Sibara filifolia

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Sibara filifolia
Santa Cruz Island winged rockcress
Sibara filifolia (Santa Cruz Island winged rockcress) (5628843295).jpg
Scientific classification
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S. filifolia
Binomial name
Sibara filifolia
Synonyms

Arabis filifolia

Sibara filifolia, known the common names Santa Cruz Island winged rockcress [1] or Santa Cruz Island rockcress, is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family. It is endemic to the Channel Islands of California, where it is now known from a few occurrences on San Clemente Island and one population on Catalina Island. [2]

Brassicaceae family of plants

Brassicaceae or Cruciferae is a medium-sized and economically important family of flowering plants commonly known as the mustards, the crucifers, or the cabbage family. Most are herbaceous plants, some shrubs, with simple, although sometimes deeply incised, alternatingly set leaves without stipules or in leaf rosettes, with terminal inflorescences without bracts, containing flowers with four free sepals, four free alternating petals, two short and four longer free stamens, and a fruit with seeds in rows, divided by a thin wall.

Endemism ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location or habitat

Endemism is the ecological state of a species being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation, country or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, which applies to species that are restricted to a defined geographical area.

San Clemente Island island in the United States of America

San Clemente Island is the southernmost of the Channel Islands of California. It is owned and operated by the United States Navy, and is a part of Los Angeles County. It is administered by Naval Base Coronado. Defined by the United States Census Bureau as Block Group 2 of Census Tract 5991 of Los Angeles County, California, it is 21 nautical miles (39 km) long and contains 147.13 km2 (56.81 sq mi) of land. The island is officially uninhabited as of 2000 U.S. Census. It is estimated, however, that the number of military and civilian personnel present on the island at any given time is at least 300. The city of San Clemente in Orange County, California is named after the island.

Contents

It was once present on Santa Cruz Island, and perhaps other Channel Islands, but these occurrences were extirpated by feral goats and pigs. [3] The plant was feared extinct until small remaining occurrences were discovered in 1986. [4] A 1995 estimate of the total remaining population was 500 individuals. [3] The plant became a federally listed endangered species of the United States in 1997, along with Cercocarpus traskiae and Lithophragma maximum , two other rare Channel Islands plants. [5]

Santa Cruz Island island in the United States of America

Santa Cruz Island is the largest of the eight islands in the Channel Islands and also the largest island in California, located off the coast of California. The island, in the northern group of the Channel Islands, is 22 miles (35 km) long and from 2 to 6 miles wide with an area of 61,764.6 acres (249.952 km2). Santa Cruz Island is located within Santa Barbara County, California. The coastline has steep cliffs, gigantic sea caves, coves, and sandy beaches. Defined by the United States Census Bureau as Block 3000, Block Group 3, Census Tract 29.10 of Santa Barbara County, the 2000 census showed an official population of two persons. The highest peak is Devils Peak, at 2450+ feet. It was the largest privately owned island off the continental United States but is currently jointly owned by the National Park Service (24%), and the Nature Conservancy (76%).

Local extinction or extirpation is the condition of a species that ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinctions.

Feral goat

The feral goat is the domestic goat when it has become established in the wild. Feral goats occur in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Great Britain, Hawaii, Brazil, Honduras, Lebanon, Panama, Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Mauritius, Réunion, New Guinea, the Galapagos, Cuba and in many other parts of the world. When feral goats reach large populations in habitats which are not adapted to them, they may become an invasive species with serious negative effects, such as removing native scrub, trees and other vegetation. Feral goats are included in the 100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species. However, in other circumstances they may become a natural component of the habitat, even replacing locally extinct wild goats. Feral goats are sometimes used for conservation grazing, to control the spread of undesirable scrub or weeds in open natural habitats such as chalk grassland and heathland.

Description

Sibara filifolia is an annual herb producing a hairless, sometimes waxy stem up to around 30 centimeters in maximum height. The leaves are very narrow and almost strandlike, measuring less than a millimeter wide, and growing about 1.5 centimeters long. The flowers each have four spoon-shaped lavender petals a few millimeters long. The fruit is a flattened, elongated silique up to 4 centimeters long containing tiny seeds.

Silique

A silique or siliqua is a type of fruit having two fused carpels with the length being more than three times the width. When the length is less than three times the width of the dried fruit it is referred to as a silicle. The outer walls of the ovary usually separate when ripe, then being named dehiscent, and leaving a persistent partition. Siliques are present in many members of the mustard family, Brassicaceae, but some species have silicles instead. Some species closely related to plants with true siliques have fruits with a similar structure that do not open when ripe; these are usually called indehiscent siliques.

