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IN THE FIELD: Corte Madera Mountain

By Tom Oberbauer

Back in January of 1978, I hiked up onto Corte Madera Mountain with a friend, Tom Scott (now with UC Berkeley and UC Riverside), who had been studying Golden Eagles in San Diego County. Bald Eagles were wintering at Corte Madera Lake. After postponing the hike due to rain, that was a good rain season, we drove out to Corte Madera Lake, which was accessible because Tom Scott had a key, and we hiked up the north side of Corte Madera Mountain on a little used trail. The trail climbed through a woodland of mostly coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), but also Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri), as well as Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi). It was foggy going up and the view was obscured.

IN THE FIELD: Corte Madera Mountain
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In The Field: The New Santa Fe Valley Trail

By Jürgen Schrenk

Recently, the new Santa Fe Valley Trail, connecting the San Dieguito River Park’s Del Dios Gorge Trail with the Lusardi Creek Preserve, was opened to the public. The beginning of the trail took us through fields of Menzies’ Goldenbush (Isocoma menziesii var. menziesii).

In The Field: The New Santa Fe Valley Trail
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The Desert a Month after Monsoonal Rains

By Jürgen Schrenk

After yet another week of waiting for the temps to go down watching our Monarch production and limiting our walks to local parks, I was worried that I might completely miss the monsoonal “spring” in the desert. So, I went on a quick drive along S-2

The Desert a Month after Monsoonal Rains
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CNPS-SD Helps With Rare Plant Surveys

By Justin Daniel, Vice President, Rare Plants Co-chair

With vaccinations allowing more contact outdoors and a workload a year behind, it's been a busy time a few of us to help some of our fantastic environmental conservancy organizations around San Diego County by assisting them in their rare plant surveys. The following are glimpses into some of the recent surveys. Come along for the ride and reach out to support our partners, too!

CNPS-SD Helps With Rare Plant Surveys
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The Mount Laguna Surprise

By Tom Oberbauer

…The next week, I drove up and hiked to the location I visited in December and sure enough, the display of Platystemon californica (above) was pretty amazing. Sheets of color extended across the slopes leading into the center of the meadow. I spent some time attempting to photograph and create video of the breeze gently shaking the small flowers. From this location, the view of the meadow ranges across its full length, extending more than three miles in the distance to the south. Laguna Lake also contained a good level of water reflecting the blue sky, apparently left over from the previous two good rainfall seasons. I attempted to capture the view of the flowers with the lake and end of the meadow in the distance. The breeze and the movement of the flowers in this manner always reminds me of when I was a child and my family visited Estes Park in Colorado and we observed alpine wildflowers…

The Mount Laguna Surprise

Monardella hypoleuca ssp. lanata

Black Mountain Rare Plant Survey

By Tom Oberbauer, Botanist and Past President, CNPS-San Diego

Time was drifting by and the summer of rare plant surveys was getting close to the end. The season for surveys and the project financing were almost past in 2015. Margie Mulligan and I were originally supposed to visit the top of Black Mountain, northeast of Sutherland Reservoir, but other commitments prevented her doing it. So, Jim Rocks was interested and Margie made arrangements for us to contact each other. The result was that Jim was going to be able to drive and I would meet him at his office in the Clairmont/Mission Bay area.

I drove there quite early one morning, arriving by 7:30 am. We loaded into his Honda Ridgeline 4X4 and drove out through Ramona and up Magnolia Avenue and then down into Pamo Valley. The vegetation was not completely toasted because of one interesting July rainstorm, the remnants of a tropical storm. It dropped quite a bit of rain in a number of places in San Diego County including 4 inches in Ramona where it flooded some streets.

The plant that appeared to benefit the most from the July rain was Salsola kali (Russian thistle). It was green and growing profusely in all of the open fields. However, the rain would have also assisted the native chaparral shrubs and oak trees during a very dry time of year. The road climbed gently up into the hills north east of Ramona and then dropped down into an oak and sycamore lined canyon, shaded by the larger trees but providing a view of a narrow valley as it lay before us.