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Jan-Feb 2020
P.O. Box 577, Gualala, CA 95445 $5.00 per year, non-members Volume 2020, Jan-Feb ‘20
CALYPSO The
NEWSLETTER OF THE DOROTHY KING YOUNG CHAPTER CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY
Broader ecological approach needed in Proposed Oak Woodland Ordinance
Conservation update by Renee Pasquinelli
Mendocino County Planning is in the processes of drafting an ordinance for the stated purpose and intent of protecting oak woodlands and individual oak trees as sensitive and unique natural communities. A goal is to “retain and manage the oak resources of the County and provide adequate regulations to ensure perpetuity of oak trees and oak woodlands within Mendocino County.” Oak resources are defined as individual oak trees, heritage oaks, and oak woodlands, but only of the genus Quercus. The ordinance would apply to all lands containing oak resources that are inland from the Coastal Zone.
County Planner II Sam (Vandy) Vandewater, with direction from Chief Planner Julia Acker Krog is leading the effort to draft the ordinance. Two discussion meetings were held (the first on 9/11/2019 and the second on 2/5/2020) with invited representatives including California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Sr. Environmental Scientists Jennifer Garrison and Angela Liebenberg, CDFW Environmental Scientist Daniel Harrington, UC Forestry Advisor Michael Jones, CNPS Sanhedrin Chapter Co-president Jen Riddell, Naturalist, Activist, and Author Kate Marianchild (author of the book “Secrets of the Oak Woodlands: Plants and Animals among California’s Oaks” 2014), Mendocino County Resource Conservation District Forester Mary Mayeda, Willits Environmental Center’s Ellen Drell and myself.
The following is an edited version of the letter that was sent to the County on 2/13/2020:
To “ensure perpetuity of oak trees and oak woodlands within Mendocino County”, a critical first step is to survey, document, and map oak woodlands, including oak ecosystems that are most threatened by loss and habitat destruction. It is also imperative for the County to first have an understanding of where the most sensitive of oak habitats occur, including scrub oaks and tanoaks.
It is imperative for the County to understand how a proposed removal of oaks and oak woodlands may have an ecological adverse effect, both directly and cumulatively. Without this knowledge, without initial documentation, monitoring and tracking, an ordinance that would allow the removal of oaks would serve simply as a permit system for systematic removal of the very “oak resources” that are proposed for protection. Mitigations that are being proposed to replace heritage trees and oak woodlands with young age classes, without considering ecosystem impacts, falsely assumes that the value of oaks lost only amounts to numbers of individual trees. To “ensure perpetuity of oak trees and oak woodlands” the County must seriously consider a preservation system that includes oak habitat restoration where degradation has already occurred, and at a minimum, a system to enable permanent protections for the most at-risk heritage oaks and oak woodlands.
Related to the inclusion of mitigations in the proposed ordinance is the question of CEQA. The County is stating that the Oak Woodland Ordinance is categorically exempt from CEQA, however the ordinance is not a preservation document, but one that is proposing mitigations for potentially significant and cumulative impacts to oaks and oak woodlands. How is this different than the Cannabis Ordinance for which a mitigated negative declaration was adopted? At a minimum, the County should prepare and disclose the CEQA environmental checklist for the proposed Oak Woodland Ordinance as the justification for determining the level of CEQA document required for adoption by the Board of Supervisors.
Rather than proceed with the current process of writing an oak woodland ordinance, we recommend that the County first embark on a program of better understanding and documentation of oaks and oak woodlands by consulting and working collaboratively with the California Oaks Coalition, by engaging a wider audience of stakeholders in oak protection, and by educating the public about the significance of oaks and oak woodlands.
The County is fortunate in having one of the more knowledgeable advocates for oak protection living here and freely providing education about the value of oaks, Kate Marianchild, author of the book “Secrets of the Oak Woodlands: Plants and Animals among California’s Oaks” (2014). The Mendocino Resource Conservation District began a mapping program to identify and document oak habits; that effort should be revitalized and receive County support. Local CNPS Chapters are here to assist with documentation of oak communities, including plant species that occur in association with oaks. Local Audubon Chapter members have vast knowledge of the wildlife species that are supported by oaks and oak woodlands. Most critical to the effort, tribal representatives need to be brought to the table and included in the discussions, since oaks are a vital part of local Native American life and heritage.
