This has been an amazing year for San Mateo thornmint recovery. Creekside Science seeded a new location away from Edgewood Preserve this year, and had a strong showing with all plots occupied and 17% survivorship. We also seeded our three newer sites at Edgewood (for the third year), but for the first time did not seed the original site based on declining habitat quality. Our new sites are performing well, with every cohort increasing this year. The bottom line is we counted 19,187 thornmint at our five sites. This is up from last year’s project high of 7,549, and our project low of 249 in 2008.

Federally endangered Metcalf Canyon jewelflower continues to passively recruit after three years of active seeding on Tulare Hill in San Jose. In 2017 we documented a total of 412 plants at our plots, which increased to 1,312 in 2018. An exciting find was an additional dozen reproductive plants more than 200 meters from our nearest plot, indicating the plant’s ability to disperse, flower, and fruit on their own.

For years, the federally endangered San Mateo thornmint was known from only one location at Edgewood Natural Preserve in Redwood City. In the last two seasons, Creekside Science has seeded three new locations within the Preserve, bringing the total number of San Mateo thornmint to 7,549 in May 2017, its highest since we began monitoring in 2007. This January, we seeded a new location at nearby Pulgas Ridge, thanks to funding and support from San Francisco Water, Power and Sewer. We hope to be instrumental in creating the five self-sustaining populations required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Recovery Plan to downlist this taxon. Other partners include Friends of Edgewood, Yerba Bioadvocacy, San Mateo County Parks, California Native Plant Society, U.C. Berkeley Botanical Garden, San Mateo County Parks Foundation, Mellam Family Foundation, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.