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Chapter president Helena Bowman guides us along one of her favorite short hikes in the Glendale area at Deukmejian Wilderness Park, with descriptions and photos to illustrate the plant species found there. Le Mesnager Trail offers a series of chaparral all-stars like Coast Live Oak, Yerba Santa, and Dodder, as well as a show of spring wildflowers.
While attending a CNPS camping trip at Crystal Lake in 2019, LA/SMM CNPS President Bill Neill noticed a troubling patch of invasive Spanish broom next to Highway 39. He decided to bring his decades of volunteer and professional experience to bear and tackle the population with herbicide treatment, aided with funds from our chapter. Bill has treated not only Spanish broom but also Tree of Heaven and Chinese elm, fig trees and Bailey’s acacia tree populations in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Every issue of the Paintbrush, we will highlight a plant or plant group growing in the San Gabriel Mountains. This week, the cheerful Sticky Monkeyflower is feautered. It is widely enjoyed in native gardens and offers a bright pop of color in the chaparral of southern California.
California native plants provided abundant food for the Indigenous people of the region. This bounty grew out of a reciprocal relation California’s Indigenous communities cultivated with the plants, depending on the plants for nutrition while honoring native plants through daily practices and seasonal song and ceremony to show respect and help care for them. So the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of Indigenous Californians provides us with rich resources for edible California native plant gardening while also suggesting ways to develop respectful relations with our native plant relatives.
Yet many are not accustomed to approaching native California plants as food sources. So gardening for food with these plants requires some creativity and a willingness to adapt and learn from Southern California Indigenous people who know the land so well.