For his August slide presentation to the Society, Steve Junak, curator at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden and coauthor of the Flora of Santa Cruz Island, gave the audience at the SF County Fair Building a tour of the California Islands, especially the lesser-known southern ones on both sides of the Mexican border.

Nothing so native could seem so exotic as plants from islands hardly any Californians (Altan or Bajan) have visited or even knew existed. Exciting indigenous and endemic plants from islands like the US Navy outposts San Clemente and San Nicolas, and the northwestern Baja islands of Guadalupe, Cedros, the San Benitos, and San Martin wowed the crowd.

San Clemente is still a bombing range for the Navy, but since the military eradicated feral goats and boar in the 1990s, the rare flora has rebounded tremendously. The western side of the long island steps up gradually in remarkable grassy marine terraces, while the eastern side drops precipitously from the summit ridge. Junak showed images of the common Opuntia littoralis, herbaceous endemics in the genera Delphinium, Astragalus, Camissonia, Castilleja and Brodiaea, and shrubs like the gracefully thready Constancia Eriophyllum nevinii, the subtle malvaceous endemic Malacothamnus clementinus, and the shrubby dandelion-like Munzothamnus blairii.

One funny image was of the “San Clemente National Forest,” a sign that had commemorated a Eucalyptus cluster now gone. Habitat restorers are planting extra native trees and shrubs, like Quercus tomentella, the rarest California tree oak, around the sign to keep the joke in play---and demonstrate that San Clemente really does have native trees.

Good news comes from Guadalupe Island, the westernmost outpost of Mexico and, as described by Guadalupe’s great chronicler, Dr. Reid Moran, the southernmost outpost of the California floristic province. According to Junak, the Mexican government and Island Conservation, a Santa Cruz-based non-profit, have collaborated on fencing to protect a few remnant Pinus radiata var. binata and Cupressus guadalupensis groves from the voracious feral goats. Now seedlings of the pine and Satureja palmeri, a mint once thought extinct, are proliferating in the enclosures.

Here is the tallest-growing population of Monterey pine, and living in the fringes of the winter rainfall belt of our coast, on the 3000-4000 foot crests of this volcanic island, the trees and associated species depend heavily on fog drip for survival.

The pregoat woodlands of pine, cypress, Quercus tomentella, Heteromeles arbutifolia, and Hesperlaea (extinct evergreen yellow-flowered privet-like tree) helped transfer fog moisture to the island’s water table but springs have long gone dry as the vegetation has been goatmowed or died of old age. However, epiphytic ferns (Polypodium scouleri, whose next-closest habitat is hundreds of miles north in Santa Barbara County) persist on the old P. radiata var. binatas above the browse line.

Junak gave glimpses of the profuse lichens on the rocks and of the untouched islets off the south end of Isla Guadalupe, “Isla Adentro/Toro” and “Isla Afuera/Zapato,” where bizarre deciduous stem-succulents like the endemic Cistanthe (Talinum) guadalupensis and indigenous Coreopsis gigantea grow and burst into spectacular pink and gold bloom in spring. On the south end of the island, where goats rarely wander, cactuses like Mamillaria blossfeldiana ssp. shirleyana and Bergerocactus emoryi, both also native to other California islands, defy herbivory alongside Lycium californicum.

Century-plus old Brahea edulis palms stand above the eroded, rocky surface, with no seedlings to be found. Other exceptional ornamentals Junak noted include Perityle incana, a whitish endemic shrub with gold flowers, Lavatera lindsayii, with its shy pendulous blooms, L. occidentalis, Dudleya guadalupensis, and Stephanomeria guadalupensis. Let’s hope they survive the goats until they can be eradicated there too.

Large Cedros Island possesses mountains nearly as tall as Guadalupe’s (almost 4000 feet), but sits close to the Baja mainland, and has a slightly drier climate. Contrasts occur between foggy woodlands of Pinus radiata ssp. cedrosensis on windward slopes and desert scrub with Agave sebastiana, Ferrocactus, pink-flowered Rhus lentii, Pachycormus (Elephant tree), Viguiera lanata, the leafless island snapdragon Galvezia juncea, and Salvia cedrosensis and Verbena lilacina, both now in cultivation. Eriogonum mallii made the biggest impression, as a buckwheat with profuse tall inflorescences. Perhaps a candidate for a welldrained spot in a lowfrost Bay Area garden?

Isla San Benito looked like an idyllic place of isolation, with its lobster-fishing village and lighthouse. Among the interesting goodies were Mammillaria neopalmeri, Dudleya linearis, Lavatera venosa and the four-petaled poppy Eschscholtzia ramosa. A single hunter, Bill Woods, and his Jack Russells managed to eradicate all the feral rabbits from the island.

The volcanic cone of San Martin Island came as a surprise on a coast dominated by sedimentary and metamorphic rocks--except, apparently, in the vicinity of the town of San Quintin. The dominant impression left of the island was of lava gardens with brittlebush, Encelia californica, and Dudleya anthonyi, bearing 15 foot flowerstalks. Exceptional whalewatching goes on in the lagoon on the mainland.

The last stop was the Navy’s San Nicolas Island, or for those of us who spent third grade in 1970s California, “The Island of the Blue Dolphins.” Here is where in the mid-19th century a native woman lived on her own for almost two decades only to perish weeks after being rescued and moved to Santa Barbara.

San Nicolas is a 22 square-mile sandy island plateau, 68 miles from the mainland, with an extraordinary 20 acre shell midden attesting to the richness of the Indians’ fishery. Four pinnipeds haul out here, but the plant life is somewhat limited. Among the rarities is Astragalus traskiae, named for the naturalist Blanche Trask, a turn-of-the-century resident of Catalina and the coastal counterpart of Mary Austin. Eriogonum grande ssp. tamorum, an endemic buckwheat, has good horticultural potential, as does the umbellifer Lomatium insulare, with its yellow flowers and outsized fruits

Plants of the Northern Channel Islands with Horticultural Potential - PDF

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