June 2012 The Bay Leaf California Native Plant Society • East Bay Chapter Alameda & Contra Costa Counties www.ebcnps.org www.groups.google.com/group/ebcnps J MEMBERSHIP MEETINGS There will be no membership meeting in June, July, or Au- gust, but the meetings will resume in September. Watch the CHAPTER COUNCIL MEETING On the weekend of June 1-3, the East Bay Chapter of CNPS hosted the CNPS Chapter Council. Delegates from CNPS's 33 chapters across the state of California gather four times a year to discuss issues, exchange ideas and set statewide policy Groups of chapters take turns hosting the meeting and it was time for our chapter to do it. We had assistance from Willis Jepson (Solano County), Yerba Buena (San Francisco) and Santa Clara Valley chapters. Every Chapter Council meeting is different because of the different resources in each locale. We were able to draw on some unique venues. On Friday afternoon and evening, lo- cal CNPS members Jana Olsen and Roger Orr offered their historic Maybeck designed home in the Berkeley hills for a meeting of the state CNPS board. Board members got a tour Bay Leaf or the chapter website for announcements of our fall meetings. HOSTED BY CHAPTER of the gardens by David Bigham before the meeting and a dinner cooked by East Bay Chapter Hospitality Chair Howard Arendtson. Chapter members Tom and Jane Kelly arranged for the use of the MIG Building for the Council sessions on Saturday and Sunday A Mexican buffet banquet was held Saturday evening at the UC Botanical Garden in Berkeley with Seth Adams and Heath Bartosh of Save Mount Diablo describing the achieve- ments of Save Mount Diablo, the East Bay Regional Park District and other organizations in preserving over 100,000 acres of open space in Contra Costa County. (Heath is on the East Bay CNPS board as well.) Before dinner. Holly Forbes gave a tour of the UC Botanic Gardens. East Bay Chapter volunteers spent the morning making salad, assembling sandwiches, and washing fruit for Saturday lunch. On left. Chapter Council attendees serve themselves lunch. Some people enjoyed their meal in the courtyard, but it was a bit chilly. Chapter Council meetings are attended not only by CC delegates, but any State Board members and regular CNPS members who want to attend. continued on page 2 CHAPTER COUNCIL MEETING On Sunday afternoon. Council delegates had a chance to see more of the East Bay's native plants through field trips arranged by Janet Gawthrop who also led one field trip. Del- egates were invited to a chapter picnic in the Regional Park District Botanic Gardens where they could talk to chapter members and have a garden tour. Leftover food from the meeting's meals was donated to a home for disadvantaged and disabled folks in South Berke- ley. Local members Delia Taylor, Joyce Hawley, Cyrle Bassson and Bill Schramer provided lodging for 8 attendees in their homes for Lriday and Saturday night at no cost to CNPS. continued from page 1 Howard Arendtson's arrangements were thorough, stylish, and of a uniform high quality. They were universally praised. Chapter members including Delia and John Taylor, David Bigham, Elaine Jackson, Britt Thorsnes, Sandy McCoy, Steve Toby, Debra Valov, Janice Bray, Holly Porbes, Jim Hanson and others assisted throughout the weekend to make the meeting run smoothly. Our chapter board thanks Howard and all who helped in making the meeting a success for CNPS. Bill Hunt , photos by Janice Bray Courtyard of the MIG building in Berkeley where the Chapter Council meeting was held June 2-3. 2 THE BAY LEAF June 2012 THE BAY LEAF June 2012 3 Saturday night banquet. Upper left. East Bay Chapter president David Bigham, assisted by a professional bartender, pours agua fresca for the guests. Upper right, Delia and John Taylor pause for a moment between many tasks that made the weekend go smoothly. Lower left, Howard Arendtson created centerpieces using his grandmother's succulents from his and David's garden. Lower right, the banquet room was filled with EB Chapter members and people from all over the state. There were no less than nine CNPS Fellows (the Society's highest volunteer award) in attendance, including our own Charli and John Danielsen, seated on left at the center table. John Taylor cooks a burger to order for Dan Gluesenkamp (executive director of Cal Flora) at the chapter picnic at the EBRPD botanical garden in Tilden Park on Sunday. Ironically -- or fittingly -- it was a fight to preserve this garden of California natives that led to the creation of CNPS 47 years ago. 4 THE BAY LEAF June 2012 Bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata ) Photo by Kevin Hintsa NATIVE HERE Many people came to Native Here for the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour on May 5 and May 6. Some had never been to the nursery before and were excited to learn about us. David Bigham led "virtual field trips" twice