On just ten acres in the Berkeley hills, there's an enchanting garden that hosts much of California's vast botanic diversity. The Regional Parks Botanic Garden—Northern California's only public garden focused on our state's native plants—is a center for conservation, research, and public education. Rare and endangered plants from around the state have found a refuge here. And thousands of children and adults alike have walked the garden's paths, under the spell of our native flora.
The Regional Parks Botanic Garden, in Tilden Regional Park, is a 10-acre landscape of plants native to California. The garden includes ten sections corresponding to ten geographic regions of the state, all woven into a beautiful naturalistic landscape of trees, … Read more
Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region, by Doris Sloan, UC Press, 2006, 360 pages, $26.95 www.ucpress.edu “The world-famous Bay Area rocks tell a geologic story that reads like a Russian novel with a very large cast of characters. Because … Read more
Native Treasures: Gardening with the Plants of California, by M. Nevin Smith, UC Press, 2006, 288 pages, $24.95 www.ucpress.edu It’s almost an embarrassment of riches for native plant enthusiasts: two comprehensive new books on gardening with California natives published in … Read more
WEBSITES California Oak Mortality Task Force www.suddenoakdeath.org or http://nature.berkeley.edu/comtf This is the most comprehensive source of information for the general public about sudden oak death and the pathogen that causes it. Useful pages on the site include: History and Background … Read more
Botanists and nature lovers celebrated good news this spring as the Mount Diablo buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum)—presumed extinct until its rediscovery in 2005—germinated and bloomed for a second year in the wild for and for the first time in carefully-tended greenhouse … Read more
This story was updated on March 1, 2017. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is home to some of the most diverse and accessible tidepools in the state, but there are many other good tidepooling destinations along California’s more than 1,000 miles of … Read more
Plate Tectonics And Earthquakes National Earthquake Information Center USGS website providing current data on earthquakes worldwide. USGS Earthquake Hazards Program-Northern California Website providing general and latest quake information, hazard maps, sources of preparedness information, synthesis of current research, and resources. … Read more
At a January 2006 meeting, the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) Board of Directors approved the Land Use Plan Amendment for Robert Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve after first removing the plan’s controversial campground provision. The board received volumes of … Read more
From a modern perspective, it is difficult to imagine the time when women in this country were discouraged from seriously pursuing vocations in science and natural history. But until the late 1800s, there were few if any women working in … Read more