Cont. on page 7
2 Jan-Feb 2020
President’s Message
by Nancy Morin
As always, our annual meeting and potluck in December brought cheer to everyone. Geri Hulse Stevens gave a very interesting talk on the work she
has done on the North Coast Semaphore Grass, Pleuropogon hooverianus. Officers were duly elected—me as President, Katy Pye as Vice President, and Jeff Woodward as Secretary.
We still need a TREASURER! Bob Rutemoeller continues as membership chair, Susan Wolbarst as publicity chair, Julia Larke as Calypso editor but in coming issues Katy Pye plans to help. Mario Abreu continues as Education and Books and Posters Chair, Doug Forsell as Exotic Plants chair, Teresa Sholars as Vegetation and Rare Plants chair, with rare plant help from Amy Ruegg and Jon Thompson, Peter Baye and Renee Pasquinelli as Conservation co-chairs, and Jim Gibson as our new web master.
The January/February issue of Calypso is late so we can include late breaking news from planning meetings that Renee Pasquanelli attended concerning the Oak Woodland Ordinance for Mendocino County. Teresa and Renee, who attended the Northern California Botanists 2020 Symposium, The Diversity of Northern California Botany: Challenges and Opportunities, report that it was one of the best they’ve attended. You can view live video of symposium presentations at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKT7bwmUJ0M&list=PLyHJjt9y0tE1XBYgOu3hP2bdITHJxcx5I
The DKY Board had a planning session on January 25 to discuss what we hope to accomplish in the coming year. Themes that emerged were collaboration with other organizations, the need to engage with elected officials, integrating conservation and public education, and outreach in order to help people understand the value of our important plant areas and special plant communities.
David Rice has very generously donated funds to hire an intern to continue the work that his wife Barbara had been doing, at The Sea Ranch and beyond. The focus of this effort will be a study of the coastal prairie and adjacent communities to locate rare plants and map vegetation, so we will carry this through in our fieldtrips and programs. Bishop pine and pygmy cypress woodlands continue to need conservation attention, and we hope to help everyone in our communities better understand their value and how to protect them, again through fieldtrips and programs.
California Native Plant Week the second week of April, and the annual Wildflower Show on Memorial Day weekend, will be opportunities for us to learn more about these plant communities. We hope to expand our outreach beyond the Calypso, programs, and fieldtrips, by enhancing the website,
which Jim Gibson has already begun redesigning, and using social media. The DKY website (www.dkycnps.org), can be a place for us to post plant lists, white papers, background information, conservation alerts, and of course photos.
There are many ways members can participate in all of this. Regarding the intern, we will need to find occasional housing for him or her. Time will be spent both at the state CNPS office in Sacramento and here on the coast, ranging from Salt Point to Navarro Point. The Mendocino College Field Station will be available part of the time, but if any of you would be willing to host an intern occasionally that would be very welcome. We are developing a list of places to take field trips. Rhiannon Korhummel, our field trip chair, will have a great slate. Let us know if you have a favorite place to go, if you would like DKYers to visit your property, or if you would be interested in leading a trip.
We will diversify the exhibits at the Wildflower Show this year, adding photographs, having at least one habitat display, and probably having fewer collected plants. Preparing for the show is always a lot of work and it is always the most fun when we have a team of people doing it. Let us know if you are interested.
Finally, it is not too late to think about the annual plant sales. Ideally, we should be deciding what we want soon so the nurseries we work with can grow plants for us. So, we need ideas now, and then people willing to pick up plants, set up the sale, cashier, and take down. Usually I haven’t put out a call for help until the last minute. This year I would love to have a committee willing to start organizing for the sale now.
We have such a lot to work on, and a beautiful and fascinating flora to do it for. Things are already starting to bloom on the coast! Feel free to post your discoveries on the DKY Facebook page, or send notes and photos to Julia for Calypso, or to Jim for the website. Let’s have a wonderful, plant-filled 2020!
Three great botanists! From left, Teresa Sholars, Clare Wheeler, and Geri Hulse-Stephens at the Annual Potluck.
3 Jan-Feb 2020
Bell-shaped white corollas of mist-maiden have rich
egg yolk-yellow throats.
