CNDDB News Blog

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.

Emys marmorata – western pond turtle
Submitted by Zachary Abbey of Padre Inc.

Zachary came across some juvenile western pond turtles along Santa Monica Creek in Santa Barbara County. This turtle species is endemic to the western United States ranging from the Puget Sound lowlands in Washington to Baja California. Western pond turtles are small to medium sized with brown and green coloring and black spotted pattern on their heads and legs. They spend almost their entire lives in or close to water, but don't be alarmed if you see one roaming on land! Western pond turtles sometimes leave their aquatic habitats to search for food, habitat, or mates. During the winter months, western pond turtles hibernate underwater and breathe underwater using the process of cloacal respiration. Cloacal respiration allows these turtles to pump water through the cloaca (located at the rear of the turtle) to sacs lined with blood vessels that act like gills. There, oxygen diffuses in and carbon dioxide is released. Western pond turtle populations face many threats including historical commercial harvests, wetland drainage projects, and invasive species like the red-eared slider and bullfrog. Currently, the CNDDB has 1398 mapped occurrences. Thank you, Zachary, for submitting this observation!

Bolandra californica – Sierra bolandra
Submitted by Dana York

This inconspicuous little flower was discovered by Dana along the Sierra Nevada mountains in Mariposa County. Bolandra californica was first listed in the 1974 first edition of the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants as rare but not endangered and is currently considered a California Rare Plant Rank 4.3 (limited distribution in California; not very threatened in California). It is found growing in rock crevices of montane coniferous forests throughout the central Sierra Nevada mountains. The flower grows in a panicle or branching flowering structure where the lowest or outermost flowers bloom before the highest or central flowers. These flowers can be seen blooming through the summer from May to August. Thank you, Dana, for this amazing find, and for all the work you do helping all the rare and endangered plants in California!

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!

Every type of organism deserves our respect, especially those who were already ancient before the dinosaurs first arrived on the scene.

When hearing "snail" most people think of a typical non-native garden snail. Nature is much more interesting than that. California boasts at least 240 named species of land snails, some of which are known only from a handful of field collections. 71 of these snails are considered imperiled and are tracked by CNDDB. Each of these species survives using staggeringly complicated biochemistry and carries along with it a long history of evading extinction by adapting at a snail’s pace.

Since snails are often found in cool, moist environments, many of these species will face increased pressures in the coming decades due to climate change. Some of California’s snail species will likely go extinct before ever being described. The people who are remembered as the legends in a given field of science are often just the first people who decide to investigate a topic in detail. New snail discoveries are made by curious amateurs. If you want to do some cutting-edge conservation science, you may find delving a bit into malacology quite rewarding.

The Shasta sideband snail (Monadenia troglodytes troglodytes) was originally known from a set of shells found in a cave with ice age fossils of extinct creatures such as the Shasta ground sloth. The 1933 publication that first described the shells said they belonged to an extinct species. Later research determined these snails are very much alive. They are restricted to limestone outcroppings in the vicinity of Shasta Lake. The US Forest Service now includes M. t. troglodytes on its list of sensitive species and NatureServe categorizes it as Critically Imperiled.

The Shasta sideband shown here was found in 2017 only a few steps away from a paved public road. The next time you’re in snail country, walk slow and keep your eyes open. You never know what you might find! If you spot anything rare, be sure to share your findings with CNDDB through our Online Field Survey Form.