ABDSP BOTANY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER MAY/JUNE 2015 Season’s End This will be the last newsletter for the season. Those who have other places to go for the summer are making their arrangements, or they have already left. Those who are staying in Borrego Springs for the summer are settling in to their slower routines. The Visitor Center will soon switch to its summer schedule. Even though May can have some remarkable mild weather, even some spring showers, we all know that hot, dry days are ahead. Will we have monsoonal rains this year? Will we have fires in the mountains? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, let’s review some of the high points of this past season.
Botany Certification Course By Judy Ramirez Another highly successful Certification Course has been completed, and each year seems to get better. As in previous years, our final class included a tour of the District herbarium, where participants observed the specimen mounting process and viewed the cases where plant specimens are filed. Volunteers have mounted approximately 500 specimens this season, and Mary Jo Churchwell has reviewed all of our 4,000 specimens to check for name changes. Specimen mounters include Ruth Ehly, Laura Webb, Martha Ellul, Clair Burwell, Jary Riolo and Mary Jo Churchwell.
Larry Hendrickson explains plant collection procedures during the herbarium tour (Photo Credit: Judy Ramírez)
Mary Jo Churchwell reviews specimens and updates names according to recent changes (Photo Credit: Judy Ramírez)
At the April 6 end-of-season potluck held at outgoing president Kate Harper’s home, Botany Course graduates received certificates of completion. Those completing the course were Birgit Knorr, Carla Hoegen, Clair Burwell, Heather Barnes, Joanne Odenthal, Laura Webb, Lem Stepherson, Nate Capehart, Pat Matthews and Vern Konen. Our small group leaders/mentors and volunteer instructors received certificates of appreciation. Small group leaders/mentors were Karin Vickars, Kathy Bussey, and Marilyn Dickson with Paul Larson also helping out in the field. Kate Harper led two of the sessions. Arie Korporaal served as over-all course mentor, instructor and go-to IT guy. Many thanks to all who so wholeheartedly participated and gave generously of their time to make this year’s course a success. We welcome the new members, shown in the photo below.
BOTANY STUDY GROUP The Botany Study Group is a self-directed series of 13 classes designed to expand our knowledge of botany and make us better able to fulfill our mission. Members must be certified Botany Society members. The specific goals of the Botany Study Group are to study selected topics in depth and to study topics not covered in the Botany Certification Course to improve our ability to educate the public on desert plant walks, document changes in the flora of the ABDSP and serve as early warning sentries for invasive plants in the ABDSP and its immediate environs. Classes are 2.5 to 4 hours long every Monday in November, December and April, bracketing the Botany Curriculum taught January-March. Members both research and lead the discussions. With the departure of so many of our seasonal members, the second full season of the Botany Study Group has now come to an end. April classes were well attended. The primary subject studied was pollination. Botanist and outgoing president Kate Harper began this 4-part series of lectures with an entertaining and informative talk titled “The Sex Life of Plants”. She promised that we would never look at a flower the same way again, and she was right! The following week featured our April guest speaker, the everpopular Jeff Price, an expert on insects. This was followed by Mike Strandberg’s
presentation of a lecture prepared by MacMcNair (unfortunately absent) on "Polemoneaceae Pollination". The fourth session was an in depth class on pollination led by Mike Strandberg. The other topics covered in April were equally interesting. John Strong told us how geology and soils determine the composition of the plant communities they support. Judy Ramirez taught us about the nitrogen cycle. Mike Bigelow described the life and contributions of botanist and environmentalist Frank Gander. The final session in April was devoted to, “What is in our back yards?” Newly certified member Birgit Knorr gave us a slide tour of monsoonal plants in Canebrake after the major storms of several summers ago, and I introduced us to parasitic plants. Plans are already underway for next season’s classes. Mike Strandberg will join me as co-leader. (Welcome Mike!) We welcome your suggestions for topics to cover – they can be a specific plant, a plant family, a botany-related topic, the life of a botanist, etc. Please email Mike (mostrandberg@gmail.com) or me (ingwallr@mac.com) with your suggestions! Joanne Ingwall Botany Study Group Co-leader
The Native Desert Garden By Don Rideout In this and future editions of the newsletter I plan to discuss native plants of the California deserts (especially the Lower Colorado) that are suitable for home gardening in Borrego Springs and vicinity. This month’s column will deal with Mecca Aster (Xylorhiza cognata) primarily because it is in flower in my garden right now.