Botanical Gems:
Romanzoffia californica Greene
Mist-Maiden
by Peter Baye, including all photos
Some plants, like some people, don’t quite look like members of their own families. When Edward Lee Greene revised the genus Romanzoffia at the beginning of the 20th century he was struck by its gross morphological convergence with rock-dwelling Saxifrage species:…a Hydrophyllaceous genus of which the type species so closely resembles a saxifrage that the specimens are often found in the herbaria under Saxifraga… perfectly imitating those saxifrages in which the flowers are very few and scattering, the absent ones being represented by clusters of bulblets.”
Greene’s account of the Saxifrage-imposter genus Romanzoffia took some of the sting out of my own first mist-maiden encounter, which led me to stubborn frustration with the Jepson Manual key to Saxifragaceae. Only my desperate request for photo identification help from Teresa Sholars, rescued me from fruitless keying down a slippery slope beginning with sloppy misstep of family identification error. The evolutionary emulation of rock-dwelling saxifrages by this former Hydrophyllaceae genus (now even more non-intuitively placed in the Boraginaceae!) is remarkable. With the exception of floral morphology, our Romanzoffia californica is a doppelganger of the European alpine rock-crevice plant, Saxifraga rivularis.
Mist-maiden (Romanzoffia californica) is an uncommon riparian rock outcrop plant in our region. Or perhaps it is more under-detected than uncommon, because it blooms in early spring in inaccessible, often nearly vertical, slippery, moss-covered wet rock outcrops and ledges along shaded (usually north-aspect) stream banks high above the highest flood levels...a habitat conducive to under-collection of plants. It ranges from the San Francisco Bay area (particularly the Mt. Tamalpais watersheds in Marin County) and northern Santa Cruz mountains, to the North Coast and northwestern California, and beyond to Washington.
In Sonoma County, the Gualala River watershed populations (Fuller Creek) have not been reported. The few records on the Mendocino Coast include Highway 1 banks 2 miles south of Elk, Van Damme State Park, Big River, and Russian Gulch State Park. This species is detectible only in winter and spring, and the habitat is often inaccessible or obscured, so the known localities are probably an underrepresentation of the Mendocino-Sonoma Coast distribution.
The habitat of Romanzoffia californica is as distinctive as the plant itself. Both our vernacular and scientific vocabularies for California vegetation types come up short in making distinctions for the odd combination of steep riparian rock outcrop, moss mat, seasonally wet seep, and shaded moist
“misty” habitat of Romanzoffia. Flora habitat descriptions like “moist ledges”, “wet rocky areas” grope for the distinctive peat-like, thick persistent moss mat substrate (mostly dead, decay-resistant fibrous organic matter) associated with capillary water running over mostly impermeable rock surfaces and in cracks. Detritus and weathered rock fragments accumulate in pockets of these “wet rocky areas”, and support some of the most robust colonies of the plant. Perhaps it could be described as mist-maiden habitat!
Cont. on page 4
Leaves of mist-maiden are lobed and reniform.
4 Jan-Feb 2020
The life-history of Romanzoffia californica is as peculiar as its habitat. It is nominally a perennial plant that behaves very much like an annual, but mostly by vegetative surrogates for seeds. Most vegetative (clonal) regeneration appears to occur from “gemmae” – also called “bulbils” (but not morphologically the same as those of monocots) – which are highly specialized buds or reduced lateral shoots, like turions of aquatic plants, that form in the axils of leaves below the inflorescence.
Morphologically, the gemmae are highly reduced lateral shoots. They also disperse like seeds, and are as tough as some seeds: their equivalent of a seed coat is a tough modified sheathing petiole or scale, usually with dense wooly brownish hairs. The gemmae equivalent of cotyledons (storage tissue) are also modified, tightly overlapping scale-like sheathing petioles.
The moss mats around maturing, clambering Romanzoffia colonies are often heavily littered by these grain-like gemmae, which embed in the moss mat detritus and in rock crevices. Greene stated that it “produced large tubers among the fibrous roots”, which is consistent with subsequent type descriptions of the species. But I have so far been unable to locate large tubers; they are either hidden in rocky crevices and moss mats, or perhaps are not formed in all populations. The presence of tubers varies among species in the genus, so perhaps it can vary adaptively within species, too.
