Eriogonum truncatum

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Mount Diablo buckwheat
Status TNC G1.svg
Critically Imperiled  (NatureServe) [1]
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Polygonaceae
Genus: Eriogonum
Species:
E. truncatum
Binomial name
Eriogonum truncatum

Eriogonum truncatum, the Mount Diablo buckwheat, is a small pink wildflower, believed to have been extinct since 1936 until its rediscovery in 2005. The species is only known to live on Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County, northern California.

Contents

Habitat

It has been found on the edge of chaparral but may be a refugee there, squeezed out of more open areas by exotics. Since its rediscovery seeds have been collected for controlled propagation and preservation.

Description

Mt. Diablo buckwheat is an annual plant growing between 150–750 millimetres (5.9 in – 2 ft 5.5 in) high. It blooms with several dozen pinkish flowers, having a maroon line down the center of each petal. The flower stalks branch upward in a wishbone pattern, with flowers blooming at the joint and ends of the wishbone.

History

The first recorded sighting of Mt. Diablo buckwheat was by William H. Brewer, the first Chair of Agriculture at the Yale University Sheffield Scientific School. He was Principal Assistant for botany on the Josiah Whitney-led California Geological Survey from 1860–1864. Brewer first recorded the Mt. Diablo buckwheat at John Marsh's Rancho Los Meganos at the northeast corner of Mt. Diablo, on May 29, 1862. Marsh was the first American settler in Contra Costa County (the present-day San Francisco East Bay) and a proponent of increased American emigration. Approximately 4,000 acres (16 km²) of the Marsh Ranch have been preserved around Marsh's stone house in the new Cowell Ranch State Park. From 1862–1936 the Mount Diablo buckwheat was found just a handful of times, for a total of seven historic records.

In 1936 Mary Leolin Bowerman, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley and who later co-founded the Save Mount Diablo organization in 1971, recorded the last sighting of Mt. Diablo buckwheat. Bowerman made two of the seven historic records, on opposite sides of Mt. Diablo, Contra Costa County, California during her floristic study between 1930 and 1936. Her 1936 Ph.D. was followed in 1944 by publication of The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Mt. Diablo, California. Much of Mt. Diablo has been preserved in the years since Bowerman's study was completed, as well as areas where other buckwheat records were established. However, the eastern areas of the plant's range are threatened by development pressure.

Until 2005 numerous botanical survey trips were unsuccessful in locating the buckwheat.

2005 rediscovery

On May 10, 2005, Michael Park, a University of California, Berkeley graduate student, was conducting a floristic study on Mt. Diablo. While more thoroughly searching promising areas on the mountain that hadn't gotten enough attention, he realized he was surrounded by early blooming buckwheat. Once he realized that it was Mount Diablo buckwheat he was so shocked that: "I pretended it wasn't there and continued with my other work."

A week after the rediscovery, a collaboration of organizations including the California Department of Parks & Recreation, Save Mount Diablo, and the University of California at Berkeley announced the rediscovery of the Mt. Diablo buckwheat. Coming soon after the announcement of the potential rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, the news traveled around the world in just a few days and appeared in thousands of media outlets including print, radio and television.

Propagation

Seeds were collected from wild plants in 2005. On June 7, 2006, members of the Mt. Diablo Buckwheat Working Group announced that the plant had survived and increased in the wild and that twelve plants had been propagated at the U.C. Botanical Garden at Berkeley. Seeds were again collected in the wild and from propagated plants in 2006 and 2007. 2006 seed yield from propagated plants included more than 40,000 seeds. 2007 seed yield from propagated plants included more than 145,000 seeds.

Restoration

The plant, an annual wildflower which dies after flowering and which is found at just one site, is still considered critically threatened. In December 2007 the Working Group seeded additional plots near the wild site.

2016 rediscovery

It was reported in September 2016, that two botanists performing a wildflower survey in May 2016, at the Black Diamond Regional Preserve, a park near Mount Diablo, had unexpectedly found over a million Mount Diablo buckwheat specimens blooming on a hillside inside the preserve. Four organizations collaborated to withhold announcement of the discovery until the specimens had finished blooming and could produce seeds. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Diablo</span> Mountain in California, US

Mount Diablo is a mountain of the Diablo Range, in Contra Costa County of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. It is south of Clayton and northeast of Danville. It is an isolated upthrust peak of 3,849 feet, visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area. Mount Diablo appears from many angles to be a double pyramid and has many subsidiary peaks. The largest and closest is North Peak, the other half of the double pyramid, which is nearly as high in elevation at 3,557 feet (1,084 m), and is about one mile northeast of the main summit.

<i>Eriogonum</i> Genus of North American wild buckwheats

Eriogonum is a genus of flowering plants in the family Polygonaceae. The genus is found in North America and is known as wild buckwheat. This is a highly species-rich genus, and indications are that active speciation is continuing. It includes some common wildflowers such as the California buckwheat.

Morgan Territory is an historic ranching area on the east side of Mount Diablo in San Francisco East Bay's Contra Costa County. It was named after Anglo-American pioneer Jeremiah Morgan, a migrant from Alabama and Iowa who acquired 2000 acres and developed a ranch here, starting in 1857.

