Once again the blooming season is upon us, and once again many of our unusual plants are in desperate need of monitoring.
The goal of our Unusual Plants program is to revisit as many of these vulnerable populations as often as possible so we can track and ensure their health and well-being.
With over 400 of our unusual (locally rare) plants ranked “A” under our EBCNPS ranking system, and each having one to five current populations in the East Bay, it is impossible to get to all of them every year or even every few years.
Thus, each year a Priority Survey list is compiled of the populations most in need of monitoring. This year, two lists have been compiled, one of the Top 25 Plants, and the other of the Top 20 Places with multiple populations. Please note that locations are general. If you are interested in monitoring one of these populations, please contact me for more detailed information at diannelake@yahoo.com.
Too many of our unusual plant populations have not been monitored since the mid-1990’s and are now considered historic, or soon will be, if they are not surveyed and updated. If a population has not been reported in 25 years, it is designated as historic. Many of these populations may still exist, but just haven’t been recorded recently, so we need to get as many eyes out there as we can.
Some of the sites with multiple populations that have not been surveyed since the mid-1990’s or before are Los Mochos off of Mines road south of Livermore, Man Ridge in the same area, Mission Peak Regional Preserve near Fremont, Los Vaqueros Reservoir, and Bald Ridge at Mt. Diablo. If anyone has recent data (2005 to present) for any of these sites, please contact me at diannelake@yahoo.com .
A meeting will be held in mid-February, date and place to be determined, to discuss monitoring priorities and work out the logistics. Survey teams will be organized to monitor different populations, or volunteers can sign up to monitor populations on their own. Please send me your email if you are interested in joining us and I will notify you when and where the meeting will take place.
– Dianne Lake, Unusual Plants Coordinator
January 2020
