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Rare plant species nearly wiped out by Marin County work crews clearing culvert (Baker's larkspur)
Bakersfield Californian ^ | 2/2/05 | AP

Posted on 02/02/2005 6:25:58 PM PST by NormsRevenge

MARSHALL, Calif. (AP) - One of California's rarest plants was nearly wiped out of existence when Marin County workers used a backhoe to clear a plugged roadside drain in the species' sole habitat.

The Baker's larkspur, a purplish plant that blooms April through May and grows up to 2-feet tall, is found in only one place in the world: near a a drain along the Marshall-Petaluma Road in western Marin County.

Last October, heavy rain pushed debris down a hillside into the culvert, backing it up and flooding the road.

When county crews came out to clear the roadside drain with the backhoe, they cut into the hillside at the exact spot where most of the Baker's larkspur were growing. Within minutes, the population of 100 plants was reduced to five.

"They had to clear it, but a little bit of notice would have been nice," Doreen Smith of the Marin Native Plant Society told the Marin Independent Journal. "We could have got in there and saved the plants. Now we have only five left. This is the very rarest plant in Marin, if not the world."

County officials said they didn't intend to harm the plant but had little choice but to clear the plugged drain, given the emergency.

Although a 200-foot stretch of the hillside was marked to alert county crews not to cut the Baker's larkspur, the backhoe crew didn't know the exact location of the plants, said road maintenance supervisor Pete Maendle.

"The crews knew the area was sensitive, but it was an emergency situation," Maendle said. "When storms come you don't have time to make plans. It's unfortunate that this happened."

Members of the Marin Native Plant Society, Marin County Public Works Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state Department of Fish and Game met Tuesday to discuss the fate of the plant and how to better protect it. The group went to the hillside to search for seedlings, but didn't find any.

There is a plan to grow the plant in less precarious areas, but attempts to move native plants and grow them elsewhere fail 90 percent of the time, said state biologist Gene Cooley.

The Baker's larkspur is one of two endangered plants wildlife officials want to protect by designating 4,400 acres in Marin and Sonoma counties as critical habitat. The other plant, the yellow larkspur, is found near Tomales and north of Dillon Beach.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: bayarea; california; cleaning; crews; culvert; delphiniumbakeri; environment; esa; larkspur; marincounty; oops; plants; rareplant; species; wipedout
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Delphinium bakeri


1 posted on 02/02/2005 6:26:00 PM PST by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge

Makes good salad.


2 posted on 02/02/2005 6:28:16 PM PST by NavVet (“Benedict Arnold was wounded in battle fighting for America, but no one remembers him for that.”)
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To: NormsRevenge
No problem . . . something will evolve to fill its ecological niche.


8^)
3 posted on 02/02/2005 6:29:06 PM PST by BenLurkin (Big government is still a big problem.)
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To: NormsRevenge
If a private individual did this their @ss would be grass right now.
4 posted on 02/02/2005 6:30:02 PM PST by bigfootbob
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To: NormsRevenge

So, that's what I picked on my way down to Tomales last April....


5 posted on 02/02/2005 6:34:09 PM PST by freebilly
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To: NormsRevenge

seems like they ought to try growing this in a greenhouse somewhere. Leaving the only specimens in the world in a drainage ditch doesn't seem very wise.


6 posted on 02/02/2005 6:35:33 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: NormsRevenge

Members of the Marin Native Plant Society, Marin County Public Works Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state Department of Fish and Game met Tuesday to discuss the fate of the plant and how to better protect it

our tax dollars at work, I am so proud.

if they were so concerned about the plant why did they not transplant it before now?


7 posted on 02/02/2005 6:36:17 PM PST by mamalujo (I make up the rules as I go along)
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To: BenLurkin
It didn't have a niche. That's why it was so near extinction.
8 posted on 02/02/2005 6:39:22 PM PST by wolfpat (Dum vivimus, vivamus)
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To: NormsRevenge

A little "Roundup" ought to put it out of its misery.

>sarcasm>

SM


9 posted on 02/02/2005 6:39:25 PM PST by Senormechanico
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To: farmfriend


10 posted on 02/02/2005 6:39:45 PM PST by Libertarianize the GOP (Make all taxes truly voluntary)
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To: BenLurkin
My thoughts exactly. By saving this plant from the natural order of destruction we are tinkering with the evolution of our planet.
11 posted on 02/02/2005 6:40:17 PM PST by AlbertWang
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To: mamalujo
The kooks don't trust us greenhouse growers. Give us a year or two in the connoisseur plant market and it wouldn't be rare very long.
12 posted on 02/02/2005 6:40:41 PM PST by bigfootbob
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To: mamalujo
if they were so concerned about the plant why did they not transplant it before now?

I always plant my near-extinct species near storm drains.
13 posted on 02/02/2005 6:41:26 PM PST by July 4th (A vacant lot cancelled out my vote for Bush.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Now we'll never find a cure for cancer!


14 posted on 02/02/2005 6:47:23 PM PST by popdonnelly
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To: July 4th

Good thinking!


15 posted on 02/02/2005 6:48:23 PM PST by Ole Okie
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To: mamalujo
if they were so concerned about the plant why did they not transplant it before now?

Probably because the rest of the drains in the county were choked with delphinium adami, delphinium ditcheria and delfinium marinus, other endangered species of larkspur.

With all due respect, larkspur is a fairly common wildflower. The only reason Baker's larkspur is taxonomically distinct from the others is because it has gone through several generations isolated from other colonies of larkspur, pollinated only by the neighboring plants.

In other words, Baker's larkspur has been breeding with its cousins for several generations and is, quite literally, inbred.

To raise such a species to endangered status is to make sport of the entire concept.

16 posted on 02/02/2005 6:49:18 PM PST by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: NormsRevenge

"The Baker's larkspur is one of two endangered plants wildlife officials want to protect by designating 4,400 acres"

"they cut into the hillside at the exact spot where most of the Baker's larkspur were growing. Within minutes, the population of 100 plants was reduced to five."

So the other five plants are scattered over the other 4,399 acres they want to designate ?


17 posted on 02/02/2005 6:50:51 PM PST by RS (They'll get my warped sense of humor when they pry it out of my cold, dead neurons...)
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To: farmfriend; Carry_Okie

oops Ping


18 posted on 02/02/2005 6:53:41 PM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ...... The War on Terrorism is the ultimate 'faith-based' initiative.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Somewhere in this is a message about how to deal with envirowhack-jobs......endangered....hmmmmm.....


19 posted on 02/02/2005 6:54:06 PM PST by stboz
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To: NormsRevenge

Many years back, we had a client who was trying to build a hydroelectric project out West. One of the things standing in the way was the squawfish. The squawfish had been put on the endangered species list by the EPA. No dam could disrupt the habitat of the squawfish.

A couple of years ago, I read an announcement from the Interior Department that no more squawfish could be found - dead, apparently, from natural causes.


20 posted on 02/02/2005 6:55:37 PM PST by popdonnelly
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