At the Porterfield Creek Preserve we saw a remarkable number of Calochortus amabilis, golden fairy lantern also called Diogene’s lantern. The beautiful yellow nodding globe-shaped flowers on a branching stalk are always a treat to see, and in some places it was growing with Calochortus tolmiei, pussy ears. C. tolmiei is one of the star tulips or cat’s ear Calochortus. It is a small up-right white flower with delicate hairs on the inner surface. In three places, there were hybrids of the two. The flowers had yellow colored up-right, open flowers with the silken fringe of the cat’s ear. Our leader Rosaleen, had spotted them and shared her discovery.
The Calochortus luteus, gold nuggets, is our most wide spread Calochortus. It has open, up-right yellow flowers on a slender branching stem. The large bowl-shaped flowers have three fan-shaped petals, narrow at the base and wide at the rim. A dark spot or gland can be found at the base of each petal. I love to see them growing among the yellowing grasses. They mark the end of the wildflower season, as do the Clarkias. Clarkias are annuals flowers that are also called Farewell-to-Spring.
The Brodiaea complex is now in the Themidaceae family. Triteleia laxa, Ithuriel’s spear, and Brodiaea elegans are called the harvest Brodiaea. They both bloom in open fields as the summer heat takes over. They bloom from sturdy stalks with blue-lavender trumpet-shaped flowers in an umbel. The Triteleia laxa has six true stamens and is a rather dull blue. Brodiaea elegans has 3 staminodia and 3 fertile stamens are a very shiny blue. Both can be grown in the garden. At the plant sale, we sell the cultivar Triteleia laxa ‘Queen Fabiola’. It is a reliable bloomer and returns every year. I have many in containers that are blooming now at the end of May.
To complete the Brodiaea complex, I have to mention Dichelostemma congestum, Ookow, another late season bulb. Often confused with Blue Dicks, Dichelostemma capitatum because both have dense clusters of blue flowers and 3 true stamens. The most reliable way to tell the difference between the two is the season. Ookow is late in the season and is blooming now and Blue Dicks blooms earlier in the spring.
A wonderful book called Wild Lilies, Irises and Grasses, Gardening with California Monocots is a good reference. It was edited by Nora Harlow and Kristen Jacob with illustrations by Kristin Jacob. Published by the UC Press in 2003. This is a truly important reference book as well as a beautiful book. Of course, I used the Jepson Manual 2012 as a reference too.
– Liz Parsons, Milo Baker Vice President
Plant Walks
Plant walks will be taking a break for the summer, have a great time out there in nature! Hope to see you again in the Fall. Sign up for future walks at MIlobakerevents@gmail.com
The following is Rosaleen Murphy's narrative of last month's plant walk to Porterfield Creek Open Space Preserve.
May Plant Walk – Porterfield Creek Open Space Preserve
For our seventh Milo Baker plant walk of the year, a group of twenty-one Chapter members and visitors, led by naturalists Rosaleen Murphy and Ruthie Saia, explored Porterfield Creek Preserve, a little-known gem on the western edge of Cloverdale. We started out on the Preserve Trail following the shady namesake creek, dotted with bright yellow Diogenes' Lanterns, pompoms of blue Ookow, and pale purple Milkwort, and past a rockface decorated with exquisite Clarkia concinna, 'Red Ribbons'. We stopped to admire towering, fragrant bushes of California Azaleas and Spicebush in the creek bed before crossing over onto Three Bridges Trail, up Tanks a Lot Trail and onto Traverse Trail. There we passed by a seep dotted with fuzzy white Stachys albens, and rich yellow, red-freckled Seep Monkeyflowers, then rounded a corner to find the trail flanked by thigh-high yellow False Lupine, or Golden Banner. We ate a quick lunch beside a meadow before heading up the steep exposed hillside trails, Northwest Link to Craig Clark to Boulder. The terrain change was marked by low-growing species characteristic of serpentine chaparral zone, such as Leather Oak, Ceanothus jepsonii, and Chaparral Pea, and rich with uncommon serpentine-endemic and adapted plants growing directly out of the crumbly grey-green rock and sunbaked clay, intense magenta starbursts of Sickle Leaf Onion, Showy Phlox, Western Heart's Ease Violet, Cardinal Catchfly, and Gold Wire, growing in exquisite little gardens tucked in alongside the trail.
Perhaps the highlight of an altogether wonderful venture, was finding two species of Calochortus growing side by side, Calochortus amabilis, 'Diogenes' Lanterns', and C. tolmiei, 'Pussy Ears', and then, interspersed, pale yellow hybrids with intermediary characteristics of the two species, some with nodding heads, others more upright, a fun botanical curiosity. We then descended back down Craig Clark Trail, leaving the magical Serpentine zone behind. At the tail end of our walk we had one last thrill, a glimpse of a dark-patterned young rattlesnake warming itself on the path before disappearing into the dry grass. If you go, bring plenty of water and sun protection and keep an eye out for snakes, good advice for any hike.
Questions? Contact Ruthie Saia, CNPS Plant Walks Chair at milobakerevents@gmail.com
or Rosaleen Murphy, CNPS Plant Walks (707) 318-0387.
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Ongoing Volunteer Opportunities
Living Learning Landscapes Workday was moved to the second Friday of the month since Laguna has theirs on the first, 10-12. Contact April Owens: aprilleeowens@gmail.com, (707) 331-2070
Weekly Doran Beach Ice Plant Removal – every Wednesday (9:30 am - 11:30 am). Meet at 9:30 at the Cypress Day Use parking lot, west end. Bring clippers and gloves and knee pads if you like. One of the most pleasant workdays happens every week – a trip to Doran Beach to pull ice plant. We are clearing out the ice plant that is in the marshland to make room for natives. It is very visual and quite satisfying, with the sound of the waves, birds and foghorn.
Bodega Head Ice Plant Removal Project – second Sunday of each month (10:00 am - 1:00 pm). CNPS is leading volunteers at Bodega Head to save native species from getting smothered by ice plant. Meet at the main parking lot near the bathrooms. Bring water, clippers and gloves if you have them. Text Alynn at 707-321-1748 for more information and to let us know that you are coming.
For more information, please visit the Volunteer Opportunities page on our website.
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