In the Wild : Botanists Comb Countryside to Compile Book on Plants

Would you believe a jaunt through the beauty of a wilderness setting with a basket of fruit, cheese, crackers and a bottle of wine could be considered work?

Maybe not, but it takes that kind of an enjoyable effort to gather data for the computerization of what Gordon Marsh believes will be the most complete listing available of the more than 1,400 plants growing in Orange County.

Marsh, curator of the UC Irvine Museum of Systematic Biology, said accomplishing that task means lots of heady weekend field trips with his wife, Kerlin, an environmental impact report consultant and a practicing naturalist.

Curator Marsh said the listing may take until December, 1986, to complete.

“Since we have very little funding, this is mostly a volunteer effort,” he said.

However, his wife explains, “we’re both naturalists and our first love is the outdoors, so we find great joy in gathering the information for the computer and at the same time we’re able to see the beauty and breathtaking process the wilderness provides.”

The information gathering will update a 1970 card list of plants compiled by the university’s department of population and environmental biology. The list decribes the plants gracing the hills, valleys, knolls, glades and marshland in Orange County.

“The current file only lists about 700 plants,” said Marsh, “and there may be as many as 1,400 that should be identified.” The flora consist of trees, ferns, shrubs, grasses, herbs and wildflowers.

The card file drew heavily on data compiled at the turn of the century to help ranchers decide what plants would grow best in the Orange County climate.

Marsh and Fred M. Roberts Jr., chief botanist of the museum, are feeding the information into a personal computer. They are including each plant’s history and such data as stem length, shape and colors. Later, the computer information will be put into book form “so amateurs and professionals can see the kind of plants that grow in Orange County as well as some of their history,” Roberts said. Eventually, some of the species will be illustrated.

“We wanted to illustrate them all, but that costs money,” said Roberts, who takes daily and sometimes weekend solo outings to collect unusual flora in remote areas such as the Santa Ana Mountains.

Public areas with natural growth are often easily reached, but Roberts noted that “it’s still time-consuming getting permission to visit private property where undocumented plants may be growing.”

Besides identifying plants, another of the book’s practical uses will be as a reference that lists poisonous plants and their antidotes. Perhaps as important, said Peter Bowler, who is gathering data on endangered plant species, “the listing will give people a far better understanding of the dangers to plant life as we continue to lose natural habitats that should be preserved.”

He said the recent construction of housing, commercial buildings and freeways has dramatically reduced those habitats.

“We’re losing open space at a very rapid pace,” he said.

Bowler, assistant dean of students at Irvine and a member of the Sea and Sage Audubon Society, said 19 plants growing in Orange County are listed by the state and federal government as endangered species.

And in addition to those plants, said David Bramlet, president of the 100-member Orange County chapter of the California Native Plant Society, “we have others in Orange County that are considered threatened species.”

Bramlet said part of the society’s role is to persuade residents to help protect plants such as the California walnut woodland tree, which grows in large numbers in parts of Brea. “We have to consider them a threatened variety,” he said.

Bramlet, who also is an environmental impact report consultant, often leads field trips to find unlisted plants in the county and conducts public information workshops. He noted that one member on a recent field trip to Dana Point spotted a heretofore unrecorded plant called Brochman’s dudleya, a small succulent with white flowers. “It’s grown in other areas of the state, but this was the first time the growth had been seen in Orange County,” he said.

But despite the more than 1,400 species of plant life, only the dudleya stolonifera, a succulent rock flower found in the offshoot canyons of Laguna Canyon, is endemic to Orange County, according to Bramlet.

“We’re contributing to the computer listing as part of our goal of protecting flora through increased understanding and knowledge about our plant life,” Bramlet said. “An inventory like the listing makes us all more aware of plant life in Orange County.”