Hoover Award Recipients
The Hoover Award In Recognition of Distinguished Service The Hoover Award was established by the San Luis Obispo chapter in 1974 to recognize a person that has made significant contribution to the success and well being of the SLO chapter of CNPS. The selection is...
On Veldt Grass
Image courtesy of jkirkhart35 | https://www.flickr.com/photos/jkirkhart35/
Some of the most notorious invasive plants such as Carpobrotus, slender leaved ice plant, and cape ivy come from South Africa. Another quite bad one is Veldt grass (Ehrharta calycina). This bunch grass has wide (1/4″) leaves, is glaucous (grey-green) until it matures and turns maroon. From the road it has red tops which turn blond. The seed stems can reach chest height. It is a perennial that produces an incredible amount of seeds and grows throughout the year near the coast, living off fog drip, but mainly follows the rainy winter. Veldt grass is awful because it crowds and overwhelms other plants.
To be rid of it, manually pulling mature plants, including the buried crown of the plant is necessary or resprouting will occur. But this also this often stimulates seed germination. Manual removal must be repeated as seedlings appear from the seedbank. Serious infestations can be sprayed with a grasss-specific herbicide such as Fusilade. Timing is critical, especially after the first several inches of rain. Some applicators report that postemergence treatment to plants over 4 inches tall is much more effective compared to treating smaller plants. If your locale has had Veldt for a long time keep at it until the seed bank is exhausted. The task is very difficult in drought and easy in wet years.
Best wishes weed warriors.
-Mark Skinner
Fire and Fuel Management
Wildfire is a natural part of California ecosystem. However, wildfire also has significant potential for creating conditions that aid in the establishment or spread of invasive plants.
To address these conditions, the California Invasive Plant Council and a team of fire and fuel management experts have developed a set of voluntary best management practices (BMPs) for fire management planning, fuel management, fire suppression, and post-fire activities. The 3rd edition of Best Management Practices for land Managers incorporates these BMPs and is now available.
Download your free copy from www.cal-ipc.org/ip/prevention/landmanagers.php.
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| Your membership supports the California Native Plant Society, ensuring our vital work in conservation, education, horticulture and plant science continues to grow and flourish!
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Your membership supports these activities and more
- Monitoring rare and endangered plants and habitats
- Acting to save endangered areas through publicity, persuasion, and as an absolute last resort, legal action
- Serving as a science-based resource in public planning processes
- Supporting the establishment of native plant preserves
- Sponsoring workdays to remove invasive plants
- Educational activities including speaker programs, field trips, native plant sales, horticultural workshops, and demonstration gardens
What Do You Get When You Join CNPS?
- The pleasure of contributing to the preservation of Californias incredible native flora
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- Artemisia, a quarterly botanic journal
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Contact CNPS-SLO
CNPS-SLO Board and Committee Chairs To contact a board member, please email sanluisobispo@cnps.org Co-PresidentsDena Grossenbacher, Bill Waycott SecretaryKyle Suchy Vice PresidentMike Butler TreasurerDavid Krause AwardsSusi Bernstein Newsletter EditorDavid...
Black Lake Volunteer Restoration Day
We will be joining The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County for another day to weed at Black Lake Ecological Area, a coastal area south of the City of Arroyo Grande, on Friday, February 20, 2026 from 9am to noon. This work will help restore an old agricultural field to native dune scrub habitat. Activities for the day will include removing invasive Saharan mustard (Brassica tournefortii) and perennial veldt grass (Ehrharta calycina) from sensitive areas surrounding newly sprouted native seedlings and rare plants (such as Nipomo lupine Lupinus nipomensis). For more information and to RSVP, go to The Land Conservancy website here.
Bring water, sunscreen, hat, sturdy shoes, and dress in layers for changing weather. We recommend you also bring your favorite gloves, a weeding tool such as a hori-hori (Japanese gardening knife) or trowel, and a garden kneeling pad if you use one. The Land Conservancy will also supply tools. Saharan mustard and veldt grass are fairly easy to identify even in their seedling stage, so even if you are not familiar with them, you can easily be trained to weed them. The hike to the restoration site is about ¼ mile in soft sand with some slight hills but vehicles will be available if you need a ride to the work site. There are no bathroom facilities at the work site. In the case of rain, the event will be canceled. The Land Conservancy will have additional helpful tips and provide the meeting location after you sign up.