Mary Leolin Bowerman was an American botanist, co-author of The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Mount Diablo, California; Their Distribution and Association into Plant Communities, and the co-founder of Save Mount Diablo. She helped to preserve tens of thousands of acres of Mount Diablo in the San Francisco East Bay before dying at age 97. In 1936 she was the last person to record the Mount Diablo buckwheat Eriogonum truncatum, until it was rediscovered nearly seventy years later on May 10, 2005. In 1978 the manzanita Arctostaphylos bowermaniae was named in her honor.

<i>Eriogonum fasciculatum</i> Species of flowering shrub

Eriogonum fasciculatum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names California buckwheat and flat-topped buckwheat. Characterized by small, white and pink flower clusters that give off a cottony effect, this species grows variably from a patchy mat to a wide shrub, with the flowers turning a rusty color after blooming. This plant is of great benefit across its various habitats, providing an important food resource for a diversity of insect and mammal species. It also provides numerous ecosystem services for humans, including erosion control, post-fire mitigation, increases in crop yields when planted in hedgerows, and high habitat restoration value.

<i>Eriogonum arborescens</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum arborescens is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name Santa Cruz Island buckwheat.

<i>Eriogonum caespitosum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum caespitosum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name matted buckwheat, mat buckwheat, or cushion desert buckwheat. It is a common perennial plant native to the western United States from California to Montana, especially the Great Basin. Flowering early in the summer, it is also cultivated as a rock garden plant.

<i>Eriogonum dasyanthemum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum dasyanthemum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name chaparral buckwheat. This plant is endemic to California where it is limited to the Northern Coast Ranges, but it is quite common in its native range.

<i>Eriogonum giganteum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum giganteum, with the common name St. Catherine's lace, is a species of wild buckwheat in Southern California.

<i>Eriogonum ovalifolium</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum ovalifolium is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name cushion buckwheat. It is native to western North America from California to Alberta, where it is a member of many plant communities in varied habitats, including the sagebrush steppe and alpine regions.

<i>Eriogonum pyrolifolium</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum pyrolifolium is a species of wild buckwheat. It is native to western North America, from British Columbia to the high mountains of California.

<i>Eriogonum strictum</i> Species of plant

Eriogonum strictum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name Blue Mountain buckwheat. It is a common plant of western North America from northern California to British Columbia where it is found along rocky slopes and scrubland. It flowers early in the summer.

<i>Eriogonum umbellatum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum umbellatum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name sulphurflower buckwheat, or simply sulphur flower.

<i>Eriogonum flavum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum flavum is a species of wild buckwheat.

<i>Eriogonum heracleoides</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum heracleoides is a plant of western North America that has many flowering clusters which are usually cream colored, or off-white. It can usually be found in rocky areas, such as sagebrush deserts and Ponderosa pine forests. Parsnipflower buckwheat is in the genus Eriogonum and the family Polygonaceae, which is a family of plants known as the "knotweed family". It inhabits much of the western part of the United States and southern British Columbia.

<i>Eriogonum brachyanthum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum brachyanthum is a species of wild buckwheat that is commonly known as shortflower buckwheat. It is native to eastern California and western Nevada, particularly the Mojave Desert region, where it is common to abundant, and even sometimes weedy. It is also known from southern Oregon. The plant grows in sandy habitats such as desert flats and sagebrush. It also grows in pinyon-juniper and montane conifer woodlands. It is an annual herb that grows 30 to 40 centimeters tall. Leaves are located at the base of the stem, woolly, and oval or rounded in shape. The top of the stem is occupied by a branching inflorescence bearing many widely spaced clusters of flowers. Each individual flower is about a millimeter wide and light yellow in color. Flowers bloom from April to November.

<i>Eriogonum contiguum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum contiguum is an uncommon species of wild buckwheat. It is commonly known as Reveal's buckwheat and annual desert trumpet. It is native to Death Valley in California and adjacent sections of Nevada. It is commonly found in Death Valley National Park and Mojave National Preserve. Eriogonum contiguum grows in sandy to gravelly flats and slopes, or rocky hills, and lower bajadas with Atriplex species. It is an annual herb which produces an erect, spreading stem up to about 30 centimeters high. Leaves are basal, small rounded, and woolly. The many scattered inflorescences are small, compact clusters of tiny hairy yellow flowers. Flowers bloom April to June. It is threatened due to habitat degradation by off-road vehicles, competition with exotic plant species, trampling, grazing, and erosion.

Eriogonum deserticola is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name Colorado Desert buckwheat.

<i>Eriogonum sphaerocephalum</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum sphaerocephalum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names rock buckwheat and round-headed desert buckwheat. It is native to the western United States.

<i>Eriogonum thymoides</i> Species of wild buckwheat

Eriogonum thymoides is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family known by the common name thymeleaf wild buckwheat, or simply thymeleaf buckwheat.

References

  1. "NatureServe Explorer 2.0".
  2. Cuff, Dennis. "Rare wildflower found." Bay Area News Group. September 8, 2016.] Accessed September 16, 2016.