SIMI HILLS : Couple Gives 2 Endangered Plants a Home

At the farthest eastern reaches of Ventura County, beneath Chatsworth Peak and nestled among the red rock promontories of the Simi Hills, is the home of Maureen and Robert Cates.

On the one-acre lot they have owned for 30 years, the couple has planted native grasses and plants in keeping with the stark beauty of the surrounding hills.

Now, in addition to the two desert tortoises, two dogs and one elderly cat that make their home on the land, a pair of endangered plants survive.

“We’re both aerospace engineers,” said Maureen Cates, who works for Rocketdyne’s Canoga Park plant. “We’re on the endangered species list ourselves, so therefore I have a great feeling for these flora.”

Their landscape includes the Santa Susana tarweed, a plant listed by the state as endangered, and the Catalina Island mountain mahogany, which was proposed for listing as an endangered plant by the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service last week.

Cates said the tarweed was native to her property, but she imported the mountain mahogany, one of the rarest of small evergreen trees in California.

She and her husband were part of a work crew removing non-native plants on Catalina Island in 1992 when the group went to see the Catalina Conservancy native plant garden next to the airport.

“It was September and the native plants had dropped their seeds. I asked for permission and I took four [mahogany seeds] home,” Cates said.

“One is now about four feet tall,” she said.

She weeds around the plants and set up a sun guard for the mountain mahogany to be sure it does not get baked by the Valley heat. But otherwise, she and her husband “just let it grow.

“I don’t have a lot of time to spend with these poor little guys, but they’re sure pretty,” she said. “On the other hand, they pretty much take care of themselves. That’s the idea with native plants.”