Photo: Don Rideout
Basic Botany Mecca Aster is clearly a member of the Radiate form of ASTERACEAE with both ray florets and disk florets. There are three species in the genus Xylorhiza, the other two being orcuttii and tortifolia. The three species are very similar, being perennial herbs that are residents of Creosote Bush Scrub habitat. All three share the same color scheme and similar (but not identical) branch and leaf structures. They differ primarily in where they are found. According to the Calflora web site, cognata has been found near the San Diego/Imperial County Line alongside S22 but is far more common in the Coachella Valley. Orcuttii is the species typically seen in ABDSP and may have an affinity for gypsum soils. Tortifolia is the Mojave (high desert) version. I would guess it is more cold tolerant. It is also much more abundant. Both cognata and orcuttii are somewhat rare plants, included on list 1B.2 of the California Native Plant Society. This means they are rare, threatened or endangered in California and elsewhere. Their rarity may be due to the fact that they are restricted in their habitat preferences, whereas tortifolia occurs over a very large area of the Mojave Desert. Garden Considerations Of the three species, Mecca Aster is the only one that I know of that is available for the home garden, and that is only because The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens decided to propagate it for their own purposes. They were generous enough to donate some 1 gal. Mecca Asters to the Botany Society for last year’s Fall Festival. I hope we can get more this year. I don’t know why more nurseries don’t grow one of these asters. At least I will have a lot of seeds now, and maybe I can figure out how to propagate them. Based on where I have seen orcuttii growing, I decided to try to replicate desert wash conditions for my plants. The soil is typical unamended sand. They are up against the west wall of my house which acts a bit like a canyon wall. The plants have morning shade and afternoon sun. In a wash they would have subsurface water extending late into the Spring, months after the last rains. So I placed my plants near other plants that are getting watered weekly. That way they aren’t getting watered directly but they are getting some moisture from underground. So far it seems to be working. I’m not sure if they want that much moisture all Summer, but I guess I’ll find out. The flowers attract a lot of insects but nothing that seems to be eating the plants. I haven’t found any caterpillars on them. The flowers are not nearly as abundant as on Encelia, but the color makes up for that. As the plants mature, perhaps the flowers will become more abundant. First I have to make sure they survive this summer. If you are interested in trying Mecca Aster, let me know and I will try to get more from The Living Desert for the next Fall Festival.
BOOK REVIEW PLANT GUIDE: Maritime Succulent Scrub Region, Northwest Baja California, Mexico By Jim Riley, Jon Rebman and Sula Vanderplank , Translation by Jorge Simancas and Paola Pijoan Reviewed by Don Rideout This book deals with a desert area that is somewhat removed from “our” desert, ie. the Anza-Borrego. Yet, it has a close botanical relationship and there is much that we can learn from it. If we broaden our perspective a bit, we see that Anza-Borrego is a small part of the Sonoran Desert which covers large parts of Arizona and Mexico in addition to our corner of California. In Northwest Baja the Sonoran Desert comes ever closer to the coast, due not to the rain shadow of the mountains but the fact that the winter storm track simply doesn’t reach that far south. Here a particular variety of Sonoran Desert vegetation blends with coastal herbs and shrubs to form a truly unique plant community called Maritime Succulent Scrub – the subject of this book. In this zone from roughly Ensenada to El Rosario, a hiker from Anza-Borrego would find many familiar-looking plants. At the higher elevations there is California Juniper, Whipple’s Yucca, White Sage and Blue Dicks. At lower elevations one finds Mesquite, Rush Milkweed, Encelia, Apricot Mallow and Rock Daisy. Instead of Desert Agave one find Shaw’s Agave. Of course, there are cacti – chollas, barrels, hedgehogs, prickly pears and mammillarias. The species differ from Anza-Borrego but the overall look is similar. Even the predominant granitic soil is the same. However, mixed in with these decidedly desert plants are conspicuously coastal plants that would seem to have nothing in common with all of these desert dwellers. There are numerous delicate Dudleya species, and they seem to be everywhere. There are unusual stem succulents such as Cliff Spurge (Euphorbia misera) that are often leafless and covered with lichens. There are bizarre looking flowers or fruits such as Rabbit’s Purse (Harfordia macroptera var. galiodes) that is endemic to this tiny portion of Northwest Baja. There are species found only here and on the Channel Islands, such as Ribes Viburnifolium. There are dune plants and halophytes and those that thrive on Native American shell middens. Altogether it is a stunning botanical diversity. What is it that has allowed these disparate plant species to coexist? The answer is that this is an ecotone where the Sonoran Desert meets the southern limit of the California Floristic Province. Species of the California Floristic Province are all highly drought adapted, and these at the southern limit are the most drought adapted of all. Even the most coastal ones must get along with scant rainfall. But what they lack in rainfall is made up in fog. This is especially true in summer. The presence of the cool Pacific adjacent to the hot land creates reliable fog conditions which provide moisture that supports such this impressive variety of plants. Consistent onshore winds deliver this higher humidity air all the way to the crest of the mountains, creating significantly different summertime conditions from Anza-Borrego. The authors were motivated to assemble this book because no one had previously focused on this unique and botanically rich region of Baja. The popular Baja California
Plant Field Guide by Rebman and Roberts covers the entire peninsula, which is great. But in doing so, some special areas must be given less ink than they deserve. PLANT GUIDE: Maritime Succulent Scrub Region now gives Northwest Baja the attention it merits. The book has some special features that make it stand out. First and foremost, all text is in both English and Spanish so that readers on both sides of the border can access all of the great information. Next, the photos are really good size and there are plenty of them. Jim Riley, co-author, said he was frustrated with trying to identify plants from the tiny photos in most guides. So he has tried to include three photos for each species – typical habit, flower and fruit. Arrows and notes are sometimes used to point out diagnostic features – really helpful. Another great feature of this book is its Quick Guide to Plant Families in the front. This section covers the twelve most commonly encountered plant families in the area with a nice big photo and text describing how to distinguish this family. As we all know, getting a mystery plant narrowed down to the family is the first step in identification, and this guide really helps. This is a great book for the Baja camper or beginning bot-head. It isn’t complete enough for the serious botanist, but for the rest of us it includes the majority of species we’re likely to encounter. Though it probably won’t be sold in the Visitor Center, it has relevance to the Botany Society because it describes another part of “our” desert. I highly recommend it.
The newsletter editors, Don and Sheila Rideout, invite contributions from Botany Society, Park staff, and any interested member of the community. Please email your contributions to don@rideouts.net. If you have single photos or short contributions, try Tweeting to @Botany Society.