Free Republic

Keep the stationery. Mount Diablo will remain Mount Diablo.The U.S. Board on Geographic Names has voted unanimously to reject a name-change plea from an Oakley man who objected to the moniker on religious grounds.The board also nixed Mount Ohlone and Mount Miwok, the names of two indigenous Bay Area Native American tribes, which had been suggested by a Marin County couple.Art Mijares originally asked to name the peak Mount Kawukum. But after he learned that tag was an early 20th century developer's gimmick, he switched to Mount Yahweh.Mijares told the Geographic Names board that "Yahweh," commonly known as a Hebrew...

BERKELEY – A petite pink flower that hasn't been seen in 70 years has been rediscovered on the flanks of Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County by a University of California, Berkeley, graduate student. The Mount Diablo buckwheat, Eriogonum truncatum, "has been a Holy Grail in the East Bay for several decades," according to UC Berkeley botanist Barbara Ertter, who confirmed the identification in the field on Friday. Last reported in 1936, the flower was presumed extinct, she said, because its habitat has been overrun by introduced grasses. It is one of only three plants, all of them rare,...

A wildflower that had not been seen in nearly 70 years and was thought to have vanished from the face of the Earth has been rediscovered on Mount Diablo. The elusive Mount Diablo buckwheat, which looks like a small, pink version of the baby's breath used in floral arrangements, had been for decades the number one search target for East Bay botanists and plant enthusiasts. "It's been the Holy Grail of the East Bay," said Barbara Ertter, curator of western North American flora at the University of California's Jepson Herbarium. "It's the one plant that grows only on Mount Diablo...