Hello fellow botanists! I am a biological consultant conducting botanical surveys on a few sites near Lost Hills and Elk Hills in Kern County. This spring, we are conducting special-status plant surveys for a few of the species of special-status plants listed below. I am writing you to see if you may have insight regarding this years' current blooming status of the following special status plant species:

Target list: (All are 1B, except where noted )
Astragalus hornii var. hornii
Astragalus tener var. tener
Atriplex cordulata
Atriplex erecticaulis
Atriplex tularensis --/SE/1B
Atriplex vallicola
Calochortus striatus
Caulanthus californicus FE/SE/1B
Cirsium crassicaule
Delphinium recurvatum
Eremalche kernensis FE/--/1B
Eriastrum hooveri --/--/4.2
Eriogonum temblorense
Eschscholzia lemmonii ssp. kernensis
Lasthenia glabrata ssp. coulteri
Layia heterotricha
Layia munzii
Lepidium jaredii ssp. jaredii
Monolopia congdonii FE/--/1B
Stylocline citroleum

This information will help to ensure that we are conducting field surveys during the appropriate blooming period. If you are aware of other local botanists that might be monitoring 2010 populations of any of these species, please direct me to them.

Thank you so much!

Wendy Fisher
Senior Biologist
LSA Associates, Inc.
Wendy.Fisher@lsa-assoc.com

From the E-newsletter from CNPS:
Gear up for the Rare Plant Treasure Hunt next spring! CNPS will promote a statewide effort to update occurrences of rare plants. We would like to form teams of experienced and amateur botanists to search for historic (many of which have not been documented for 50-100+ years) and new occurrences of their local rare plants. CNPS will provide a list of targeted species or regions in need of surveying. Prizes and fame await those teams and chapters that update the most occurrences! More information is coming your way soon. If you would like to volunteer to be part of this effort, email Josie Crawford at jcrawford@cnps.org.

Please let Josie know, and also tell Lucy Clark at lucyg391@gmail.com. Josie will tell us the plants/areas, and we will contact you so all together we can plan some field trips to search for rare plants in our area. If you are at all interested, get me your contact info, in case the blooming periods do not conform to the Mimulus Memo’s future publication dates.

As mentioned at the Chapter Council meeting in San Diego last weekend, I am pleased to announce that the Board of Directors approved an allocation of the Bilisoly funds to be used for statewide projects at the Board Meeting held on September 11. The Board also approved the criteria for project proposals, along with proposal guidelines to help you determine what type of projects are qualified and best suited for funding.