Presumed Extinct: Fish Out of Water

LOST SPECIES OF THE BAY AREA

Presumed Extinct: Clear Lake splittail, thicktail chub

As with the presumed extinct ivory-billed woodpecker reported in Arkansas in 2004, there is always the chance that a long-lost plant or animal will be rediscovered, thanks to persistent searching and luck. That’s true even in a busy metropolitan area like the San Francisco Bay Area. In May 2005, botanist Michael Park stumbled upon a population of Mount Diablo buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum) on the slopes of Mount Diablo. The buckwheat was a  species long thought extinct, last seen in 1936 by UC Berkeley botany graduate student (and later Save Mount Diablo cofounder) Mary Bowerman. 

Spurred by the rediscovery of the buckwheat, it bears asking today which plants and animals endemic to – but presumed extinct in – the San Francisco Bay Area scientists continue to search for in the hope they may still be hanging on by a thread, waiting to be found and protected.

Clear Lake splittail (Pogonichthys ciscoides)

thicktail chub (Gila crassicauda)

Thicktail chub (Gila crassicauda), top, and Clear Lake splittail (Pogonichthys ciscoides), foreground. Illustration by Devin Cecil-Wishing.

With major fisheries teetering on the brink of collapse, it’s unlikely that many people have noticed the plight of two Bay Area endemic minnows that haven’t touched a creel in 30 years or more. The Clear Lake splittail (Pogonichthys ciscoides), the lake-bound cousin of the Sacramento splittail (P. macrolepidotus), is said to have schooled in great numbers in Clear Lake, the largest natural lake in California. In April and May, the eight-inch-long splittail would venture into upstream tributaries to spawn. Three weeks later, the young would return to the lake to feed on zooplankton and the native Clear Lake gnat in silvery schools that led early settlers to call them “silversides.” In the early 1940s, Clear Lake splittail populations plummeted, but it wasn’t until 1973 that the fish was belatedly recognized as a species. At about that time splittail vanished from the lake, replaced by non-native bluegill and, ironically, the inland silverside (Menidia beryllina). The latter was introduced in 1967 by the state to control vast clouds of annoying but harmless Clear Lake gnats, and it likely outcompeted Clear Lake splittail for shallow shoreline habitat. Other factors that may have tipped the species toward extinction were the channelization and the diversion of Clear Lake’s tributaries, where the splittail spawned.

Although its bones dominate Native American middens along the Sacramento River, Putah Creek, and the Pajaro-Salinas drainage, the thicktail chub (Gila crassicauda) is even less well known. This four-inch-long chub was also found in Clear Lake, the Delta, the Napa River, Alameda Creek, and several other Bay tributaries. Up until the late 19th century, thicktail chub weren’t uncommon in San Francisco fish markets, and their remains have been recovered from 19th-century Chinese privies in the city’s Mission District. But as early as 1884 their populations were reportedly waning. In 1957, the last known specimen was caught in the Sacramento River near Rio Vista. Throughout the species’ range, stream diversions and modifications, the loss of tule beds and shallow lowland lakes, and the introduction of largemouth bass and other nonnative predators likely drove the thicktail chub to extinction.

Since both the San Francisco estuary and Clear Lake are regularly sampled, UC Davis fisheries biologist Peter Moyle says the likelihood of finding either species is close to zero. But Robert Leidy, an ecologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, remains optimistic about the thicktail chub. “It could possibly show up in any part of its historical habitat,” says Leidy. “It could be upper Coyote Creek, it could be the Pajaro drainage, it could be in North Bay marshes or the Petaluma River.”

Field Guide to the Lost Species of the Bay Area

SPECIES: Clear Lake splittail (Pogonichthys ciscoides)

LISTING STATUS: none

FIRST/LAST RECORDED: ~1930/~1970

RANGE: known only from Clear Lake in Lake County

HABITAT: Clear Lake and its tributary waters, plus an outlying record from Cache Creek (downstream of Clear Lake)

FIELD NOTES: a lake-bound cousin of the Sacramento splittail (P. macrolepidotus), Clear Lake’s shoreline splittail wasn’t officially described until 1973, approximately the time it went extinct; aside from geographic isolation, the differences between the species are morphological; compared to the Sacramento splittail, the Clear Lake splittail has more gill rakers, more lateral line scales, smaller fins, a terminal mouth with absent or reduced barbels, and a relatively symmetrical tail fin

RESOURCES:

Inland Fishes of California, by Peter B. Moyle

Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of California, March 13, 1996, by Samuel M. McGinnis

_______________________________________________

SPECIES: thicktail chub (Gila crassicauda)

LISTING STATUS: none

FIRST/LAST RECORDED: present in Native American middens/1957

RANGE: reported specifically in Sacramento River, Putah Creek, Pajaro-Salinas drainage, Clear Lake, San Francisco Bay, Coyote Creek, Central Valley lowlands, and Bay tributary streams

