Rare Plant Conservation

As many as 6,550 species, subspecies, and varieties of plants (collectively referred to as taxa), are believed to be native to the state of California, including as many as 2,270 taxa found no where else in the world.  A significant proportion of these are considered sufficiently rare such that they are critically imperiled and potentially threatened by extinction in the future.

SBBG staff conduct inventories of native and invasive species, monitor plant associations and individual species of special concern, and study ecological requirements and the reproductive biology of rare species. These studies provide baseline information on numbers of reproductive plants, the amount of recruitment from seeds, and other features of biology that are important to understanding fluctuation and potential decline. This research and the dissemination of its results assist private and public land-managers in developing management policies that expedite the conservation of California’s native plants.
