ALAMEDA MANZANITA
CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT STORYTELLING PROJECT
Arctostaphylos pallida
FAMILY: Ericaceae
A love letter to Alameda manzanita: a keystone species of a rare East Bay fog-dependent ecosystem. This shrub blooms around Thanksgiving each year, congruent with the return of winter rains, marking the beginning of the new season.
“Maritime chaparral,” named because it thrives in marine influenced climates, is a California plant community that depends on fog. The plant community is a rare ecological type and can only be found in a handful of places in the East Bay, one of which is at Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve just beyond Richmond’s borders.
Winter in the manzanita grove is dramatic. As soon as the milky-pink urn-shaped flowers open around November, Anna’s hummingbirds appear in full force. Their chirps, chatters and wingbeats become the soundscape to the fog drenched hillside.
I’ve visited and written about Alameda manzanita before here and here but this year I wanted to bring this fleeting “nature moment” of plant-animal interconnection to life through a video. I spent about a week sitting quietly in the grove observing and waiting (and shivering). This plant and its ecosystem are in serious trouble. It is threatened by lack of fire, lack of fog and disease. Without intervention, botanists say Alameda manzanita could be gone forever in less than 30 years.
Heart Shaped Leaves of Alameda manzanita. According to V. Thomas Parker, a biologist at San Francisco State University, pallid manzanita is a “classic fog species.” It has a lobe shaped leaf base called “auriculate” because it looks like an earlobe. “You have a super rare plant with similar morphology to other rare plant species only found in fog,” said Parker.
Alameda Manzanita (Arctostaphylos pallida) is mainly found at Sobrante Ridge and Huckleberry Botanic with isolated additional plants found on other properties that surround the two preserves in Alameda and Contra Costa counties and nowhere else in the world.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Alameda manzanita is listed as California Rare Plant Rank 1B.1, meaning it is rare, threatened or endangered in California and elsewhere and seriously threatened in California.. In addition, it is listed as imperiled by the global and state rankings G1 and S1 (critically imperiled).
uncertain future and ongoing conservation efforts
The East Bay Regional Park district is currently working on opening up the overstory to get more light on the pallid manzanitas in order to encourage germination of seedlings. Earlier this year the piles of dead wood were burned by the fire department.
A FEW USEFUL LINKS
Photos AND Field Notes from the maritime chaparral
Red-tailed Hawk
View of Mount Diablo from the ridge
This Turret spider tower is decorated with leaves and sticks to camouflage it from unsuspecting prey
I invite you to share your Alameda manzanita stories in the comments. If you would like, please also include a line or two about yourself, and a social media and/or website link so folks can connect with you.