HABITAT: lowland lakes, sloughs, slow-moving river stretches, and surface waters of the San Francisco Bay

FIELD NOTES: thicktail chub remains are reportedly common in Native American middens along the Sacramento River, and have been recovered from 19th-century Chinese privies in San Francisco’s Mission District; in the 19th century the fish was commonly sold in San Francisco fish markets and was served in Sacramento saloons; compared to other chub, the thicktail chub is a heavy-bodied fish with a small, cone-shaped head, greenish brown to purplish black back, and yellowish sides and belly

RESOURCES:

Inland Fishes of California, by Peter B. Moyle

Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of California, March 13, 1996, by Samuel M. McGinnis

The account excerpted above was originally featured in the October/December 2007 issue of Bay Nature magazine.

Illustrations by Devin Cecil-Wishing.

The Natural History of California

In a bid to go green, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW; formerly, the California Department of Fish and Game) is digitizing their 99-year-old quarterly scientific journal, California Fish and Game. In addition to making all issues post-December 2012 available online, they’re also dusting off the stack of journals in the archives. In the coming months, CDFW will be working toward digitizing back-issues dating back to 1914, when the journal was first published.

Back when the journal debuted, California was unquestionably a different place. Among the journal’s opening pages were these missives from the Board of Fish and Game Commissioners:

“The wild game belongs to the people in their sovereign capacity and as such should be enjoyed by the people and cared for and preserved for their benefit. It must not be considered as the property of a class and no class should be permitted to monopolize it… The right of any generation to careless indifference or wanton destruction can not be admitted. Each generation is the guardian of the existing resources of the world; it comes into a great inheritance, but only as a trustee; and there is no recovery or resurrection of an extinct species.”

– Ernest Schaeffle

“So often we lock the door after the horse is stolen. Let it not be so with the game birds and wild creatures of California.”

– Frank M. Rutherford

“Preserved game and fish, like preserved forests or preserved water powers, are of no practical public good. Preserved fish and game die; so do preserved trees; preserved water-powers run to waste. Conserved – that is, used and protected – fish and game, forests, water-powers and all other natural resources are, of course, of practical benefit to the public. And therefore, fish and game conservation – not preservation – commissions are of practical benefit to the public… Our game, however, can not be conserved, or even preserved, if the cover in which and the food on which it lives be not conserved. Our fish can not be conserved, or even preserved, if the waters in which they live be not kept at least free from pollution. If our wild places be permitted to be fire ravaged and destroyed, if our streams and bays be made the dumping grounds for noxious materials, then there will be no use for game and fish conserving laws, no need for a fish and game conservation commission – there will be no fish and game to be conserved.”

– George C. Pardee

During the journal’s first year alone (Volume 1 spanned 1914 through 1915), Joseph Grinnell, Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, raised the hue and cry concerning the “ravages of the house cat” on native bird populations and the decline of the wood duck; the price of a dozen quail and the bounty on mountain lion “scalps, or skin with scalp attached” were equivalent – $20.00, or $465 in today’s prices; Mr. Edward A. Salisbury was touring the state of California showing moving pictures featuring the wildlife of the west, including the life history of the steelhead trout, treeing and roping wildcats and mountain lions, and hunting geese for the San Francisco market; a game warden’s salary ranged from $720 to $1,500 ($16,759 to $34,915 in today’s prices) a year; and the non-native opossum was confirmed to have been introduced to California from Tennessee by a San Jose jeweler in 1910.

Curiously, the journal’s trademark green cover – a triptych featuring a trout, mule deer, and quail – didn’t make its appearance until Volume 1, Number 2, and has changed very little over the years. Looking backwards, that triptych is perhaps the only constant California has seen in the last century.

Stebbins, A Life and Times

ROBERT STEBBINS’S MEMORIES

Written when he was 95 years old.
There is no logical nor chronological order to the memories.

Post 10

Saying Goodbye to MVZ 

Some years ago, when Dave Wake was still director of MVZ, I remarked to him that I was the oldest member of the MVZ old guard! Where-upon Dave said, “No, Bob, Seth Benson is still alive and he’s older”. (He lived to be 100). After a moment of reflection I remarked, “Yes, but he’s no longer active at MVZ”. Now, unless there is someone hiding in the wings, I do believe I am MVZ’ s ancient one along with some debilities that go with the territory. That is why I am reading my remarks.

I arrived in 1945, at a time when the need for a curator in herpetology had become evident. Emphasis had been on birds and mammals. I was lucky to get the job. Alden Miller was director. Thanks to his flexibility and willingness to promote the interest of staff and students, the following events occurred.

