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Current Issue | From the Archives | Manzanita Contents
Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden receive the quarterly newsletter Manzanita as a benefit of membership. Regular features include articles about the Botanic Garden and aspects of California plant life written by botanists, horticulturists, and other prominent native plant experts. The newsletter also includes timely information about classes, field trips, and events offered by the Friends.
To join the Friends, please see our Support the Garden page.
The table of contents page lists the titles of articles in all published issues
IN THE CURRENT ISSUE
Vernal Pools: Kaleidoscopes of Life
By Carol W. Witham
Vernal pools, home to "short-lived, weird-looking, fascinating fauna that evolved millions of years ago and dazzling swaths of tens of thousands of tiny flowers," are among the more extreme habitats in California. Tiny invertebrates and ephemeral annual plants form the basis for a fascinating web of life that follows the vernal pool landscape cycle from inundation by fall and winter rains through the seemingly barren and scorching days of summer.
Just Remembering: By a Hairsbreadth
By S.W. Edwards, Ph.D., garden director
Not many people know that Steve Edwards resigned as garden director just a few weeks after accepting the position. Fortunately, his closest friend convinced him that he was making a mistake by quitting--and the rest is history!
Vernal Pools and Native Plant Gardens
By Glenn Keator, Ph.D.
Like some plants that grow on serpentine soil, a number of lovely vernal pool species are quite easy to grow under conditions less challenging than their natural habitat and make good home garden plants.
Thank You to Our Donors in 2011 and 2012!
The Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden are grateful to the many people who made donations in 2011 and 2012 to help support the garden. The generosity of our members plays an essential role in keeping the garden growing.
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FROM THE MANZANITA ARCHIVES
The Garden's Role in Cultivar Introduction
By Stephen W. Edwards, Ph.D.
From Volume 5, Number 3, Fall 2001
Over some seventy years now, California's four large native botanic gardens--Rancho Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, U.C. Berkeley, and the Regional Parks--have played vital roles in the introduction of native cultivars. These great gardens have joined a number of private nurseries in this endeavor.
Most cultivars are clones, in other words they involve genetically identical plants reproduced vegetatively. A cultivar may begin as a selection made in the field, for instance an unusually floriferous individual that really stands out from run-of-the-mill examples of a common species. Or it may begin as a hybrid individual that unexpectedly appears in a garden setting where two species that could never have a chance to interbreed in the wild are growing together. A cultivar could even begin as a mutant new branch with unusual foliage on a tree that hitherto seemed unremarkable. . .
For the complete article click here
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The Role of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in the Preservation of Rare Plants
By Joe Dahl
From Volume 3, Number 2, Summer 1999
With the coming of warmer weather the perennial and deciduous plants of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden have emerged. The warmer weather has brought an increase in visitors who are lured by the pleasant weather and the new, lush, late spring growth that appears to have renewed the Garden. Beds that appeared empty over the winter months are now covered in leafy mounds and flowers of many colors.
Lately, I have been approached by Garden visitors who wish to compliment the staff on the wonderful appearance of the Garden. It occurred to me that there are aspects of the Garden beyond its obvious beauty that many visitors may not be aware of. Not only does the Regional Parks Botanic Garden house an extensive collection of California native plants, but many of the plants in the collection are listed as rare or rare and endangered by the state of California. In the Garden are also examples of plants that have become extinct in the wild...
For the complete article click here
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