The gemmae (or tubers) of Romanzoffia californica sprout tiny new vegetative shoots in mid-winter. They grow vegetatively as clambering to erect fragile translucent stems, similar to those of Nemophila pedunculata. Clusters of terminal flowers appear on shoots in spring. Simultaneous flowering and production of axillary gemmae below the inflorescence occurs throughout the later spring months, even as seed capsules are produced. At least in the populations I have been able to observe, seed capsule production is low relative to production of copious gemmae.
The leaves are “sub-reniform”, resembling Hepatica leaves, and almost exactly duplicating the morphology of the European rock and rock-wall herb, Kenilworth-ivy (Cymbalaria muralis, an ornamental sidewalk weed in parts of downtown Point Arena). The flowers have bell-shaped white corollas (5-12 mm) with a rich yellow basal throat, and occur in loose terminal clusters. Each lateral branch of the plant terminates in flowers. The ovaries are glandular, and mature into ovoid capsules with many small brown seeds.
On the Humboldt and Del Norte coast, Romanzoffia californica has a maritime counterpart species that inhabits similar moist rocky coastal bluffs (presumably well above the intensive salt spray zone): R. tracyi. It differs from R. californica in having compact, tufted shoots with inflorescences scarcely exceeding the height of leaves.
Moss-mantled shale and graywacke outcrops, just above the highest flood scour zone, are home to flowering colonies of mist-maiden on Fuller Creek, Gualala River watershed (Sonoma County). April 2019.
Romanzoffia tracyi ranges north to British Columbia. Given the inaccessible habitat, how likely is it that undetected small peripheral populations of R. tracyi could occur on vertical cliffs of the northern Mendocino Coast? Greene proposed an endemic Mendocino species, R. mendocina, distinguished by non-reniform, obovate-orbicular leaves. This proposed species was known from only one 1875 herbarium specimen (G.R. Vasey). Does it still exist? Is it an atypical morphological variant of R. californica, or a taxon awaiting “rediscovery” with molecular methods?
The cultivation of mist-maiden is evidently underway. Annie’s Annuals and Perennials in Richmond recently offered it, and horticultural production has been tested with seed. No doubt the market niche, like the ecological niche, for mist-maiden is very specific: moist, semi-shaded rock gardens, mossy rock walls, or winter-spring moist garden shade with little competition. It can be sown as gemmae (collected in late spring) into place in late fall, and plantlets can be transplanted in mid-winter.
Botanical Gems, cont. from page 3
5 Jan-Feb 2020
Immature stages of gemma development from compressed, short axillary shoots with sheathing petiole bases of mist-maiden. April 2019.
Tiny mist-maiden plants regenerate in tiny rock crevices on wet, mossy outcrops. Note the Douglas-fir needle (left) for scale.
Mature mist-maiden gemmae detach from leaf axils and drop to cracks in rock outcrops, or embed in moss mats.
Go Fund Me site for Jug Handle Ecological Staircase film
Forty-five years ago, filmmaker Maureen Kowsky shot a 16mm color film about a unique natural area: the Jug Handle Ecological Staircase. . . “To climb the staircase is to travel back in time 500,000 years . . .” A Go Fund Me site has been set up to raise funds to digitize the film and audio tapes for editing. Ms. Kowsky recently wrote the DKY Chapter, saying “The California Native Plant Society has a long history with Jug Handle, so I really wanted you to know about the film. John Olmsted knew of it and is in scenes. Dr. Hans Jenny knew of it, saw some of the footage, liked it and I was fortunate to shoot a scene with Hans and Jean Jenny measuring trees in the pygmy forest. Erica Fielder is one of our "stars," along with Art Earle and Anita Soost who were two resident naturalists before Erica. See details about the film and stories and photos of the history of Jug Handle State Natural Reserve: https://www.gofundme.com/f/walk-a-giant-staircase-finishfilm.
Romanzoffia californica stages of development:
6 Jan-Feb 2020
The bride and groom: Tulsi, a holy basil plant, and the god Vishnu.
Only in India: A Wedding Like No
Other by Susan Wolbarst
It is so hard to figure out an appropriate gift for this kind of a wedding. The bride, after all, is a plant. The groom is a god.
