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Idea in Dream for a Quick-and-dirty, Short but Important Book About (or Called): What Everybody Should Know about Plants and their Conservation

  1. Basic concepts of taxonomy/systematics, naming
  2. Basic biogeography:  how species are distributed (including deciduous species mostly riparian, etc.); how to look at a landscape: mainly vis a vis discriminating native from exotic elements
  3. Endemism and the special case of cismontane California as biological island
  4. Basic ecology: why forests, shrublands, grasslands are where they are.  Mediterranean climate, fire etc., historical context
  5. Noxious invaders (list and description of the worst “dirty dozen” and how to deal with them); 12 worst trees/shrubs/vines; 12 worst grasses and weeds (make up more than 90% of California grassland biomass)
  6. What plants are in trouble?  Except for riparian reductions and despite what you may have been led to believe:
    • Trees are mostly doing relatively well (apart from imported diseases like anthracnose, phylloxera, pine rust, pitch canker etc.)
    • Shrubs etc are mostly O.K. except some narrow endemics, e.g. Arctostaphylos
    • Perennials ditto
    • Annuals are in big trouble, mainly from inadequate disturbance.  Once a dominant and beautiful feature of the California landscape, now near negligible
  7. What government agencies are involved, and what does rare/threatened/endangered mean, and how may taxa are listed, and what power do the agencies have (the main message is—don’t panic).
  8. What can you do to help?
  • Keep off the trails
  • Pull weeds when you go for walks
  • Promote ranching
  • Don’t freak out about wildfire
  • Learn your local plants, starting with your own backyard weeds

Common misapprehensions:

  • The most densely vegetated areas (forests etc.) are not necessarily where the greatest diversity is, and almost never where the rare species are.
  • The plants that are in greatest trouble are mostly annuals.
  • Often the sparsest, most “barren” looking environments are the most interesting.
  • Often “disturbance” (including grazing) is almost essential to the survival of annuals and one of the worst impacts of modern land management is rest.
  • Grass is not the dominant element of most California grasslands.