CNDDB News Blog

CDFW photos by Katie Ferguson

This spring, Sacramento City College will offer a virtual version of their field botany course. This is a valuable opportunity for those new to botany to learn about the flora of California, and for veteran botanists to brush up on the basics.

In this course students will learn how to identify many common plant families and species and learn how to use the Jepson Manual for plant identification. There will be a weekly in-class meeting via Zoom as well as pre-recorded videos. The instructor will also distribute plant specimens so that students can get hands-on experience with dissection and keying.

If you are interested in learning more about California’s beautiful and diverse flora, 2021 might be an ideal time to take this field botany course thanks to the flexible nature of virtual learning. If you have any questions about this course, please contact Lisa Serafini at serafil@scc.losrios.edu.

Taricha rivularis – red-bellied newt
Submitted by Sheila McCarthy

Sheila was in eastern Sonoma county when she came across this critter crossing a trail. Red-bellied newts are a California Species of Special Concern and are endemic to California. You can find them in redwood and coastal forests from southern Humboldt county to Lake and Sonoma counties. There has also been an isolated population confirmed in Santa Clara county. They are mainly terrestrial but will breed in streams. When rain starts in the fall, adults will start to move around, find food, and eventually head to streams to reproduce. Red-bellied newts have poisonous secretions that come out of their skin to protect them from predation. If they are eaten in large quantities, they can kill most animals and even humans! However, their main predator, the common gartersnake, has a high resistance to tetrodotoxin and can consume them without harm. This newt species has an impressive longevity too – estimated between 20 and 30 years! Their diet consists of many types of invertebrates and they are usually active at night and late afternoon. Agriculture and urban development pose a threat because of the alteration and degradation of streams these processes require. The development of natural areas can also bring more vehicle traffic which poses a serious threat to this small species, especially during migrations to breeding areas. Currently, the CNDDB has 136 red-bellied newt occurrences throughout its range. Many thanks to Sheila for snapping a great shot of this tiny but mighty species!

Cladium californicum – California sawgrass
Submitted by Joy England

This fascinating grass was discovered by Joy England and Duncan Bell in Inyo County. Joy and Duncan went out looking for this grass as part of California Botanic Garden’s effort, working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to conduct status assessments of native species considered at risk of decline. For any questions on the status assessment effort, please contact the principal investigator: Naomi Fraga, Director of Conservation Programs, California Botanic Garden at nfraga@calbg.org. Cladium californicum was first listed in the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants in 2006 and is currently on California Rare Plant Rank 2B.2 (plants rare, threatened, or endangered in California, but more common elsewhere; moderately threatened in California). In California it is found growing in meadows, seeps and alkaline or freshwater marshes and swamps throughout the central coast and southern California. Outside of California it can be found across Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and as far east as Texas. Blooms of C. californicum can be found throughout the summer from June to September. Thank you Joy for your work checking on the status of this amazing grass and thanks to both Naomi and Joy for their continued work protecting California’s native plants!

Do you have some great photos of rare plants or wildlife detections? Submit them along with your findings through our Online Field Survey Form and see if your photos get showcased!

Did you know that CNDDB tracks plant species that are extinct or extirpated in California? The CNPS Rare Plant Inventory ranks 28 plants as 1A (extinct in California) or 2A (extirpated in California but more common elsewhere). The CNDDB maintains records on these species, with details on the locations where they used to occur and the threats that led to their extinction.

So why continue to track these plants if they’re not around anymore? One reason is that there’s always a chance the species could be rediscovered in the future! It’s actually pretty easy for a small population of a very rare plant to escape notice for years or decades – the seeds could be waiting for just the right conditions to sprout, or the plant could be growing on private land inaccessible to botanists searching for the species.

Several plants listed as extinct in past editions of the CNPS Rare Plant Inventory have since been rediscovered. The Mount Diablo buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum) was last seen in 1936 and presumed extinct, since introduced annual grasses had invaded its preferred habitat. In 2005, a UC Berkeley graduate student rediscovered the Mount Diablo buckwheat on land recently acquired by Mount Diablo State Park.

Left: 1934 specimen of Mount Diablo buckwheat. Right: 2014 photo of rediscovered Mount Diablo buckwheat.
Courtesy of Harvard University Herbaria (CC BY-NC) and Lech Naumovich (CC BY-NC-SA)

The Franciscan manzanita (Arctostaphylos franciscana) was believed to be extinct in the wild after the last known San Francisco populations were destroyed by development in the 1940s. In 2009, botanists found one Franciscan manzanita shrub growing on a roadside slated for construction, and rushed to transplant it to a safe location. Most recently, a grass species last collected in Baja California in 1886, Sphenopholis interrupta ssp. californica, was rediscovered earlier this year in San Diego County.

Even if a species is truly extinct, preserving records of where it used to occur helps us paint a full picture of California’s conservation landscape, failures and all.

If you’re interested in becoming a botanical history hunter, and possibly rediscovering an extinct species yourself, check out the CNPS Rare Plant Treasure Hunt! Every year, CNPS organizes volunteers to revisit and rediscover historical rare plant populations all over California. If you do find a botanical treasure, be sure to share your discovery with the CNDDB.