each day He introduced people to our geographically-organized nursery, giving them a tour of habitats and plants from our two counties. See our Facebook page for photos of the event and of some of our blooming plants that Janice Bray took during the weekend. Now that the rains are over the best planting season is over, so concentrate more on maintaining plants in your garden and plan for the fall. We have books for sale as well as our CD of East Bay Plants. We need volunteers to commit to adopting each of the sections in the nursery to oversee its watering, weeding and inventory. Open hours are a good time to start, but scheduling can be flexible once you are familiar with your section. Volunteers are also welcome to drop in and help with nursery tasks such as striking cuttings, potting up young plants, watering, weeding, and nursery maintenance. Seed collecting: Please contact us at nativehere@ebcnps.org. to let us know you are interested, what locale you would be willing to collect from and what your time availability for seed collection is. Put "seed collection" in the subject line. We will set up a training session for those who express an interest in collecting seed for the nursery. The nursery is at 101 Golf Course Drive on the Berkeley side of Tilden Regional Park, across the street from the entrance to the Tilden Golf Course. Plant Fair 2012 The Plant Fair is scheduled for October 27-28. There are open- ings on the planning committee. Are you good at publicity? Do you like to talk to craftspeople who make things related to native plants? How about serving refreshments to our wonderful volunteers? Are you a natural salesperson who could sell bulbs, books, posters, hats, memberships? Do you like to demonstrate your physical strength by lifting heavy flats of plants onto and off carts and into people's cars? Are you excited about learning what plants grow in your local- ity and are willing to water and inventory them and help people choose the right plants when Fair time comes? The Plant Fair can certainly use people who answer YES to any of those questions. Contact Charli nativehere@ebcnps.org indicating Plant Fair in the subject line. Charli Danielsen and Margot Cunningham THE BAY LEAF June 2012 5 CHAPTER COUNCIL MEETING Bill Hunt is Chapter Vice President and Chapter Council Delegate. Lesley Hunt is the Board representative for Native Here Nursery. Bill and Lesley attended the open portion of the Board meeting and the Chapter Council Meeting and have sent us this report. The Editors. State Board Meeting. We attended the open portion of the board meeting on Friday afternoon June 1. Vote on a measure to enlarge the State Board. The Bylaws set a minimum and maximum size for the state board. The current board can set the size within those limits. The board considered a motion to increase the size of the board for the next year (starting 1/1/2013.) After some discussion, the board rejected the motion. The question of the State Budget. The budget for the State Office is showing a significant deficit (about $250,000). Board Member Steve Hartman had earlier this year briefed chapters on the budget choices facing state CNPS and asked for our input. In the state board meeting and in later Chapter Council discussions, Steve reported on the issue and the chapters 7 re- sponse. He pointed out that 11 chapters responded with vari- ous proposals. (Our chapter, for example, sent a letter calling for sufficient cuts to balance the budget this year if possible. Several other chapters made similar recommendations.) During the discussion. Board Treasurer Carol Witham an- nounced that roughly $84,000 in one-time savings have been identified (about 1/3 of this year's budget gap.) Also, new fundraising initiatives may close the gap. Carol described a trigger mechanism. If those initiatives have not produced additional revenue of $40,000 by September, an agreed upon trigger will force the board to make up to $40,000 in cuts. If fundraising has not produced an additional $100,000 (above the $40,000) by December, the board will make up to $100,000 in cuts. The Fall Board Election. State board members and officers serve two-year terms. After a total of 6 consecutive years in various positions, they are termed out. Termed out members become eligible to run again after one year off the board. Treasurer Carol Witham - termed out. We asked and she said that she has a replacement in mind. Arvind Kumar - termed out. Vice President Lauren Brown - announced that she will not run again because of work commitments. Ellen Dean and Nancy Morin - they can run again. Orchid Black- CC Representative to the state board. She can run again. Chapter Council Officers are elected for one-year terms. There are no term limits on CC officers. We think that David Magney (Chair), Larry Levine (Vice chair) and Marty Foltyn (Secretary) will run again. REPORT In the Fall of 2013, more