The multi-named bride, Tulsi, also known as Vrinda, holy basil, and sometimes on more formal occasions as Ocimum tenuiflorum or Ocimum sanctum, looks splendid in her traditional greenery, augmented by a red sari draped around her and fancy wedding jewelry hanging from her leaves. The groom – Vishnu – familiar for his unusual blue skin and multiple arms, is represented by a small statue. The bride wears wreaths of flowers.
The marriage between them, called Tulsi Vivah, is celebrated by Hindus each year, marking the end of monsoon season. Weddings are avoided during monsoon season, which lasts roughly from mid-June to mid-October. Anyone who’s ever suffered the anxiety of planning an outdoor wedding can probably understand why. So the Tulsi Vivah celebration also marks the beginning of wedding season.
The celebration, in a garden decorated with lights and flowers, involves chanting and giving the bride and groom various spices, then showering them with rice. The guests are given traditional sweets and, sometimes, as was the case in my fortunate experience, served an entire traditional wedding feast.
The backstory for this unusual wedding is a bit complicated, and differing versions of the ancient story emerged from my
interviews with Indians and from internet accounts I read. I will attempt to provide all of these versions to you – you can make up your own mind about what you would like to believe.
According to legend, a virtuous wife named Vrinda was married to an invincible demon named Jalandhar. Jalandhar derived his power from his wife’s great goodness and chastity, and – via some power-brokering deal with the gods -- as long as she remained faithful to her husband, he would keep his power. Vishnu, the Hindus’ preserver and protector of the universe, wanted to conquer Jalandhar, and realized that the only way to do it was to short-circuit the power Vrinda was supplying to her husband. So Vishnu changed into the form of Jalandhar in order to seduce her.
It should be noted that Vrinda was a great devotee of Vishnu.
When Vishnu was having sex with Vrinda, she realized that he was not her husband and recognized him as Lord Vishnu. She confronted him, then cursed him, ordering that Vishnu experience the same kind of horror she felt after being tricked by her favorite god into betraying her husband. She caused Vishnu to separate from his wife, Lakshmi, the popular (and compatibly multi-armed, like Vishnu) goddess of wealth and purity. (In some versions, Vrinda’s curse also turns Vishnu into a black stone.) Then Vrinda immolated herself. After she died, her soul merged with Lord Vishnu’s soul and from the ashes of her body, a plant grew. (Some versions of the story say she drowned herself and was reincarnated as a plant.)
Lord Vishnu was ashamed of seducing the virtuous Vrinda. He named the plant Tulsi and married her, this is the marriage which is celebrated annually as Tulsi Vivah.
In addition to the annual celebration, the plant called Tulsi, in the Lamiaceae family and a close relative of the sweet basil featured in Italian cooking, remains a touchstone of modern life in India. Tulsi is often grown in Hindu homes in a clay pot mounted on a pedestal in a courtyard. The plant is considered sacred and leaves are used in daily prayers. It is not used in cooking.
The plant is reputed to have many powerful properties, and all its parts are used in various practical and medicinal ways. Practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine – an ancient Indian system -- call it “The Incomparable One.” It is said to be useful in fighting tooth decay, acne, kidney stones, stress, and cancer; acting as a hand sanitizer; promoting wound healing; reducing infections in animals from cows to silkworms; and repelling bugs from stored grains, among other beneficial uses. Tulsi tea, made of the dried leaves, and promoted as a booster of “wellness,” is widely available – I have purchased it in Gualala – and it tastes quite nice.
For more detailed information, including uses of Tulsi in other countries, please see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249909/ and https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/110287#tosummaryOfInvasiveness.
A Tulsi Vivah garden
wedding in Pune,
Maharashtra, November
2019. S. Wolbarst photo
7 Jan-Feb 2020
Oak Woodland Ordinance, cont. from page 1
In addition to the above recommendation, the following is a partial list of specific items that must be considered for the process of developing an eventual Oak Woodland Ordinance that will lead to meaningful protections:
1. The ordinance needs to spell out that the primary goal is to avoid impacts to oak woodlands and individual trees, that all proposed developments must state how their project complies with the countywide protection program, and that mitigations would only be considered where impacts absolutely could not be avoided.
2. The County must consider serious action to set aside and protect larger areas of oak woodlands through conservation easements or land purchases.
