A campaign to save California’s coastal prairie
With golden summer hillsides and enticing mosaics of forest and field, the grasslands of California are iconic. Yet few people realize that some of those grasslands are actually coastal prairie,...
Botany
A Shrubland Lover Lives Here
Chaparral and scrublands are often overlooked, dismissed even, as valuable habitat in places like Point Reyes National Seashore. But the unassuming assemblage of low-lying shrubs and herbs are the right...
A Breeze among wildflowers
Breeze has been building mountain bikes for 40 years, and he remembers friendlier days when cyclists and hikers peacefully coexisted.
Olema Valley Trail: Texiera Ranch to Five Brooks. (4.7 miles one-way)
Stinging nettles and horsetail, plus lots of wildflowers, on the trail at Point Reyes.
Botanical sleuths scour Mount Tamalpais
Working off historical records of rare plant locations, plant "hunters" on Mount Tamalpais are scouring the mountain in search of the illusive Mason’s ceanothus shrub and other botanical novelties. The...
The Rare Santa Cruz Sandhills and the People who Love Them
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, some passionate folks look after rare plants and animals in a unique habitat defined by sand but threatened by mining, development, and fragmentation.
Irises, paintbrush and more in bloom at Point reyes
Jules Evens clocks another 5 miles of his 154-mile adventure through Point Reyes, this time with Douglas irises and other wildflowers coming into bloom. Another great hike you can take...
The Forager’s Dilemma
Just a century ago, foraging for wild foods would have been unremarkable--part of daily life for many people. That's not true today, but foraging is making a comeback, with ever...
Blitzers Search for SOD
A project out of UC Berkeley recruits citizen scientists to help track the spread of sudden oak death. They do it every spring, and the more people take part, the...
Early-Spreading Wild Cucumber Climbs Fast Once It Starts to Rain
What's cool as a cucumber, bitter as the biblical waters of Marah, and so well-rooted in the Bay Area that pulling it up is futile?
