Monitoring Restoration Area Changes at Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve with CNPS East Bay Volunteers (Oakland)
Date and time to be arranged with those who express interest
As an August rain bathed the northeast end of Sibley Volcanic Regional Park in an unusually diffuse summer light, volunteers walked the Bay Area Ridge Trail south from the Old Tunnel Road staging area, revisiting the late summer riparian growth along Round Top Creek. This was our first walk to monitor an area our chapter’s volunteers had been weeding to remove invasive plants for 14 years until the East Bay Regional Park District ended our Sibley program earlier this year. We plan to monitor transient and permanent changes in the restoration area’s vegetation over time.
Among the poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) draped with Usnea lichen were redtwig and arroyo willows (Salix laevigata and S. lasiolepis, respectively) providing trellis space to several species of mosses unfurling leaves in the freak moisture. Clusters of ninebark (Physocarpus capitatus) fruit and creek dogwood (Cornus sericea) berries have replaced those plants’ white flowers of May, but a California wild rose (Rosa californica) bloom displayed a lone pink splash.
We’ll return in coming months to keep track of these and other plant species, and whether and and at what rate French broom (Genista monspessulana) regrows in the former restoration area.
If you are interested in joining the weekend monitoring walks to list plants we see at Sibley, email restoration@ebcnps.org.
Previous article about the monitoring effort:
Volunteers Needed: Help Monitor Restoration Area Changes at Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve
Albany Hill Work Party (Albany)
September 28, Saturday, 9-11 am
Volunteers work on weeding invasives on Albany Hill, making room for its native plants to return.
For more information, including September 28 meeting place, email tashorehill@gmail.com.
—Janet Gawthrop, Restoration Committee, CNPS East Bay Chapter
September 2024