Distribution and habitat

Sibara filifolia grows in the coastal sage scrub of two islands off the coast of southern California.

Coastal sage scrub

Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is within the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome.

California State of the United States of America

California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 8.8 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second most populous, after New York. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.

Related Research Articles

Sibara is a genus of ten plant species in the mustard family known commonly as the winged rockcresses. They are native to North America. Sibara are similar to cardamines, sending up thin herbaceous stems that bear tiny white to purple flowers. Seeds are borne in flat, laterally compressed, fleshy fruits up to an inch long. Selected species:

<i>Lasthenia burkei</i> species of plant

Lasthenia burkei is a rare species of flowering plant in the daisy family known by the common names Burke's goldfields and Burke's baeria.

<i>Galium buxifolium</i> species of plant

Galium buxifolium is a rare species of flowering plant in the coffee family known by the common names box bedstraw and island bedstraw. It is endemic to the Channel Islands of California, where it is known from about 26 populations on two of the islands. It is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.

<i>Boechera hoffmannii</i> species of plant

Boechera hoffmannii is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common name Hoffmann's rockcress. It is endemic to the Channel Islands of California, where it is known from only three or four populations on two of the eight islands. A 2005 report estimated a remaining global population of 244 individual plants. It is a federally listed endangered species.

<i>Arabis macdonaldiana</i> species of plant (sometimes misspelled as "Arabis macdonaldiana")

Arabis macdonaldiana is a species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common name MacDonald's rockcress. It is native to northern California and Oregon, where it grows on newly exposed, barren serpentine soils in openings in temperate coniferous forest habitat. It is a rare and endangered plant known from several sites in California and approximately two occurrences in Oregon, where it is threatened mainly by mining, particularly of nickel, which is one of several metals plentiful in the serpentine. On September 29, 1978, this was the second plant to be federally listed as an endangered species.

<i>Malacothamnus clementinus</i> species of plant

Malacothamnus clementinus is a rare species of flowering plant in the mallow family known by the common name San Clemente Island bushmallow. It is endemic to San Clemente Island, one of the Channel Islands of California, where it is known from fewer than ten occurrences in the steep, rocky seaside canyons. The plant became a federally listed endangered species in 1977 when it was limited to a single population nearing extinction due to herbivory by the feral goats which once infested the small island. The goats have since been removed and the plant is recovering well, but many threats still remain, including competition with introduced species of plants, wildfire, erosion, and damage to the landscape by United States Navy bombing exercises. Since the Navy removed goats from the island in the 1990s and started an intensive management program this species has recovered significantly. There are now over 80 known populations on the island consisting of over 1,500 individuals. In the last review of this species, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service recommended downlisting this species due to its recovery and the ongoing management that the Navy has committed to. This is a bushy shrub with a thin, multibranched stem coated in long, fine hairs. It reaches heights between 40 centimeters and one meter. It bears rounded dark green leaves several centimeters long which are divided into sharp lobes. The inflorescence is a spikelike cluster of a few pale pink, lavender, or nearly white flowers with somewhat lance-shaped, hairy petals several millimeters long. It rarely produces fertile seed and it is believed to propagate itself mainly via rhizomes.

<i>Malacothamnus fasciculatus</i> species of plant

Malacothamnus fasciculatus, with the common names chaparral mallow and Mendocino bushmallow, is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family. It is found in far western North America.

Malacothrix indecora is a rare species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common name Santa Cruz Island desertdandelion. It is endemic to the Channel Islands of California, where it is known from only a few populations on three of the eight islands. As of 2000, there were three occurrences on San Miguel Island, two on Santa Rosa Island, and one on Santa Cruz Island. It grows on the bluffs and rocky coastal grasslands of the islands. Like many Channel Islands endemics, this plant is naturally limited in distribution and has been threatened by the presence of destructive introduced mammals, in this case, feral pigs. The plant became a federally listed endangered species in 1997. This is a mat-forming annual herb which spreads low to the ground no more than about 10 centimeters high. The fleshy leaves have dull lobes. The inflorescence is an array of flower heads lined with oval-shaped phyllaries. The ray florets are under a centimeter long and yellow in color.

<i>Malacothrix squalida</i> species of plant

Malacothrix squalida is a rare species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common name Santa Cruz desertdandelion. It is endemic to Santa Cruz and Anacapa Islands, two of the eight Channel Islands of California, where it grows on rocky seaside bluffs and cliffs. The plant is very limited in distribution and today exists only in degraded habitat on these two small islands. It was last collected from Santa Cruz Island in 1968, and two populations were noted on Anacapa Island in 1998; in drought years there may be no plants at all. It became a federally listed endangered species in 1997. This is an annual herb growing a hairless, waxy stem 20 to 30 centimeters in maximum height. The leaves are sharply lobed. The inflorescence is an array of flower heads lined with oval-shaped phyllaries. The ray florets are 1 to 2 centimeters and light yellow in color.