The Black Lake Ecological Area is only accessible to the public via guided activities by Land Conservancy staff such as this volunteer day. We expect to continue to partner on volunteer restoration days with The Land Conservancy on this property in future years, so you could witness the return of an ecologically rich native dune scrub at this unique location.
If you have any questions, please email Kylie Schubert at The Land Conservancy at kyliesATlcsloDOTorg
Photo: happy volunteers at Black Lake in January 2026. Photo by Kylie Schubert.
Black Lake Volunteer Restoration Day
We will be joining The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo to weed and seed at Black Lake Ecological Area, a coastal area south of the City of Arroyo Grande, on Friday, January 9, 2026 from 9am to noon. This work will help restore an old agricultural field to native dune scrub habitat. Activities for the day will include removing invasive Saharan mustard (Brassica tournefortii) and perennial veldt grass (Ehrharta calycina) from sensitive areas surrounding newly sprouted native seedlings and rare plants (such as Nipomo lupine Lupinus nipomensis). Some areas of the site also need preparation for seeding over 200 pounds of locally collected native seed. For more information and to RSVP, go to The Land Conservancy website here.
The maximum number of participants is 20, so sign up fast!
Bring water, sunscreen, hat, sturdy shoes, and dress in layers for changing weather. We recommend you also bring your favorite gloves, a weeding tool such as a hori-hori (Japanese gardening knife) or trowel, and a garden kneeling pad if you use one. The Land Conservancy will also supply tools. Saharan mustard and veldt grass are fairly easy to identify even in their seedling stage, so even if you are not familiar with them, you can easily be trained to weed them. The hike to the restoration site is about ¼ mile in soft sand with some slight hills. There are no bathroom facilities at the work site. In the case of rain, the event will be canceled. The Land Conservancy will have additional helpful tips and provide the meeting location after you sign up.
The Black Lake Ecological Area is only accessible to the public via guided activities by Land Conservancy staff such as this volunteer day. We will be co-sponsoring another volunteer restoration day with The Land Conservancy on this property in February and in future years. If you regularly volunteer for restoration days at this property, you could witness the return of an ecologically rich native dune scrub at this unique location.
If you have any questions, please email Kylie Schubert at The Land Conservancy at kylies@lcslo.org.
A Few Rare Dune Natural Plant Communities
Everyone’s been to the beach, yes. But how much have we looked around to see what vegetation patterns are there to greet us? San Luis Obispo County dunes, and the Oceano dunes surrounding Oso Flaco Lake in particular, are awesome places that are full of rare plants and at least three rare natural communities, as defined by the Manual of California Vegetation (Sawyer, Keeler-Wolf and Evens, 2009). Let’s explore them. And remember, we give these communities names only to make it easier for ourselves to talk about them. We draw lines around them as we see them repeating in nature, but plants don’t always adhere to our neat little coloring books and boxes. There is really a continuum in vegetation; we separate areas mostly for our own convenience.
Closest to the beach, but not actually on the beach, are what are called dune mats, the Abronia latifolia-Ambrosia chamissonis Herbaceous Alliance and its associations. Some of you may know this as central or southern foredunes (Holland’s Preliminary Descriptions of Terrestrial Natural Communities of California, 1986), others as pioneer dune communities (Holland and Keil’s California Vegetation, 1995). In this community, sand verbena and beach bur-sage are characteristically present. It has a global ranking of G3 and a State ranking of S3, meaning it has less than 21-100 viable occurrences, or occupies a certain rather small area. Dune mats are characteristically found on small hummocks in between sandy areas within about a quarter mile of the surf zone. You might also see sea rocket and the invasive European beachgrass here. Rare plants found here include the surf thistle (Cirsium rhothophilum) and beach spectaclepod (Dithyrea maritima).
Remember that dune communities exist in an unstable environment, with frequent winds, salt spray, and shifting sands. As mentioned above, the communities also shift and sometimes blend into each other. And in extremely protected areas in between the hummocks we often find dune swales containing wetland vegetation. We’ll save those wetland types for another time, but let’s move on to another upland dune community.
