Defining the edge of a shifting body of water like San Francisco Bay, whose exact extent changes with every tide, every season, every storm, can be tricky business. In our region the regulators sometimes fall back on a botanical criterion. … Read more
The study and science of plants.
Mount Sutro’s Untold Understory
It’s almost impossible to miss Sutro Tower, the lanky broadcast antenna that looms 977 feet above the summit of one of San Francisco’s tallest hills, itself over 900 feet tall. However, few people know that underneath that landmark sit 61 … Read more
Native Plant Garden Tours
It’s no longer a secret to readers of this magazine that native plant gardens can look as beautiful as those stocked with showy exotics, while at the same time providing habitat for native insects and birds and conserving water and … Read more
Discover the Rare Rocks and Flowers of Tiburon’s Ring Mountain
Perched 600 feet above San Francisco Bay, Ring Mountain has spectacular views of the surrounding ridgelines, Bay, and urban areas. But you can also find much deeper views into the earth preserved in the remarkable rocks strewn about this wild and open landscape.
Botanic Magic
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.
Forest Lowlife
This winter, discover the miniature world of mosses and their kin.
Rare and Endangered Mosses
January-March 2007 WEB EXTRA: Rare and Endangered Mosses Many of us go through life barely noticing mosses and their cousins, liverworts and hornworts. It’s easy to miss bryophytes—the collective name for mosses, liverworts, and hornworts—painted on a tree trunk, growing … Read more
Visiting the Regional Parks Botanic Garden
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
The Invasive Yellow Star Thistle
When yellow star thistle hitched a ride to California on alfalfa seed in the mid-1800s, it found fertile soil, a temperate climate, and no natural enemies. In its native Mediterranean home, yellow star thistle is kept in check by a … Read more
Sleuthing Sudden Oak Death
By the time that sudden oak death (SOD) began hitting North Bay oaks and tanoaks in the mid-1990s, Ted Swiecki and Elizabeth Bernhardt, husband-and-wife plant pathologists, had been studying oak diseases in California oak woodlands for many years in the … Read more