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Morro manzanita Arctostaphyos morroensis (Ericaceae) is a long-lived, shrub endemic to San Luis Obispo County, southern California, USA. It was listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1994, with identified threats being residential and urban development, including lack of protection on private land and lack of management on public lands, competition with invasive non-native plants, and risks of extinction associated with small and isolated populations. Our goal in this paper is to summarize and supplement the current knowledge of Morro manzanita. We review the literature on the species' description, reproductive ecology, germination cues, short-term response to fire. and distribution. We conducted field surveys to report on long-term response to fire, resampling the previously studied prescribed burn site 25 yr post-fire. Finally, we summarize the current land management of sites that support Morro manzanita and threats faced by this species. We conclude with specific recommendations for management and future study towards supporting conservation of this species and its maritime chaparral community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing levels and patterns of population genetic variation is an important step for evaluating rare or endangered species and determining appropriate conservation strategies. This is particularly important for ensuring the preservation of novel genetic variation in wild relatives of crops, which could provide beneficial alleles for plant breeding and improvement. In this study, we evaluate the population genetics of Helianthus niveus ssp. tephrodes (the Algodones sunflower), which is an endangered, wild relative of cultivated sunflower ( H. annuus L.). This rare sunflower species is native to the sand dunes of the Sonoran Desert in southern California, southwestern Arizona, and northern Mexico and is thought to harbor beneficial alleles for traits related to drought tolerance. We genotyped nine populations of this species with a set of simple-sequence repeat markers derived from expressed sequence tags (EST-SSRs) and investigated levels of genetic diversity and population structure, in H. niveus ssp. tephrodes. We also compared our results to findings from five related sunflower species that have been analyzed with these same markers, including annuals and perennials that range from rare to widespread. The Algodones sunflower harbors lower levels of standing genetic variation, but similar levels of population structure as compared to other sunflower species. We also discovered that a disjunct population from northern Mexico was genetically distinct from populations elsewhere in the range. Given the occurrence of such a genetically unique population, our recommendations include population surveys of the southern portion of the range in hopes of bolstering the existing germplasm collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the native endangered plant Ambrosia pumila. The plant is native to Southern California and is a low growing perennial with a mostly clonal reproductive system. The author was involved in a salvage operation to remove the endangered plant from a construction site. He outlines the methods used to transplant the specimens.