people will be leaving the board or be up for re-election at the end of 2013. (President Brett Hall and two others will be termed out.) Self-nominations by candidates are due by October 1 and ballots will be mailed to chapters by October 15. Candidates must be endorsed by a chapter or by 5 CNPS members. What's involved in being on the board?There are seven board meetings a year. Four are face-to-face meetings at quarterly CC meetings. One is a face-to-face meeting in Sacramento. One is a phone meeting in August. One may be a phone meeting or a face to face meeting. Recent board meetings have been quite long. The June 1 meeting lasted from 4:30pm to ~ 9:30pm with time off for dinner. One recent meeting started at 9am and ran until mid evening. Board members are also expected to be active on committees. The 2015 State Conference. Vince Scheidt discussed plans for a 2015 Conference. Unlike the Conference in January 2012, this one would not have a sole focus on conservation but should emphasize "Celebrating 50 years of CNPS 77 . However, it should have enough of a focus on Conservation to attract the audience of agency employees and consultants for whom this is a job related expense. Steve Hartman brought up the idea that if the focus was on CNPS's history with content attractive to a wider audience, we might draw an additional 1000 greater Bay Area CNPS members (more or less) in addi- tion to the 800-1000 who attended the last two Conservation Conferences. The focus right now is on lining up a hotel and conference rooms. The state board wanted more resolution on the focus for the conference and its content before it made any com- mitments. Conference Proceedings and other Publications. There will not be a printed Conference Proceeding book for the 2012 Con- ference (or the 2015 Conference.) Material from the January 2012 Conference has not been collected from presenters. There was support for distributing abstracts, power point slides and any other materials the presenters could supply. Conference Proceedings from the 2008 Conference are in print but considered rather stale. There was discussion of a photo book to accompany the Manual of California Vegetation. Sponsorship would be re- quired. Fremontia. There was agreement that a single editor (Bob Haas) would not be able to catch up on publishing Fremontia issues. Finding additional editors was seen as a way to catch up. CNPS promises members a certain number of Fremontia is- sues per year. 6 THE BAY LEAF June 2012 Bob Haas wants chapter news for publication in the bulletin and/or the Fremontia. Temporary Executive Director and transition planning. Sue Britting's last day as temporary Executive Director was June 1. She has prepared a transition plan and remains available to help. She thinks that a new ED needs to be in place within 6 weeks or at maximum 8 weeks. The Chapter Council Meeting The Phenology Project. Our limited understanding is that phenology involves tracking plant development though time. There are a couple of phenology projects in early stages in California. Leaders from those projects spoke at previous CC meetings. These projects would gather data over a period of years to see how the timing of plant development is being affected by climate changes. Dave Chipping from the San Luis Obispo Chapter requested that staff work with chapters to get more chapter involve- ment. He'd like to communicate with other chapters to get things going (David H. Chipping .) Executive Director search. After phone interviews with five candidates and in person interviews with four candidates, the state board has narrowed the choice to two candidates. Conservation Report from CNPS Conservation Program Director Greg Suba and others. The Desert Renewable En- ergy Conservation Plan (DREC-P) process is progressing. A baseline biology document is being prepared. An appendix on how the plan will address climate change was also men- tioned. The aim would be to restrict solar and wind power projects to 3 zones: 1) western Mohave, 2) around the Salton Sea and 3) near the 1-10 corridor. The goal is to have an ap- proved DREC-P plan by May 2013. Local counties have not signed on to use the DREC-P docu- ment in their planning and approval processes. Greg Suba ac- knowledged that the problem of projects being fast forwarded before the DREC-P plan has been completed remains acute. A solar project (called Hidden Hills) has been proposed for an area well north of the Ivanpah project on the California / Nevada border across from the Amargosa Valley. Ground water use will be an issue. We knew from a Nature Conser- vancy trip that TNC was interested in the Amargosa River area. Greg said that TNC would not take an advocacy posi- tion. Greg was asked how his time is spent. About 75% goes to Desert Solar work. Greg talked about timber harvest plans (THP). State cuts have decimated the staff that reviews these