Photo by Charles Webber © California Academy of Sciences

CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANTS & WILDFLOWERS - LINKS

• 2008: The Golden Gate National Recreation Area Endangered Species Big Year
• California Invasive Plant Council Protecting California's wildlands through research, restoration, and education
• California Native Grasslands Association
• The Bay Institute/STRAW dedicated to restoring the ecosystems of San Francisco Bay
• The Natural Resources DataBase (NRD is a compilation of observations of flora and fauna made at open space and nature preserves in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The database can be searched for available data on flora, mammals, birds, and reptiles-amphibians- fishes seen at one or more preserves.
• The CalFlora Species Database contains summary geographic and ecological distribution information for 7660 California vascular plant taxa (8363 records including species level taxa where there is more than one var. or ssp.), as well as additional habitat information for rare taxa and species of the Sierra Nevada.
• The Jepson Herbarium's Jepson Flora Project provides on-line:
  • a listing of the plant species included in The Jepson Manual
  • state-wide distribution maps of individual species
  • a list of all the corrections to the original printing of The Jepson Manual
• Marin / Sonoma Weed Management Area
• Marin County Open Space District (MCOSD) / Interpretive walks
• Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD)
• The Planning and Conservation League Foundation Protecting California's Environment Through Public Education, Policy Research and Legislation
• Friends of Corte Madera Creek Watershed, an all-volunteer, non-profit organization, was founded in 1995 to protect the remaining natural ecosystems of the area, especially those relating to urbanized creeks and wetlands, and where possible to increase the diversity of these ecosystems.
• California Vernal Pools a collection of information and resources. Includes field trips to see vernal pools.
• San Francisco Estuary Invasive Spartina Project has a website with maps of current invasive Spartina locations, as well as downloadable identification brochures and photos from their 2000-2001 surveys.
• The Watershed Project creates and carries out involvement and outreach programs on creeks, wetlands and watersheds for the general public and educators in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Monitoring Sudden Oak Death has information on reporting potential SOD trees and maps of the distribution of SOD, including a movie showing the distribution over time of confirmed SOD in California.
• The Environmental Forum of Marin has a comprehensive list of links to environmental organizations in Marin County and beyond.
• Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program, University of California, has valuable information on oaks and oak woodland related issues in their Publications, On Line Leaflets, and Oaks 'n' Folks links.
• Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris has descriptions of the native species of California and Marin County. Follow the links to "wild irises" and to "other western iris" and don't miss Brian Argon's "Marin Iris" in the photo gallery.
• Cliff Schmidt's Ceanothus Descriptions, set up and maintained by Oregon State University's Dr. Clifford Schmidt, touts itself as "the web's only complete treatment of the genus Ceanothus"
• California Lichen Society
• Mycological Society of San Francisco
• California Native Plants Discussion Group

PHOTOGRAPHS AND WILDFLOWER IDENTIFICATION AIDS:

• CalPhotos UC Berkeley Digital Library Photo Collection consists of 63,460 images of California plants (native and naturalized) and habitats. You can search for plants by name, location (there are 1734 plant images taken in Marin County), or type and color.
• California Academy of Sciences: California Wildflower Search
• Robin D. Myers' Flower Finder
• Ron Parson's Flowershots Photographs of Orchids and other Wildflowers as well as lots of links to orchid sites and sites of general botanical interest
• Reny Parker's Wildflowers An image gallery of wildflower, native plant, and landscape photographs. Currently over 1,750 images identified to 78 plant families.
• Virtual Guidebook to Marin and the North Bay Counties (and loads of other spots spanning western North America): Scroll through 360-degree panoramas, each seamlessly stitched together from 12 still photographs. They even tell you how to create your own. Definitely entertaining if you have QuickTime software already installed or want to download it.

WILDFLOWER REPORTS:

• Desert Wildflower Watch up-to-date wildflower reports and photographs
• Theodore Payne Foundation Wildflower Hotline
• Carol Leigh's CALIFORNIA WILDFLOWER HOTSHEET
• Wildflowers at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY: Home Page

A valuable resource with information on a myriad of native plants issues and related links including:

• Invasive Exotics presents a comprehensive consideration of the problem of biological pollution.
• CNPS Publications is another State CNPS site with descriptions and ordering information for books and CD-ROMs of interest to all native plant lovers. (Many of these titles as well as popular wildflower posters are for sale at the Marin Chapter membership meetings.)

Water-saving faucet aerators and low-flow showerheads can cost less than $20. If only 100 homes implemented these easy-to-install gadgets, it would save 780,000 gallons of water per year.

LIVING GREEN HOMES

Environmentally Friendly Building and Remodeling Materials From Better Homes & Gardens 

__snip