A Losing Battle : Weeds, Development Choking Lake Sherwood Sunflower

A tiny yellow sunflower found only in the Santa Monica Mountains is slowly dying amid development at Lake Sherwood, where the plant was found thriving several years ago before construction started on a multimillion-dollar country club.

Biologist Carl Wishner, hired by the developer to study the plant, said the sunflower, called Lyon’s Pentachaeta , cannot compete with the surrounding weeds next to the Lake Sherwood Country Club’s lushly watered golf course.

During a recent visit to the lake, tucked in the Santa Monica Mountains south of Thousand Oaks, Wishner could find only a few of the miniature plants where he had once found dozens.

He said he always suspected that the plant, listed as an endangered species by the state, could not survive.

“It’s just too close to the golf course environment,” Wishner said.

One small picket-fenced patch, once containing the plants with flowers the size of thumb tacks, is near the 10th hole. Another is between the sixth and seventh holes. The two weed-ridden patches, looking out of place next to the well-manicured golf course, were set aside by Murdock as sanctuaries for the plant.

Ron Rhoads, director of the golf course, expressed concern when told that the plant is disappearing.

“We’ll go in the area and weed it. Maybe that will help,” said Rhoads, whose staff had been instructed not to disturb the patches.

“We’re into nature here. . . . We’ll give it our best effort” to save the plant, he said.

According to Don Troutter, president of Murdock Development, developer David Murdock has spent millions of dollars preserving the environment around the lake and is committed to making sure that the sunflower flourishes.

Wishner said he most likely will request a small piece of land in the hills behind the lake to scatter the plant’s seeds, which have been preserved at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens in Claremont.

Wishner said that in the meantime he will continue to study the two patches and hope that more plants appear. He said that plants are not expected to bloom until later in the spring, and that perhaps more will become visible then.

Wishner said he is frustrated with Ventura County officials for allowing the Lake Sherwood development to surround the plants.

He said the county should have required Murdock to leave the plants alone.

“Avoidance was the way to go,” Wishner said.

Instead, the county asked Murdock to set aside the two plots and allowed him to bulldoze several other parcels after Wishner extracted plant seeds for future projects.

According to county planning officials, bulldozing some of the patches was acceptable under state guidelines as long as the seeds were preserved and there were other sites set aside as a refuge.

“If you’re talking about taking out an area of plants and it can be mitigated, the developer can go ahead with the bulldoze,” county Planner Carl Morehouse said.

According to one planner, the county knew that saving the plants on the two patches was a gamble. And if it doesn’t pay off, they’ll try other sites.

“That mitigation was not a good one,” said biologist Jackie Bowland. But she added that there is no easy answer in determining how to save endangered plants. “No one has a magic wand.”