One day he told me that two important ladies were coming to MVZ – Annie Alexander and Miss Kellog. They were interested in meeting the new curator and to look at some specimens they had collected for the Museum.

As many of you know, Annie Alexander (Coca Cola heiress) had provided finances for the establishment of MVZ and supported Joseph Grinnel as director of the program. (I missed him by a couple of years.) Miller’s message to me (unspoken) was don’t blow it.

I had heard stories about these ladies – they carried guns and took gates off hinges to access habitats for the purpose of collecting MVZ specimens. I received their approval.

Alden Miller gave me all kinds of encouragement and support. When I told him drawing was an important part of my teaching and scientific life (starting at UCLA) that if I were to continue it as a curator and researcher it might well interfere with my advancement in academia (preparing scientific papers and keeping up with scientific literature), to my great relief he said, by all means draw. As it turned out I advanced at the normal rate.

Under Alden Miller (in those early days) MVZ’ s academic growth and public service involvement grew significantly, a trend that has continued over the years. His influence on a young naturalist neophyte was great.

MVZ made my life whole! I am deeply sorry to leave this wonderful organization and dear friends I will probably not see again. Anna-rose and I now go to a retirement home in Eugene, Oregon, near the beautiful Willamette River. I will continue painting and writing my memories. A recent one is titles, “An Act of Desperation: Evaporated Milk as a Substitute for Brake Fluid”. I’ll read it to you. It only takes 5+ minutes.

(Read to the staff and students at MVZ at my Going Away Party)

An Act of Desperation

June 1951

It was on a trip to Brock Mountain near Squaw Creek, Shasta Co., California in search of salamanders. The area was remote, with winding dirt roads, little travelled. With me were my children, John (age 9) and Melinda (age 8) and my graduate student Joe Gorman, who was working on his doctoral thesis on salamanders. We had finished our field work and were ready to head home to the San Francisco Bay Area. It was late afternoon.

The road ahead was a steep, winding, down-hill, track. As we started down the grade the car brake pedal felt soft. I placed the car in low gear. Soon the grade grew steeper and the pedal softer. I changed to compound low. Soon thereafter I decided I must stop. I ran the car into a road bank. An all night stand confronted us.

Joe immediately offered to go for help. The nearest lookout station (Brock Mountain) was 3 miles or so away and it soon would be dark. It fell to him to go for help. However, the children, who had become used to field work, were taking everything in stride – no complaints.

It took about 3 hours to reach the lookout. He must have arrived in the dark. At the lookout, at some point, a call for help was sent. A “Mr. Peterson”, at the other end, suggested that given our situation, maybe the best thing to do was to use an established out-back method (used in desperation?) – substituting evaporated milk for brake fluid!

The next morning Joe and Linn (a person from the lookout) went to a store about 8 miles away where they got 3 cans of evaporated milk. They returned to my car, perched with its nose in the bank, and put about 3/4 pint of milk in the brake fluid reservoir. The fluid was then pumped into the brake system by depressing the brake pedal. They had pinched off the line to the right rear brake drum, where the leak seemed to be. A pending nightmare had turned into a happy dream! We were able to drive all the way to Berkeley with evaproated milk for the brake fluid! The brakes functioned perfectly.

There was, however, a price to pay. MVZ had to have all the brake lines replaced because they were filled with coagulated milk. But there was really no less costly or better way to solve our problem. However, in retrospect, I feel I should have assured the kids that evaporated milk was no regular substitute for good old brake fluid.

Editor’s Note: With the exception of minor typographical and editorial corrections, all efforts have been taken to preserve Dr. Stebbins’ text as originally recorded.

For more information on this serial column featuring the life and times of Dr. Robert C. Stebbins, please visit this post.

Book Review: Rafetus

Rafetus: The Curve of Extinction, by Peter C. H. Pritchard, Living Arts Publishing (www.livingartspublishing.com), 2012, 173 pages, $65.00.

In recent years, there has been a well-deserved groundswell of interest in what has been called the rarest freshwater turtle species in the world, Swinhoe’s softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei). Some of the Swinhoe’s softshell turtle’s fame stems from it featuring prominently in Vietnamese legend as the fabled Sword Lake Turtle, which inhabits Hoàn Kiếm Lake (“The Lake of the Returned Sword”) in Hanoi, Vietnam. But more important than its legendary status is its rarity. There are only four Swinhoe’s softshell turtles known to exist in the wild or captivity – much like Lonesome George, hailed the last remaining Pinta Island tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii) before George’s passing in 2012.

