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February 23, 2006

Año Nuevo State Reserve: The Flora

Morning Fog Año Nuevo State Reserve

Heavy winter rainfall combined with frequent fog creates an interesting botanical ecosystem of scrubs and low-lying twisted trees. This same fog creeps into the valleys, supporting the coastal redwoods.

Much of the Pacific coastline is windy, foggy, and salty. This makes it difficult for many plants to grow. The trees are often twisted and stunted, when they grow at all. Most of what grows is low-lying scrubby bushes, many of which have very small leaves. Conifers with their drought-tolerant needle-leaves tend to do better than most plants. This biome, or natural environment, is called Chaparral. The California chaparral and woodlands terrestrial ecoregion extends from central California to Baja.

Native Willow Año Nuevo State Reserve

Willow bark has been used as a medicine for centuries - even has far back as 400 BC. More recently, the Ohlone Indians chewed the bark of the native willow for its fever and pain relieving properties. The Ohlone Indian civilization was disrupted by the arrival of the Spanish missionaries, and later American pioneers. The last fluent speaker of an Ohlone language died in 1939.

Año Nuevo Grassland After Controlled Burn Año Nuevo State Reserve

Año Nuevo has used fire as a tool to manage and protect certain habitats that are changing over time due to various factors. There is a large grass field in the reserve, and although many people believe that open areas are the product of human intervention, grassland is considered the eighth rarest ecosystem in the United States.

Much of the coastal prairie of Santa Cruz County has become scrubland over time. However, this grassland is actually often a native ecosystem, which is the habitat of creatures like San Francisco garter snake ( Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia). This endangered snake is only found on the San Francisco peninsula in about 20 spots, including the Año Nuevo State Reserve. When the sole grassland habitat of the reserve became overrun with shrubbery, then snake conservationalists came out, caught all the snakes from the field, did a controlled burn, and then re-released the snakes (hopefully to the same spots they got them from).

Non-Native Ice Plant Pacific Coast, California

Coast ice plant (Carpobrotus chiloensis) was once though to be native to California. We now believe that ice plant was introduced from Australia in the late 1890's to stabilize the dunes. However, researchers have found that dunes with non-natives do not support as many plants and animal species as those which are populated by native plants. This makes sense if you think about it: flora and fauna of an ecosystem are closely bound together in terms of dependence. Native animals generally eat native plants - and native plants depend on native animals often for nutrients and for pollination, seed spreading, etc.

Clover Fields Pacific Coast, California

The California coastline is still quite desolate, and is made up mostly of farmland. You'll often see cattle grazing and crops like brussel sprouts and artichokes growing along the coastline. You'll also pass smaller, organic berry farms and in spring, many fields are covered with yellow clover. Clover has long been used in an agricultural practice called soiling, where farmers grow nutrient-rich clover to fertilize the field, but also they will feed the greenery to livestock in the barn. This allows ranchers to use less pastureland with their cattle, because they can graze in the barn.

Posted by sorsha at February 23, 2006 1:41 PM