![]() "This is so thrilling for those of us who love native plants," she said excitedly, preparing to head up a slope to check out some whispering bells. An amateur botanist, she's been bloom-hunting on the mountain ever since the first few fire followers' petals began poking up through the blaze-blasted earth last month. The flames licked the surface virtually flat in many places, creating an open showcase spot for flowers usually hidden under brush - such as the rare Mount Diablo jewel flower and the Fremont's death camas lily, now sprouting in bigger, more visible numbers than have been seen in generations.Ĭelia Zavatsky, 73, of Berkeley drove up Summit Road the other day to check out the latest blossoms. Most of the burned area is chaparral, which consists of drought-resistant plants that usually grow so densely together the ground is obscured. Open showcaseĪlso studying the postfire mountain are three teams funded by $1,000 grants from Save Mount Diablo, where Bartosh is chairman of the science program. What they collect - and they have state permission to take whatever flowers they need - will be stored at the Jepson Herbaria at UC Berkeley, a plant library whose specimens date to John Muir's findings in the Sierra Nevada in the 1800s. ![]() "It's really getting into the heart of the mountain."īartosh's team, funded by a $5,000 state grant, will be closely tracking vegetation for at least two years. "This is an amazing opportunity," Bartosh said. They'll be picking over the data for years.Īlready, they've noticed that ants are treating the fire flowers like an exotic new string of restaurants, swarming them for nibbles. Naturalists will be examining not just how flowers and trees bounce back, but how wild animals and insects react. Mary Bowerman, the late botanist who co-founded the environmental group Save Mount Diablo, extensively documented that conflagration and its effects on plant life.įor scientists, this study is the proverbial candy-store moment. To find good data on Mount Diablo's postfire flowers, scientists have to hark back to the 25,000-acre wildfire of 1931, the biggest in the mountain's history. The last fire that hot and extensive happened in 1977, a blaze that chewed up 6,000 acres, but its aftereffects weren't studied much, Bartosh said. The Morgan Fire, sparked by target-shooting, charred 3,111 acres on the north and southeast slopes of the mountain. "I might not even be around next time my 9-year-old son, Joaquin, gets a chance to seem them again." "These fire followers have this short niche in time, and then - boom - they're gone again for many years," Bartosh said. "Right now on this mountain, what we are seeing is biodiversity in maximum overdrive," said Bartosh, 37, a senior botanist with Nomad Ecology of Martinez who is helping lead the main study of the mountain's postfire vegetation. By two years, the fire followers show will be done, and they'll stay away until the next big blaze creates just the right amount of heat, smoke and ash to cause the flowers' dormant seeds to burst open once again. ![]() The fire poppy disappears in about two weeks, and many of these flowers will be gone in a year. Right now they're being found only in steep canyons on the eastern side of the mountain above Morgan Territory Road. It's a bit tougher to come across the fire poppy, whose golden petals are more crinkly than the California poppy, almost like papier-mache. The array, which can be seen just off the road in spots, includes the light-yellow-petal whispering bells, Brewer's red maids that actually are purple, and golden eardrops, a delicate little flower whose petals poke up like towers, then drop down like floppy ears. Blast of colorĪnyone willing to haul at least halfway up Summit Road on the 3,849-foot mountain near Danville can find vibrant carpets of white, purple, orange, magenta and yellow that haven't been seen since the last big Mount Diablo fire, in 1977, and possibly not since the biggest one before that, in 1931. Such flowers need spring to start popping up - and that's just what is happening on the steep inclines of Mount Diablo right now.įor nature and flower lovers, the show is fascinating. The pretty little bloom is what is known as a "fire follower," a flower that grows only after an extra-hot wildfire has devastated a landscape.
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