Inland from the foredune community and on slightly more stable soils, we find silver dune lupine-mock heather scrub, the Lupinus chamissonis-Ericameria ericoides Shrubland Alliance and its associations. Again, this community has other names such as central dune scrub (Holland 1986, referenced above), and dune scrub communities (Holland and Keil, 1995). Hoover’s Vascular Plants of San Luis Obispo County, 1970 refers to these areas as coastal sand plains. In this community, either silver dune lupine or mock heather is “conspicuous.” This community also has a ranking of G3 S3. This community can extend far inland, to almost 3 miles (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016). Here you might also see sea cliff buckwheat, California poppy, and occasionally, giant coreopsis (now Leptosyne gigantea), which blends into the next community. If you’re lucky you might find the den of a burrowing owl here, or even see an owl. Rare plant species found here include Blochman’s leafy daisy (Erigeron blochmaniae), dune larkspur (Delphinium parryi ssp. blochmaniae), and Kellogg’s horkelia (Horkelia cuneata ssp.sericea).
South of Oso Flaco Lake is a very rare natural community that many of us have visited and know its location well as Coreopsis Hill. Did you know that the community is called Giant coreopsis scrub? Its official name is Coreopsis gigantea Shrubland Alliance, but as we all know, the major dominant plant species, giant coreopsis, has had its name changed to Leptosyne gigantea. (But note that Leptosyne gigantea is not considered a rare plant.) In our area, this community inhabits the stabilized backdunes, but further south it occurs on bluffs immediately along the edge of the coastline. This community is ranked G3 S3 and is also considered sensitive. According to the Manual of California Vegetation, wherever the giant coreopsis occurs at greater than 30 percent relative cover, we can call the community giant coreopsis scrub. It typically co-occurs with Ericameria ericoides, Artemisia californica, and other dune-lupine-mock heather scrub species. Coreopsis Hill is its northernmost natural occurrence. This is the community shown on our front cover this month. These are only three of our rare natural communities that inhabit dunes along our coastline. Again, it is important to point out that there are variations and subdivisions within these types; these are called Associations. Some associations have been identified and classified; others have not. This means there is more work for our Plant Communities committee to do!
-Melissa Mooney
Tetragonia tetragonoides (New Zealand Spinach)
Bonnie’s drawing for this issue of OBISPOENSIS has never been used in any local newsletter. Bonnie drew it for Dr. David Keil and my plant taxonomy text back in the early 1970’s. Why has it not been used? Well, first a look at Bonnie’s drawing will indicate that the species produces inconspicuous flowers. It lacks petals, and the flowers are semi-hidden in the axils of its somewhat succulent leaves, and the species is not native to California. Its common names include New Zealand, or dune, spinach, Tetragonia tetragonoides. For you old timers like me, back in the 1970’s its most common published scientific name was Tetragonia expansa.
New Zealand spinach is considered by many to be an invasive weed. I assume we must go along with that, but my experience with it around here is that it’s not particularly good at it. It prefers slightly salty (halophilic) soils. It also seems to require a bit of disturbance. So, look for it at the upper, less salty edge of salt marsh and/or on coastal benches, especially in disturbed sites where few other species can grow. A few individual plants have been found along the edge of Los Osos Creek, west of Bay View bridge. It is especially common along the trails south of Spooner’s Cove in Montaña de Oro State Park, where it became sufficiently dense to warrant a targeted removal project. It can also be encountered as a weed all along the coast.
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. The genus, Tetragonia, has around a dozen species and its generic name is derived from the four (tetra-) wings that are produced on the green fruit. These wings dry up and essentially disappear in the mature fruit. The inconspicuous flower displays a pale yellow color, but the flowers have no petals, only sepals as it only produces a single whorl of perianth (collective term for sepals and petals). If a perianth has only one whorl, botanists tend to regard them as sepals. These sepals, as well as the stamens are attached to the top of the ovary which makes the ovary inferior. The more famous and probably even more weedy members of the Aizoaceae are the ice plants
(Carpobrotus and Mesembryanthemum).
Wherever New Zealand spinach is found growing, its leaves have been used as a green vegetable. One web source indicated that the Magellan expedition around the world was especially happy to find a patch of it. They would pick the leaves, boil them and then dry (preserve) them for eating. It was particularly good in preventing scurvy! However, note that they boiled the leaves before eating them. The leaves contain enough oxalate chemicals to cause oxalate poisoning. Oxalate chemicals are usually destroyed by boiling.
Dirk Walters
Tetragonia in flower: close-up photo by David
Chipping
Bluff Trail, Montaña de Oro S.P., site of a New
Zealand spinach removal project to encourage the return of native plants. Photo by David Chipping