The study and science of plants.

The Ascent of Mount Burdell

January 1, 2011 •  by

Author Rebecca Solnit celebrates the quotidian landscape of oaks and grasses of her childhood ramblings on Mount Burdell in Marin County. Has anyone, she asks, written a poem about bunchgrass? Or buckeyes? If no one has yet, someone should.

The Crazy Broom Lady of the Oakland Hills

January 1, 2011 •  by

Longtime television anchorwoman Wendy Tokuda now spends many days in the East Bay hills, finding endangered manzanitas and communing with pileated woodpeckers. All because of her obsession with an invasive weed called French broom. And her years of effort are paying off.

Go Nuts for Nuts

October 1, 2010 •  by

They say California is the land of fruits and nuts, which wouldn’t be so funny if it weren’t also partly true. But our native nuts–acorns, hazelnuts, and more–are central to life for both plants and wildlife, and they deserve some respect.

Lech Naumovich Speaks Up for Plants

September 8, 2010 •  by

Lech Naumovich, conservation analyst for the California Native Plant Society’s East Bay chapter and founding director of Golden Hour Restoration Institute, says if he’s not outdoors half the year, then he’s not doing his job as a botanist. He says you can’t have a long-distance relationship with nature.

Artist Plants Comics at UC Botanical Garden

July 15, 2010 •  by

For the The University of California Botanical Garden in the Berkeley Hills is home to one of the nation’s largest collections of plant life. It houses many rare and endangered plants hard to find anywhere else, and for the month of July, it also houses comics. Yes, comics.

Blowin’ in the Wind

April 1, 2010 •  by

Next time you sneeze, think of it as an homage to pollen, the key to the reproduction of plants all over the world. Look a little closer, and this stuff turns out to be well worth a few sneezes now and then!

Gambling on Grass at Point Molate

April 1, 2010 •  by

Native plant advocates charge that the studies done for the proposed casino at Richmond’s Point Molate ignore the site’s rare collection of native grasses.

The Presidio’s Miracle Manzanita

April 1, 2010 •  by

A construction site along one of San Francisco’s busiest thoroughfares hardly seems like a good spot to find one of our region’s rarest plants. But that’s just where a passing biologist saw a manzanita thought extinct for decades. And now a whole lot of people are trying to make sure this lone survivor isn’t the last Franciscan manzanita.