plans. (18 people to 1 person.) Greg described THPs as not all that effective in the past so this is a situation with pluses and minuses for CNPS. Glen Holstein spoke for Aaron Sims who could not attend. Aaron has information on the process of submitting changes to the rare plant database and wants chapters to send in their proposed changes. Fundraising talk by Sandy McCoy. Sandy has been working on the yearly fundraising appeal for the state level Conserva- tion Program. The appeal has raised about $50K so far. Sandy talked about the value of the state level conservation work that Greg is doing. Committee Reports from breakout sessions Leadership Development Committee - Chair Lauren Brown will be leaving the board in December. Some chapters are withering. There are chapters where one person does all the active work. Membership Committee - Eleven chapters have increased their membership. Comp members have been combined with life members on the CNPS membership lists. Mary Frances wants chapters to help in separating real life members and identifying genuine comp members. Each chapter is entitled to some comp members. Horticulture Committee - They did not meet. Chair Laura Camp is looking for writers and photographers to help generate material (for the web site and the Facebook page.) Hiring a paid horticulture director is a wish list item but no one is suggesting that it be done while the budget crunch is unresolved. The Horticulture work is all volunteer with little budget impact. Education Director's Report - Josie Crawford would like to start a speakers bureau so that good speakers can be used by more than one chapter. She also reported that she has people volunteering to help write grant proposals. She would like to start a grant writing bureau so that chapters could get help writing grant proposals. Sunday sessions Rare Plant Treasure Hunt. Staff have not involved chapters as much as expected because outside funding has determined the location of some of the trips. Some trips have gone to locations where rare plants have been observed in the past, often decades ago. They will start doing exploratory trips to survey locations that seem likely to have rare plants but that have not had any reported observations of those rare plants yet. Heath Bartosh's "Adopt a Rare Plant Program" came up several times in the discussion with ap- preciation from all. Chapter Concerns. This session offered chapter delegates a chance to talk about what their chapters are doing and what their concerns are. One delegate pointed out that Resource Conservation Dis- tricts are not all alike in focus and process. CNPS can work Continued on page 8 THE BAY LEAF June 2012 7 Continued from page 7 productively with some districts but not others. Carolyn Longstreath of the Marin Chapter has started a "Thursday Weeders" group to go out and do weed removal. Lesley has had success in building a Tuesday group in Wal- nut Creek with a core of retired people and people between jobs. I (Bill Hunt) reported on some East Bay Chapter concerns including the Tesla Park OHV issue. Brian LeNeve of the Monterey Bay Chapter has experience with a similar issue and offered to talk to us. (Brian le Neve ). Or- chid Black, David Magney and Dorie Giragosian all observed that in the Hungary Valley OHV Park opposite Gorman, the state had managed to enforce the rules and keep the OHV riders on the trails. (David Magney ). Marty Frances Kelly-Po reported several things of interest from the Willis Jepson Chapter (Solano County.) They are op- posing a proposal for a road across Travis Air Base near Fair- field that would destroy vernal pools. This pits the military FIELD TRIPS Sunday, July 15, 10:00 am. Redwood Regional Park, trip to focus on sedges and late-fruiting plants We will see about five species of sedge. Team some basics of sedge ID and morphology (sculptural shapes of plant parts in botany). A copy of the Field Guide to Intermountain Sedges and also the key from the 2011 Jepson Manual will be available for reference. We will take Redwood Peak trail, French trail, Starflower trail, Tres Sendas trail, and Stream trail. Directions: Get onto Skyline Drive in the Oakland hills, either from Highway 13 from the north or 580 from the south. From RESTORATION Sunday, June 24, 9:00 am, Sibley Regional Park. Meet at the parking lot off of Skyline on the Oakland side of the park, where weTl distribute gloves, tools and water. From there, you can join the main group to dent the wall of broom on the Sibley-to-Tilden trail. For the poison-oak shy, there are also areas near the entrance to clear poison hemlock, Chi- nese onions and forget-me-nots to make room for woodland strawberries and cow parsnip. Saturday, July 7, (first Saturday of each month) at Pt. Isabel on the Bay Trail, 10 am to 2 pm. We remove invasive plants and re-vegetate with native plants grown from plants found at the site. We