The mission of the California Native Plant Society is to increase understanding and appreciation of California’s native plants and to conserve them and their natural habitats through education, science, advocacy, horticulture and land stewardship.

Dedicated to the preservation of California's native plants

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Where are the flowers

Participate in the new effort to use digital images to investigate phenological change in a biodiversity hotspot – California.

President’s notes – December 2019

Over the years, Dr. David Keil, professor emeritus Cal Poly-SLO, has documented the plants of California with an emphasis on plants of San Luis Obispo County and nearby regions. These lists represent a mountain of work, where he has carefully noted every species occurring in a particular area and later revisited the area to add and/or modify his findings.

Landscaping with California Native Plants Workshop in October

CNPS-SLO hosted an information-packed, fun-filled workshop on October 12, 2019. This was the first of a series of “Botanist-Development” workshops to be provided by your local CNPS chapter. The goals for these workshops is to offer low cost training for local...

Invasive Species Report: Bull thistle Cirsium vulgare

A member of the Asteraceae family, bull thistle is an annual herb native to Europe and is widespread in California and listed as a noxious weed in Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington. It is found in every state in the U.S. and on every continent except Antarctica. It is a problem in some natural areas such as Yosemite National Park, California

Spread the Joy of Native Plants

Introduce your friends and family members to native plants this holiday season with a gift from our chapter sales table at the December 5 meeting. When you buy items from the sales table at our meetings and events, you are supporting our chapter and getting a good deal because the chapter pays the sales tax.

Successful Seed Exchange

I want to extend a thank you to all who participated in the seed exchange in October. We ended up with over eighty species of plants. It was fun to see the interest of those who enjoy the propagation experience. Extra seed was packaged to sell at the plant sale in November and we managed to raise over $250 for our chapter.

Notes from the plant sale

Suzette and I want to thank all who volunteered, who took the time to come out on a beautiful day and really make this sale happen. Looking forward already to next year’s sale and seeing you all working together again. Thanks for helping to spread the word … native plants rock! Have a great winter season and happy gardening.

Your spring wildflower garden

It’s time to start thinking about planting your wildflower garden with the winter rains coming soon. As in years past, we are beginning our rainy season late with a dry fall so far. This doesn’t mean we will have a dry winter, but this dry pattern is important when it comes to sowing our wildflower garden.

Tetragonia tetragonoides (New Zealand Spinach)

New Zealand spinach belongs to a family of flowering plants, Aizoaceae, that is primarily native to the Southern Hemisphere. New Zealand spinach is, in fact native to Southern Africa but has spread to New Zealand and is apparently a serious weed throughout southern Australia. Obviously, it has also been introduced into North America and Eurasia.

Event Calendar

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Volunteer at the Hoover Herbarium

During the volunteer sessions at the Hoover Herbarium, people can take part in any number of activities. One of our primary responsibilities is mounting new specimens. This involves taking dried and pressed plants and glueing them to paper. When we mount plants, we do it in such a way that those specimens will last for hundreds of years. Each specimen is a physical record of what plants occurred where and when. Without this valuable information we wouldn’t know when a species goes extinct, expands or contracts its range, or where species occur. After mounting, the specimens are databased and geo-referenced. Then they are filed into the main collection. We have over 80,000 specimens at the Hoover Herbarium. We are also working on a SLO Voucher Collection, which will contain one representative specimen for each species in the county. Volunteers look through our specimens and pick the one that should be added to the Voucher Collection. Additionally, we are actively working on our moss and lichen collections. Volunteers can choose what aspects of the work they would like to participate in. Any and everyone is welcome. The Hoover Herbarium is located on the 3rd floor of the Fisher Science Building (33) in rooms 352 and 359.

Starting Sept 18th, the herbarium volunteers sessions will be Mondays from 3-5 pm and Fridays 9 – 1.

Parking permits are required on campus Monday through Thursday, 7:00 am through 10:00 pm; and Friday, 7:00 am through 5:00 pm. You can either buy a $6 day pass, a $4 3-hr pass, park in a metered space, ride the bus, or park off campus and walk in. Questions: email Jenn Yost at jyost@calpoly.edu

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