6 Coastal Plants Proposed for Federal Endangered List

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed Friday listing six maritime chaparral plants in Orange and San Diego counties for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Urbanization is causing the already scarce plants to disappear from coastal habitat, according to wildlife officials who want to list four of the plants as endangered and two as threatened.

While the federal act regulates land use to protect plants on public land, it has less influence over private land.

Proposed for endangered status are the Encinitas baccharis, Orcutt’s spineflower and the short-leaved dudleya, all of which already have been listed as endangered by the state, and the Del Mar manzanita. Plants proposed for the threatened list are the Del Mar sand aster and the big-leaved crown-beard, a coastal sage scrub in Orange County.

Local plant specialists welcomed the proposal, as only 15% of the southern maritime chaparral that historically existed in San Diego and Orange counties remains, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

There are fewer than 600 acres of habitat in southern Orange County and fewer than 2,500 acres in San Diego County.

“The combination of being not widely distributed to begin with and occurring on very desirable pieces of real estate, that pretty well made them very unsafe,” said Tony Bomkamp, a professional botanist and member of the California Native Plants Society.

All of the plants grow primarily on coastal bluffs in San Diego County, but the big-leaved crown-beard is found in Orange County. “It occurs generally on slopes where there’s fog, like the Laguna Headlands,” Bomkamp said.

People “would look at it and just think it’s another ugly brush,” he said. “It’s not an exceptional handsome plant.”

The federal Endangered Species Act “has a lot more teeth in it” than the state Endangered Species Act, particularly concerning private properties, Bomkamp said. Under state law, private landowners must give the state 10 days’ notice of intent to remove such threatened plants, after which time “you can bulldoze your heart out,” he said.

He thought federal regulation would offer more effective protection of plants on private property. “A lot of private property owners will respect the fact that they have these plants and will often modify projects to mitigate the impact on these plants,” he said.

Public comments on the proposal will be sought by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service until Jan. 4, before a decision is made whether to list the plant as endangered. Requests for public hearings must be received by Nov. 15.

Plants classified as endangered are regarded as being more seriously at risk of extinction than those considered threatened.