A silver lupine (Lupinus albifrons) stand; Image: Samantha Swatling-HolcombExploring Towering Redwoods and Lost Coasts Welcome to In the Field, a blog series where CNPS continues to highlight the important mapping work the Vegetation Program is conducting throughout the state. By Thomas Van Eyk, with additions from Kelsey Guest, Abra Scholtz, and Michael Heine Spanning more than 3 million acres from Del Norte to Mendocino County, California’s North Coast and Coast Ranges feature rugged coastlines, fog-cloaked mountains, and seemingly endless forests of the tallest trees on Earth. This region b ..read more

March 27, 2024, Sacramento – From lupines to poppies and everything in between, California is home to more plant species than any other state. From the California Native Plant Society, one of the foremost native plant organizations in the world, comes Wildflowers of California, which showcases nearly one thousand of the Golden State’s most commonly encountered wildflowers. This comprehensive field guide is perfect for anyone looking to learn about the diverse wildflowers that can be found throughout the state. Organized by flower color and family, illustrated with over two thousand photograp ..read more

CEQA has been instrumental in work to defend sensitive habitat, like this desert wash south of Joshua Tree National Park; Image: Chris Clarke By Delores Chan The housing crisis in California is dire, and you might have seen articles from the NY Times, LA Times, or SF Chronicle that blame the California Environmental Quality Act, better known as CEQA. These articles have caught the attention of lawmakers around the state, some of whom believe the law must be reformed and weakened in order to allow more housing to be built. But is this actually true? In fact, there are a number of new bills this ..read more

Monarch butterflies at the California Botanic Garden; Image: Deb Woo March 5, 2024, Sacramento—Today, the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) introduced two projects, funded through the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), to boost California native plant production and support pollinators statewide.  Totaling nearly $1.9M, the cooperative agreements will allow CNPS to create science-based, publicly available tools for native plant propagation protocols and critical biodiversity data. The resources will be integrated into CNPS’s popular native plant website, Calscape.o ..read more

Home / Stories / Artemisia / Seed-Based Restoration: Scaling Up for the Future ARTEMISIA | Vol. 48 No. 1 Seed-Based Restoration Scaling Up for the Future Fall 2020 By Matthew Garrambone and Sunny Saroa Ecological restoration is the process of assisting in the recovery of degraded, damaged, and destroyed ecosystems (Society for Ecological Restoration 2004). While it can have benefits at any spatial scale, ecologists increasingly recognize the value of working at the landscape scale, at which a relatively consistent mosaic of local ecosystems or land uses repeats across a large are ..read more

Home / Stories / Artemisia / Indigenous Ecologies: Cultivating Fire, Plants, and Climate Futurity ARTEMISIA | Vol. 49 No. 2 Indigenous Ecologies Cultivating Fire, Plants, and Climate Futurity Fall 2023 By Melinda M. Adams, N’dee, San Carlos Apache Indigenous Peoples are currently being called on to participate in the public discourse on climate change and resilience. Since time immemorial, many Native American Tribes conducted cultural fires as an ecological approach to tending and caring for our lands (Ericksen and Hankins 2014; Lake and Christianson 2019; Long et al. 2020). Cul ..read more

Home / Stories / Artemisia / Climate Change’s Effects on Tribal Cultural Plant Resources ARTEMISIA | Vol. 49 No. 2 Climate Change’s Effects on Tribal Cultural Plant Resources How Traditional Cultural Practices Strengthen the Land Amid Climate Chaos Fall 2023 By Tribal Chairman Ron Goode, Christina Oraftik, Hannah de la Calle Climate normalcy is a period of stable and predictable water cycles with only occasional extreme events such as flooding or drought. Normalcy allows us to make predictions (e.g., it’s going to rain in mid-September and early October, or frost will come by Nove ..read more

Home / Stories / Artemisia / What Is, and What Can Be ARTEMISIA | Vol. 49 No. 2 What Is, and What Can Be Traditional Regenerative Horticulture in Syuxtun (Santa Barbara) Fall 2023 By Julia Cordero-Lamb, Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation “H ow long did it take you to make that basket? How did your ancestors figure out which medicinal plants to use? How were your people capable of living here for so long without ruining everything?” They are simple questions. My Relatives and I have our pat answers—sometimes friendly, sometimes salty—that we’ve developed over years. I have fumed ov ..read more

Home / Stories / Artemisia / What Is, and What Can Be ARTEMISIA | TKTKTK What Is, and What Can Be Traditional Regenerative Horticulture in Syuxtun (Santa Barbara) Fall 2023 By Julia Cordero-Lamb, Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation “H ow long did it take you to make that basket? How did your ancestors figure out which medicinal plants to use? How were your people capable of living here for so long without ruining everything?” They are simple questions. My Relatives and I have our pat answers—sometimes friendly, sometimes salty—that we’ve developed over years. I have fumed over peop ..read more

The CNPS sampling team explored and surveyed a diversity of rock-outcrop, shrubland, woodland and forested communities in early August near Tamarack Lake; Image: Julie EvensRecording the area’s abundant biodiversity By Michael Kauffmann and Julie Evens  The Klamath Mountains contain some of the most exceptional temperate plant communities in North America. Representative plants from the Cascades, North Coast Range, Sierra Nevada, and Great Basin all call the Klamath Mountains home. Botanical work within its geographic boundaries has recorded over 3,500 taxa (species, subspecies, and varie ..read more