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A rare native plant found only in the Bay Area has popped up in a surprising place on Stanford University land months after a controlled burn to cut down on fire risk.
Over the past few years, the university has focused on different ways to manage wildfire fuel on its 8,100 acres. Generally speaking, decades of fire suppression practices have left a lot of brush accumulation in the West, which in turn has led to increasing intensity of wildfires. Stanford has tried various approaches to combat fuel build up such as goats, mowing, AI sensors, and a BurnBot, a vehicle that creates fire breaks by burning and then watering swaths.
In October 2023, an approximately 69-acre part of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve near Sand Hill Road and the Westridge neighborhood boundary was targeted for clearing, including an area Executive Director Jorge Ramos describes as “a very thick chapparal stand probably eight feet tall; it was a wall.”
In some places the topography made it too challenging to bring in chippers. In two three-acre sections workers heaped the cut vegetation into almost 200 piles measuring up to 6 feet tall, and then covered them to protect them from the rain.
Months later, after permits were secured with Cal Fire and the Woodside Fire Protection District, and neighbors were alerted, a prescribed burn got rid of the piles over several days in early March 2024.
The Stanford Report reported that many people gathered on the first day to witness members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area burn sage in an abalone shell, and say blessings and prayers in the Chochenyo dialect to honor their ancestral home.
Charlene Nijmeh, the chairwoman of the tribe, told the Stanford Report, “We are connecting back to our land and learning the old ways and traditions of our ancestors. This fire is part of this process.”
The preserve recently added the name ‘Ootchamin ‘Ooyakma to signage. In the Chocheyna language that translates to red ridge or mountain, a reference to the red jasper stone found on the ridge.
The area burnt last spring hadn’t been scorched in more than 50 years, and now this season a curious thing is happening. For the first time, Western bewildering bushmallow is sprouting around some of the burn piles’ fire rings.
Specimens of the plant were first documented in the preserve in 1962, and around Searsville Lake, but nothing has been observed recently, and never in this area.
Preserve scientist Andriana Hernandez theorizes the plant’s seeds must have long been dormant in the soil. And since they are fire followers, it took heat and smoke to prompt the seeds to germinate all these years later.
“It was a surprise completely,” Ramos says.
The newly exposed soil in the burn area also regenerated some more common plants: yerba santa, pitcher sage and bluewitch nightshade.
He says, “We were expecting the native shrubs to come up, and they’re about 2 to 3 feet tall now.”
‘When we found this plant [western bewildering bushmallow], this is part of that indigenous awakening.’
Jorge Ramos, executive director of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve
“When we found this plant [western bewildering bushmallow], this is part of that indigenous awakening,” he says, an example of the collaborative stewardship the preserve is striving for — to learn and implement sustainable land management practices by combining indigenous knowledge with Western science.
Thrilling, Herb Dengler would be so excited!
You’re right, Danna!
It is thrilling to see how the indigenous practices dovetail with the needs of the plant community.
In wandering the trails of the south bay for over 30 years I have only seen two western bewildering bushmallows, one at Arastradero Preserve and one at Jasper Ridge. Now I may get to see a lot more. Bob Dodge