3. A scientific process is needed to assess and document the ecological value of any oak tree or woodland considered for permitting; the process for assessment needs to be measurable and enforceable. Two examples: 1) the oak habitat metric calculator, a rapid assessment measuring oak woodland and oak savanna habitat quality was developed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service for Oregon and Washington, and 2) the CDFW Protocols for Surveying and Evaluating Impacts to Special Status Native Plant Populations and Natural Communities. The greater benefit of the oak habitat metric calculator is its incorporation of wildlife values into the calculations to address a more complete ecological perspective.
4. Assessments need to include areas outside of the proposed removal zone; aerial photography, including historic photos may be used to determine the extent of intact and/or historic oak habitat. Wildlife corridors especially need to be considered.
5. Any benefits that may be associated with planting are long-delayed. Additional mitigations in the form of permanent protection for existing high value oaks and oak woodlands that are under threat must be considered.
6. If planting is proposed for mitigation or restoration of degraded oak habitats, then the re-vegetation process needs to be clearly defined based on current scientifically proven methodologies for success. Genetic integrity must be maintained, which means collecting acorns from the site or nearby and at the same elevation. Acorns to saplings may be considered, but with the understanding that oaks have deep taproots. Planting needs to occur during the late fall after there has been sufficient rain to saturate the soils, and before mid-January, and if there is a drought, acorns may need to be replanted. To establish mitigation guidelines, the Sanhedrin Chapter is recommending the reference "Regenerating Rangeland Oaks" by Doug McCreary, UC ANR, which outlines methods and success rates for oak mitigation.
7. Tree size in relation to various soil types needs to be considered in defining dbh of individual oaks that should be protected or may be removed. Oaks growing on serpentine or other nutrient poor soils may be very old and important ecological components of the landscape, although they may be small in dbh and stature.
8. The rare Notholithocarpus densiflorus (tanoak) Forest Alliance (G4, S3.2) also needs to be considered for protection under a County Oak Woodland Ordinance. We recommend that tanoak forests being included upfront in the proposed ordinance, rather than wait for the subject to be discussed during a commission meeting.
9. The current on-line edition of the CDFW Manual of California Vegetation should also be consulted to determine rarity ranking for other oak vegetation types before any decisions are made on whether impacts will be permitted to oak woodlands.
10. If, after thorough ecological analysis, oak mitigation plantings are proposed, then the planted trees should not be permitted for removal under future County-approved actions. If acorn or tree plantings are proposed and approved for project mitigation, then future removal of the planted oaks nullifies any potential impact-minimization efforts.
11. Monitoring of success criteria, with requirements for remedial actions should, at a minimum, continue for a period of time until which mitigation trees reach maturity and bear acorns. Survival and maturity
rates for seedlings and saplings is highly variable and greatly influenced by browse (deer, cattle, and rodents), competition with other plants (especially non-native annual grasses), moisture availability, and disease.
12. The ordinance should apply to all zoning areas where oaks occur; there should be no exemptions for areas under County jurisdiction. This especially applies to agricultural zoning districts, agricultural activities conducted outside of agricultural zoning districts, and lands under Williamson Act contracts – the development of the Oak Woodland Ordinance grew out of concern about the impact of cannabis cultivation.
13. Measures to identify the occurrence of, and to prevent the spread of sudden oak death (SOD, Phytophthora ramorum), should be clearly stated in all planning documents. The County should consult UC forest pathology researchers to learn the most current status and recommendations regarding SOD.
14. The CWF/CO letter emphasized the requirements of CEQA to also analyze and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions associated with proposed oak woodland or oak forest conversions. Other important considerations that were written in the CWF/CO letter included: 1) the need for additional oak protections in the Ukiah Valley Groundwater Basin as a measure to improve the basin’s sustainability; 2) using fire as a management tool for oak woodlands; 3) integrating the oak ordinance with the County’s Climate Action Plan; 4) a fencing requirement for oak woodlands that are grazing lands; 5) stronger protections for oaks that are most at risk; 6) stronger protections for wildlife corridors that support rare, threatened, and endangered species.
The Oak Woodland Ordinance that is being proposed would apply mostly to interior Mendocino County, areas that are generally addressed by the Sanhedrin Chapter of CNPS. However, protecting the ecological value and significance of oaks is also important to DKY Chapter members and the CNPS membership as a whole. The Oak Woodland Ordinance is the first of such potential sensitive habitat protection ordinances in Mendocino County.
