A plant thought to be extinct for 60 years was discovered in San Francisco’s Presidio. It’s hard to imagine that in such an urban environment, a rare native plant would be found, but the Franciscan manzanita was found by a biologist as he drove by the Presidio. SF Gate reports:
It’s like the unicorn of San Francisco,” said Daniel Gluesenkamp, who was returning home from a climate change conference in Sonoma on Oct. 16 when he spotted the plant after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge…
The ground-hugging shrub, uniquely adapted to San Francisco’s natural sand dunes, wind and fog, has not been seen growing in the wild since 1947. That’s when the last known patch was bulldozed at the old Laurel Hill Cemetery, which was paved over for homes and businesses.
Just before the bulldozers rumbled through, local botanist James Roof saved two specimens, which have been kept alive at Berkeley’s Tilden Botanical Garden.
This rare manzanita is not even protected under the Endangered Species Act because it was thought to be extinct.