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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

carbon neutrality

One Year Later

By Frank Landis, Conservation Chair

In a sense, this is a dual column, because in addition to conservation I will be talking about one of my other roles, which is as our chapter delegate to the CNPS Chapter Council (CC). But mostly it’s about one year into the pandemic and climate change.

As I write this, I’m getting deluged with media stories about how “life will be getting back to normal soon,” how dealing with the pandemic was “like everyone being in prison,” and so forth. And I get it. A lot of businesses will do better, and a lot of people will do better, if we get out more, drive more, and spend a lot more. And I have no intention of belittling the very real pain many people went through, especially those who are suffering lingering effects of COVID-19 or who lost loved ones to the virus.

But I have to be the person who points out that pre-pandemic “normal” wasn’t very good. As I sit here, looking at less than four inches of rain this year, I’m reminded, as hopefully we all are, that we’ve got maybe nine years to get our greenhouse gas emissions well down towards zero, or things start getting a lot worse than they are now.

CNPS Carbon Neutrality Goal and Other Conservation News

By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee

At its June 6, 2020 meeting, the Chapter Council approved the CNPS Carbon Neutral Goal. It reads as follows:

“CNPS’s goal is to become carbon neutral in its activities by 2030, meaning that our activities will, in net, add no greenhouse gases to the atmosphere every year. This goal encompasses work done by staff and volunteers, in activities, meetings, and events. Methods for reaching this goal remain to be determined as of the adoption of this goal in 2020, so successful methods, techniques, innovations, and programs will be freely shared within CNPS as a normal function of the society.

• “Justification for Goal: CNPS recognizes that climate change is a threat to the continued existence of at least some of California’s native plant species.

• “Currently, the damage caused by climate change ranks behind habitat loss and non-native invasive species in terms of the threat it poses to California native plant species. In coming decades, climate change will merge with these other threats by making part or all of the current ranges of native plants unlivable for those species, forcing them to migrate or die. We want to avoid this future.