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Serpentine Prairie
Serpentine Prairie
JOHN RAWLINGS Herbarium volunteer, Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford University [email protected]
across San Francisco Bay.* Average annual rainfall is 26 inches. Forty-three native grasses (and 726 total vascular plant taxa) have been vouchered for the entire Preserve, which covers 1,200 acres on the Stanford University campus in San Mateo County. The Preserves elevation varies from 217 to 679 feet.
asper Ridge, a low ridge in the eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, offers ample opportunity for native grass appreciation in a small space. Walking trails through 60 acres of serpentine grassland yield a reliable show of common native annual and perennial grasses, 24 in all, comparing favorably in number to the East Bay Regional Parks Skyline Serpentine Prairie
* See prole of Skyline Serpentine Prairie at CNGA.org / Guide to Visiting Californias Grasslands / Visiting Serpentine Grassland.
Exclosures in the serpentine grassland, built by the Carnegie Institutions A.G. Vestal in 1926 prior to a regime of sheep grazing, can still be visited. At that time Vestal wrote of annual grassland adjoining the serpentine, Invasions ... by Baccharis and Rhus diversiloba can be observed, and the frequent germination of acorns would result in establishment of many young trees if it were not for the intense competition of wild oats, and the repeated burning, cutting, grazing, and trampling to which the elds are subject. The barbed-wire exclosure fencing has been breached for decades; no difference in vegetation inside and outside the exclosures is apparent. The earliest plant vouchers in the Jasper Ridge herbarium are from 1867, and include vanilla grass (Hierochloe occidentalis). Vanilla grass hasnt been collected since that time, and may have been extirpated from the site as early as 18881891 when the Searsville Dam was built, ooding redwood groves on the lower stretches of Corte Madera Creek within the current preserves boundaries. Some of the grasses favor transition zones, and it is frequently difcult to characterize the underlying soil. One can engage in friendly discussion as to whether Trisetum canescens, for example, is or isnt growing on serpentine. Most grasses mentioned are clearly growing on serpentine soils, and all should readily reveal themselves in a normal year to those ambling along established trails, including the diminutive annual Scribners grass (Scribneria bolanderi), which is on many plant lists but not frequently seen. An exception is hairy fescue (Vulpia microstachys var. ciliata), which is elusive, although often observed growing on the same serpentine outcrops as the introduced annual Bromus trinii, with only two known stations here. A detour is also required to visit the only signicant Phalaris californica stand, which grows at a north-facing seep just below the
ridge crest and adjacent to a ne stand of serpentine sedge (Carex serratodens). Scribners grass prefers the chaparral bare zone and other rocky, sparse vegetation zones. The common, widespread, and conspicuous foothill needlegrass (Nassella lepida) also likes the scrub/grassland transitions. One nds of course the typical inhabitants of the open grassland, including the very beautiful California onion grass (Melica californica), the widespread, shapeshifting junegrass (Koeleria macrantha), and early-blooming Poa secunda (onesided bluegrass, the typical in our area
Poa scabrella form). In good Poa secunda years, as was 2006 at Jasper Ridge, onesided bluegrass is abundant, even striking. Purple needlegrass (Nassella pulchra) is common throughout the Preserves grasslands. One will run across the squirreltail hybrid Elymus glaucus E. multisetus and its ubiquitous parents. Sharp-eyed visitors may also discover Elymus glaucus ssp. virescens, which we had seen but failed to voucher, and now cannot relocate. Dry years favor widespread and ample growth of Vulpia microstachys var. pauciora. California
SERPENTINE GRASSLAND, continued on page 10
fescue predictably grows on north-facing brushy slopes and is prominent on and off serpentine. Vernally wet areas are the preferred habitat of small-leaved bent grass (Agrostis microphylla), annual hairgrass (Deschampsia danthonioides), and California meadow barley (Hordeum brachyantherum ssp. californicum). California oatgrass (Danthonia californica var. idem), often cryptic with low-tothe-ground tufts and nodding culms, is fairly common, but its best example is a beautiful, hummocky prairie on Santa Clara sandstone adjacent to a vernal pond dominated by the annual semaphore grass Pleuropogon californicus. Trails connecting the pocket prairies run through different vegetation, including oak/madrone woodland, valley oak woodland, blue oak woodland, and serpentine chaparral, enhancing the visitors overall aesthetic experience as well as the diversity of native grasses seen. One of the nicest stands of California fescue the heart could desire forms an understory beneath blue and black oaks along the way, and a short diversion on the San Francisquito Creek trail usually offers Agrostis exarata, Deschampsia elongata, and Melica subulata en route to a beautiful late-spring and early-summer garden growing on serpentine that cuts from the ridge to San Francisquito Creek. Here one can enjoy not only a lovely, cliffy Melica torreyana garden, but Silene californica, Angelica tomentosa, Eriophyllum lanatum, Berberis pinnata, Lilium pardalinum, Mimulus cardinalis, and the attractive onion for which Jasper Ridge is the type locale, Allium peninsulare var. franciscanum. Torrent sedge (Carex nudata) in the creek bottom and hybrid leather oaks upslope provide additional accents. Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is the western portion of Stanford Universitys 8,000-acre campus and is managed as a teaching and research facility. Though the
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Common Name
small-leaved bent grass leafy bent grass California brome woodland brome California oatgrass annual hairgrass slender hairgrass blue wildrye squirreltail hybrid big squirreltail California fescue meadow barley junegrass California melic Alaska onion grass Torreys melic foothill needlegrass purple needlegrass California canary grass one-sided bluegrass Scribners grass tall trisetum annual fescue common hairyleaf fescue
Season
MayJune MayJune AprilOct MayAugust MayJuly MayJuly May-July AprilJune MayAugust MayAugust MarchJuly AprilJune AprilJuly MarchJune MayJuly MarchJune MarchJune MarchJune AprilJune FebMay MarchMay MayAugust AprilMay AprilMay
Preserve is fenced and access is controlled, I or my herbarium colleagues would be pleased to host CNGA members, schedules permitting. John Rawlings is a librarian at the Green Library at Stanford University. He can be reached at [email protected].
Jasper Ridge
* Jasper Ridge is the type locale for Rodriguez-Rojo (2001) Hesperevacetum sparsi orae lasthenietosum californicae association of serpentine annual grassland. Typology and ecology of Californian serpentine annual grasslands. Journal of Vegetation Science 12:687-698
Overview Point Reyes National Seashore, established in 1962, is noted for its spectacular panorama of thunderous ocean breakers, open grasslands, bushy hillsides, and forested ridges. Thanks in part to this variety of habitats, Point Reyes has tremendous biological diversity: the peninsula has nearly a fth of Californias owering plant species, and 37 land mammal and 12 marine mammal species. In addition, more than 45 percent of the bird species in North America have been sighted at Point Reyes. Although other stands of tufted hairgrass are scattered around the coastal portions of the Seashore, the stand along Bull Point Trail is among the largest and most accessible.
TUFTED HAIRGRASS, continued on page 12
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