We have had discussions with County Planners about similar future efforts to protect Mendocino Cypress Woodland. It is critical for the County to produce a meaningful, effective, and enforceable program for the protection of oaks and oak woodlands, which could include an ordinance, as this may well set a precedence for future such protection programs and ordinances. At the discussion group meetings, we appreciate that the County planners have seemed receptive to listening to our comments and making some changes to the draft ordinance. We hope that they will also be receptive to and understand the critical need for broader ecological documentation and planning before moving forward with the current process of writing the Oak Woodland Ordinance if, in fact, the County is to achieve the goal of ensuring “perpetuity of oak trees and oak woodlands within Mendocino County”.
###
DKY members and friends: If you care about oaks and future protections for other sensitive habitats in the County, we urge you to let the County Planners, Planning Commissioners, and Supervisors know of your concerns. A third discussion meeting with the group is scheduled for 2/18/2020 for the County Planners to consider more of our preliminary comments. Then, according to the County Planner Vandewater, they aim to post the oak woodland ordinance documents online for public review on 2/20/2020. The ordinance is expected to be presented to the Planning Commission and discussed before opening the forum for public comment on 3/19/2020. Depending on the outcome of the Planning hearing, the project may be scheduled for an initial hearing before the Board of Supervisors soon after. The Supervisors are pushing to have the oak ordinance in place as soon as possible…we understand that its approval is tied to the County being able to move forward with a Phase 3 expansion of the Cannabis Ordinance.
8 Jan-Feb 2020
DOROTHY KING YOUNG CHAPTER
OFFICERS 2019
PRESIDENT: Nancy Morin, 882-2528 [email protected]
VICE PRESIDENT: Katy Pye [email protected]
SECRETARY: Jeff Woodward [email protected]
TREASURER: Nancy Morin (temp) COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS CONSERVATION co-chairs:
Peter Baye [email protected]
Renee Pasquinelli [email protected]
EDUCATION Mario Abreu 937-3155
FIELD TRIPS Rhiannon Korhummel [email protected]
HISTORIAN OPEN
HOSPITALITY OPEN
INVASIVE PLANTS Doug Forsell [email protected]
MEMBERSHIP Bob Rutemoeller 884-4426
NEWSLETTER OPEN Julia Larke [email protected]
PLANT SALES OPEN
PLANT WATCH OPEN
BOOKS & POSTERS Mario Abreu 937-3155
PUBLICITY Susan Wolbarst [email protected]
PROGRAMS OPEN - Nancy Morin (temp)
RARE & ENDANGERD:
Coordinator Teresa Sholars [email protected]
Inland OPEN
The Sea Ranch Amy Ruegg [email protected]
South Coast Jon Thompson 884-4847
VEGETATION Teresa Sholars [email protected]
WEBMASTER Jim Gibson [email protected]
Unless otherwise listed, area code is 707.
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
DOROTHY KING YOUNG CHAPTER
Membership in the California Native Plant Society is open to all. The task and mission of the Society is to increase awareness, understanding, and appreciation of California native plants. The challenge is to preserve their natural habitat through scientific, educational, and conservation activities. Membership includes subscriptions to Fremontia, Flora and the chapter newsletter, The Calypso. Name_____________________________________
Address ___________________________________
City___________________________ Zip ________
Tel. ___________ E-mail _____________________
Please choose the chapter you wish to join; CNPS will make the assignment if none is specified by applicant.
I wish to affiliate with the DKY Chapter ______ or, other chapter _______________________________
MEMBERSHIP CATEGORY
Student/Fixed Income $25 Individual $50 Plant Lover $120 Supporter $500 Patron $1,000 Benefactor $2,500 Make check to: California Native Plant Society Mail check and application to:
Bob Rutemoeller, Membership Committee DKY Chapter, CNPS PO Box 577 Gualala, CA 95445
Next Board Meeting: The next Board meeting is Friday, March 6. For information, contact Nancy Morin at [email protected]. All members are welcome to attend Board meetings. Calypso newsletter: If you wish to contribute items contact [email protected]. If you choose to receive the emailed pdf version of the newsletter, contact Bob Rutemoeller at 884-4426 or [email protected].
Don’t miss this popular annual potluck with our terrific Environmental Partners! It’s always an excellent event.
