The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) was formed in 1965 in the East Bay region. Today it is a statewide organization with thirty-three chapters. The East Bay Chapter covers Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. The state organization and the local chapters work together to increase understanding of California's native flora and to preserve this rich resource for future generations.

The flower in the banner at top is that of Grindelia hirsutula. Photo by Janice Bray

The East Bay Chapter of CNPS has completed its 2011-2012 Conservation Analyst fund drive by reaching its goal of $35,000.00. 

To all who have donated to this vital fund, please accept the Conservation Analyst Committee’s deepest thanks.  The generous contributions of our members are a strong voice of support for Mack Casterman, our Chapter’s Conservation Analyst.  It is due to the response of our members that Mack will be able to stay on track with the many projects in which he is involved. 

The Conservation Committee welcomes volunteers.  The projects cover a variety of areas in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.  Experience has shown that our involvement makes a noticeable difference. 

Thanks again to all who participated.

Conservation Analyst Fund Committee

East Bay Chapter, California Native Plant Society

The Guidebook to the Botanical Priority Protection Areas of the East Bay is now available for download.

Click here for an introduction to the Guidebook.

Volunteers Needed

The new park Supervisor at Sibley Regional Park is eager to have volunteers help with weed control.  In June, Janet Gawthrop, John Slaymaker and Wendy Tokuda showed up and hit a wall—a wall of broom.  On the up side, heading out on the shady trail, we saw all kinds of beautiful natives, including sword fern, snowberry and Douglas iris. In the field adjacent to this stand of broom there are many native grasses and Eriogonum nudum.  Undaunted, we ask for your help!  Please come attack the Genista on our now regular workday—the third Sunday of the month.  Sibley trailhead at 9 am.  The Park provides tools and snacks.

Photographs of native plants and related activity

East Bay Chapter Board Member Wins Conservation Award

ST. LOUIS–Holly Forbes, curator at the University of California Botanical Garden, has won the 2011 Star Award from the Center for Plant Conservation, located at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, for her work with rare and imperiled plant species. The award was presented on April 8 in conjunction with the Center for Plant Conservation’s national meeting, held this year in Denver, Colo., and recognizes individuals who demonstrate the concern, cooperation and personal investment needed to conserve imperiled native plants. [Read more]

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Calendar of Chapter Events

Chapter Council Meeting

The East Bay Chapter will host the CNPS Chapter Council meeting on June 2 and 3 in Berkeley. We are looking for a few volunteers to assist with meeting set up as well as buffet installations. This is a wonderful opportunity to get to know some folks from the State Board and the Chapter Council and other CNPS members from around the state.

The meeting will be held at the offices of MIG, 800 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley  94710.  There is plenty of parking available on the surrounding streets

Saturday, June 2nd, 7:00 am to noon, and noon to 5:00 pm. There will be two shifts on Saturday. The first is from 7:00 am-noon. Its duties include meeting set up, breakfast buffet set up/break down as well as restocking the beverage and light snack station (2 volunteers needed). The second shift is from noon to 5:00 pm. Among its tasks are lunch buffet set up/break down, restocking the beverage and light snack station and prepping meeting room for next day (2 volunteers needed).

Sunday, June 3rd, 7:00 am-noon. Meeting set up, breakfast buffet set up/breakdown, restocking beverage and light snack station, prepping box lunch (2 volunteers needed). To recap, six volunteers total: two for each of three shifts (Saturday am and pm, Sunday am). All interested please contact our Hospitality Chair Howard Arendtson as soon as possible at  howard@hjuliendesigns.com. Everything will be provided, we just need your hands, good attitude and bright smiling faces!

Howard Arendtson
T: 510.548.7400, F: 510.540.7634, Fax-to-Email: 510.529.3130

Native grassland in Knowland Park  Photo by Mack Casterman

For the last several months, EBCNPS has been hard at work on the Oakland Zoo’s proposed theme park development on the western knolls of Knowland Park.  In its current design, this development will directly impact one of the most sensitive areas of our “Foothills of South Oakland” BPPA.  The planned zoo footprint will result in the destruction of oak woodlands, Brittleleaf Manzanita Chaparral (Arctostaphylos crustacea crustacea Shrubland Alliance with rarity ranking of G2 S2), and acres of rare native Valley Needlegrass Grassland that in many experts’ opinions is one of the most pristine examples of native grassland in the East Bay.  The sad irony of this project is that the Zoo is marketing this theme park as a “conservation” project.  They have stated that the impacts to native plant communities can be justified by their own conservation message, embodied in the exhibits.  On display in this new exhibit will be California native animals that are now rare or extinct due to destruction of their native habitat.

The California Native Plant Society and Friends of Knowland Park have initiated a lawsuit under CEQA against the City of Oakland and the East Bay Zoological Society in approving the 56-acre theme park.  The lawsuit notes that the Zoo significantly changed its development plans since first receiving approval by the Oakland City Council in 1998.  The expansion was approved with limited environmental review at that time.  CNPS and Friends have long argued that the changes to the theme park plan merit a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR).  The City Council opted instead to accept a lower standard of environmental review, which allowed the updated plan to move forward without considering less damaging alternatives. 

The amendment recently approved by the City Council includes massive changes to the 1998 Master Plan.  Changes include the addition of a new 17,000 square foot veterinary hospital.  The new plan calls for increasing the size of an Interpretive Center by two stories and more than four times the square footage, and it moves the center to a visually intrusive spot on a ridgeline.  The amendment calls for a new aerial gondola ride over the rare chaparral and overnight camping area for 100 campers.  Animal exhibits have also been placed over biologically sensitive areas.

Currently, the Zoo is proceeding to build the Veterinary Hospital.  We are scheduled to attempt a mediated settlement on Aug. 22.  Meanwhile, there is a written agreement that the Zoo will not undertake building the perimeter fence and grading and widening the service road until May 2012.   Both of these last components have the potential for significant impacts to rare native plant communities at the project site.

The East Bay Chapter of CNPS wants to keep track of rare and endemic native plants and plant communities in the East Bay. Within our catalogue of native plant species there is an abundance of rarity: from Mount Diablo endemics to Pleistocene relicts; narrowly distributed taxa to peripheral populations; and species that have suffered extirpations from changes in vegetation composition resulting from the introduction of non-native plant species or directly from human development. Based on the CNPS Inventory of Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Plants of California, a total of 127 of these plant species are currently known from our Chapter area. These species are separated into five categories of rarity: [Read more about the EBCNPS Rare Plant Program referred to in the poster above.]