are located at the end of Rydin Road just off the 1-580 next to Hoffman Marsh. Contact info: Tom Kelly, kyotousa@sbcglobal.net, cell: 510-684-6484. base against the city or county. She also mentioned a proposal for a road across Jepson Prairie. This chapter maintains a na- tive Garden in the Benicia State Recreation Area. This park is on the list to be closed. The San Diego Chapter reports an increase of interest from Spanish speaking residents. Glen Holstein, the delegate from the Sacramento Valley Chap- ter, explained how they were able to make a large donation ($10,000) to the State Conservation Fund. They won a lawsuit and received compensation for their expenses. The chapter had covered those expenses through fundraising so they were able to use some of the money from winning the suit for a donation to state CNPS. Bill and Lesley Hunt 13, the most direct route is the Joaquin Miller exit, and then take Joaquin Miller Road to Skyline. Turn left at the light for Joaquin Miller and Skyline, and follow Skyline north (mostly uphill) as you go to the Chabot Space Science Center roughly a mile north of Joaquin Miller Road. Turn into the driveway for the Space Center and park either in the lot or in the park- ing garage, which is free. Ignore the no trespassing signs as they do not apply to park or science center users. Gregg Weber is leading and you can call him at 510-223-3310 if you have questions. Saturday, July 7 and August 4, 9:00 am. Skyline Gate at Redwood Regional Park. Maybe this is not the old- est Genista rip in the East Bay, but it is certainly one with a long continuity. We will return to East Ridge Trail and see what we can remove before the soils dry com- pletely. If you need loaner gloves or tools, you can just show up, but it helps to e-mail DRosario@ebparks.org. Saturday, July 14 and August 10, 9:30 am. Huckleberry Re- gional Park. Meet at the parking lot, where we will scope out weeds and decide on the worksite for the day. We will provide water, gloves and snacks, but please let us know if you need gloves and / or tools by e-mail to janetgawthrop47@gmail.com or jmanley@ebparks.org. We will finish up around 1 pm. 8 THE BAY LEAF June 2012 DIRECTORY Officers President David Bigham david@hjuliendesigns. com, 1 544 La Loma, Berkeley, CA 94708, 510-843-4247 Vice President and Chap- ter Council Delegate Bill Hunt wjhunt@astound.net Recording Secretary Tina Wistrom cmwistrom@yahoo.com, 510-207-0370 Corresponding Secretaw Robert Sorenson rls@sorensonvision.com Treasurer David Margolies 510-654-0283 dm@franz.com Committees Bayleaf Newsletter Bay Leaf Editor and Web- master, Chair Joe Willingham 510-788-4177 pepel 066@comcast.net Bay Leaf Assistant Editor David Margolies 510-654-0283 dm@franz.com Bay Leaf Mailing Holly Forbes hforbes@berkeley.edu h 510-234-2913 w 510-643-8040 Conservation Chair (vacant) Conservation Analyst Mack Casterman conservation@ebcnps.org 510-734-0335 Funds Development Carol Castro, Chair carolbcastro@hotmail. com Field Trips Janet Gawthrop, Chair janetgawthrop47@gmail. com Hospitality Howard Julien Arendt- son, Chair 510-548-7400 howard@hjuliendesigns. com Information Infrastruc- ture Peter Rauch, Chair peterar@berkeley.edu Membership Co-Chairs Tim Kask timkask@yahoo.com Carol Castro 510-352-2382 carolbcastro@hotmail. com Volunteer coordinator Delia Taylor volunteer@ebcnps.org Programs Sue Rosenthal, Chair rosacalifornica@earthlink. net Publicity (vacant) Rare Plants Heath Bartosh, Chair 925-957-0069 hbartosh@nomadecol- ogy.com Bryophytes John Game, Chair 510-527-7855 jcgame@stanford.edu Unusual Plants Dianne Lake, Chair 510-741-8066 diannelake@yahoo.com Vegetation Megan Keever, Co-Chair megan@stillwatersci.com Nicole Jurjavcic, Co-Chair n i col e@sti 1 1 wate rsci . co m EBCNPS Sponsored Activities Native Here Nursery 510-549-0211 Manager — Charli Dan- ielsen nativehere@ebcnps.org Sales — Margot Cunning- ham bunchgrassmarg@gmail. com Plant Fair Charli Danielsen, Chair 510-549-0211 nativehere@ebcnps.org Lesley Hunt, Native Here/ Plant Fair-East Bay Chapter Board liaison 925-937-6791 ldhunt@astound.net Restoration Projects Leaders: Huckleberry — Janet Gawthrop Point Isabel — Tom and Jane Kelly 510-704-8628 (w) 510-684-6484 c) kyotousa@sbcglobal . net Strawberry Creek — Tom and Jane Kelly Officers and Commit- tee Chairs serve on the Board. California Native Plant Society East Bay Chapter PO. Box 559/, Elmwood Station Berkeley CA 94705 Membership Application and Renewal Form Name Address Zip Telephone Email I wish to affiliate with: East Bay Chapter (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties) Other Membership category: Individual, $45 Family, Library, Group or International, $75 Plant lover, $100 Patron, $300 Benefactor, $600 Mariposa Lily, $1500 Limited Income or student, $25.00 Other Mail application and check to: California Native Plant Society, 2707 K Street, Suite 1, Sacramento CA 95816