Sedella leiocarpa is a rare species of flowering plant in the stonecrop family known by the common names Lake County mock stonecrop and Lake County stonecrop. It is endemic to Lake County, California, where it is known from only about ten occurrences in two locations. It is a resident of drying vernal pools and rocky clay flats, where it grows in colonies. It is a federally listed endangered species. This is an annual herb growing no more than four centimeters high. It is a tiny erect reddish or yellow succulent plant with sparse leaves each a few millimeters long. The flowers have yellow to reddish petals 3 or 4 millimeters long.

<i>Phacelia insularis</i> species of plant

Phacelia insularis, the coast phacelia is a rare species of phacelia. It is endemic to California, where it has a disjunct distribution.

Pseudobahia bahiifolia is a rare species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common name Hartweg's golden sunburst.

<i>Rorippa columbiae</i> species of plant

Rorippa columbiae is a species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common names Columbian yellowcress and Columbia yellow cress.

Sibara virginica is a species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common name Virginia winged rockcress. It is native to North America, where it can be found throughout the southeastern quadrant of the United States and in California and Baja California in the west. It grows in many types of habitat, including disturbed areas. It is an annual or biennial herb producing a basal rosette of leaves with comblike blades so deeply divided into many lobes that they may appear to have leaflets. It bolts one or more erect stems up to 30 centimeters tall. The flowers each have four spoon-shaped white petals a few millimeters long and purplish sepals. The fruit is a flattened, elongated silique up to 2.5 centimeters long containing tiny seeds.

<i>Thysanocarpus conchuliferus</i> species of plant

Thysanocarpus conchuliferus is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common name Santa Cruz Island fringepod. It is endemic to Santa Cruz Island, one of the Channel Islands of California, where has been recently observed at only one location; some years it is totally absent.

<i>Boechera perstellata</i> species of plant

Boechera perstellata is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common names Braun's rockcress and Nevada rockcress. It is native to Kentucky and Tennessee, where it is known from perhaps 25 total populations. Most of the occurrences have few individuals, and all are deteriorating in quality. The plant grows in shady forest habitat on limestone substrates, usually near streams or rivers. This is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.

<i>Arabis serotina</i> species of plant

Arabis serotina is a rare species of flowering plant in the mustard family known by the common name shale barren rockcress. It is native to eastern West Virginia and western Virginia in and around the Shenandoah Valley, where it is known from fewer than 60 populations. It is endemic to the shale barrens, a type of habitat characterized by steep slopes of bare shale, an exposed, rocky habitat type that is subject to very dry and hot conditions. Shale barrens host a number of endemics, such as Allium oxyphilum and Taenidia montana, and this rockcress is among the rarest. It is a federally listed endangered species.

Euphorbia eleanoriae is a rare species of flowering plant in the euphorb family known by the common name Nā Pali sandmat. It is endemic to Kauaʻi, Hawaii. Like other native Hawaiian euphorbs it is called ʻakoko locally. This plant was only discovered in 1992 and described to science in 1996 as Chamaesyce eleanoriae. At that time there were fewer than 500 plants known, all occurring in small populations scattered across the sheer cliffs along the Nā Pali Coast of Kauaʻi. By 2001 the total population had already dropped; only three populations were found, for a total of fewer than 50 plants. The plant was federally listed as an endangered species of the United States in 2010.

<i>Hypericum cumulicola</i> species of plant

Hypericum cumulicola is a rare species of flowering plant in the St. John's wort genus known by the common name highlands scrub hypericum, or highlands scrub St. John's wort. It is endemic to Florida, where it is threatened by habitat loss and degradation. It is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.

Lysimachia pendens is a rare species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae known by the common name broad-leaf yellow loosestrife. It is endemic to Hawaii, where there is a single occurrence known on the island of Kauai. It was federally listed as an endangered species of the United States in 2010.

References

  1. "Sibara filifolia". Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS Database. USDA . Retrieved 12 November 2015.
  2. McGlaughlin, M. E., L. E. Wallace, and K. Helenurm. (2008). Isolation of microsatellite loci from the endangered plant Sibara filifolia (Brassicaceae). Molecular Ecology Resources 8 367-69.
  3. 1 2 Center for Plant Conservation
  4. California Native Plant Society Rare Plant Profile
  5. USFWS. Determination of endangered status for three plants from the Channel Islands of California. Federal Register 62:153 August 8, 1997.