Not so long ago, in late 2007 the Hoàn Kiếm turtle was one of only three Swinhoe’s softshell turtles in existence: Vietnam’s Sword Lake Turtle, plus two known from China – an older male on display at the Suzhou Zoo and a recently re-discovered female, “China Girl,” part of the Changsha Zoo’s, collection. Of the eight Swinhoe’s softshell turtles known to scientists to exist in the wild or captivity in the preceding years, the remaining five had died since the 1990s: two in the West Garden Buddhist temple in Suzhou; one in the Suzhou Zoo; one in the Shanghai Zoo; and one in the Beijing Zoo. The following year, experts from Cleveland Metroparks Zoo’s Asian Turtle Program and Education for Nature-Vietnam announced in April 2008 that they had successfully photographed and confirmed a second wild individual – the fourth of its kind alive today in the wild or captivity – west of Hanoi in Đồng Mỏ Lake. Their discovery quickly turned bittersweet when later that year, the prodigal turtle disappeared after floods washed out Đồng Mỏ’s dam, only to reappear weeks later in the possession of a local fisherman who announced his intent to sell the turtle to a local Hanoi restaurateur. The fisherman eventually turned the turtle over to authorities, who returned it safely to the lake.

In recent years, the Swinhoe’s softshell turtle has repeatedly made international news: first with the capture of Hoàn Kiếm’s Sword Lake Turtle for medical treatment in 2011, after it was reported that the individual was showing signs of stress and illness, and second with the pairing of the Suzhou Zoo male with Changsha Zoo’s China Girl as part of an as-yet-unsuccessful captive breeding program that has been underway since 2008. Swinhoe’s softshell turtle has quickly become as famous as it is rare, joining Lonesome George as a poster child for the growing legion of the lost, those species on the edge of extinction.

Renown herpetologist Peter C. H. Pritchard sets out to tell “the story of the giant softshell turtle of the Yangtze and Red Rivers” in Rafetus: The Curve of Extinction, from the inception of the Sword Lake Turtle legend to Western science’s discovery and description of Rafetus swinhoei to the species’ present-day plight as the purported largest and rarest freshwater turtle. Books such as this are no small undertaking, especially if you consider that the bulk of the material is based on Pritchard’s extensive years in the field inspecting and verifying zoological and museum specimens, in situ interviews with fisherman and other locals, and boots-on-the-ground surveys of the turtle’s haunts. Few others have dedicated themselves to such an intimate understanding of this elusive turtle and learned so much in so little time. This tome is truly a testament to Pritchard’s passion for Rafetus swinhoei.

Despite everything Rafetus: The Curve of Extinction has going for it, where this book suffers most is in the layout/design and editing. Structurally, the book itself is sound: a sturdy hardcover, gold embossed spine, and heavy glossy paper stock. The gorgeous artwork of Tell Hicks’ Rafetus swinhoei pair gracing the front and rear endpapers is icing on the cake. But it becomes apparent as early as the Table of Contents, where the chapters are divided into three unnamed parts (might I suggest Part 1: Trionyx, the Soft-shelled Turtles; Part 2: Rafetus swinhoei, A Species New to Science; and Part 3: Natural History and Conservation), that there is an aimlessness to the journey on which you are about to embark.

In general, this aimlessness manifests itself most prevalently in the book’s layout/design. For example, on any given page paragraphs are set apart from each other by a yawning chasm of space, giving the impression that each paragraph is afloat on the page. Pick up any coffee-table-style book (I just flipped through a stack of five) or text book and you’ll see that an indented first line is enough to do the trick. Admittedly, this is more a preference than a fatal flaw, but it contributes to a second issue whereby the flow of the narrative is further occluded and aggravated by a lack of consistency in editorial conventions. Take, for instance, the haphazard manner in which long passages of quoted material is presented. Instead of following the standard practice of indenting long quotations from the left margin, here long quoted passages (excerpted emails or journal articles) are instead called out from the text with nothing but a pair of quotation marks and, if lucky, a colon for punctuation. When significant chunks of material are quoted over the span of several pages, the reader is left to feel their way blindly through the text to find the change in narrative voice or the end-quotes (Chapters 2 and 6 are repeat offenders on this count). Elsewhere, however, long passages are presented almost like side-bars, as is done with the essay (??) “When Turtles Had Teeth” in Chapter 1, although in some cases purported side-bars (see “History, Mythology, and Biology Come Together”, Chapter 10) bleed back into the text.

Along these same disjunct lines, the list of publications in Chapter 5 (appropriately titled, “A Mass of Confusion”) where Rafetus has been referenced over the years is a jumbled mess, a morass of what-appear-to-be-paragraphs-that-should-be-a-bulleted-list that includes publications that don’t even mention Rafetus after all (!!), while the battery of rare and large turtles described in Chapter 8 are separated by the character set “–ooOoo–” (which I’ve been told is a legacy typesetter’s convention for section breaks) instead of headers or subheaders, which themselves rarely make an appearance.

And then there are the typos – for example: “Was the offending person. [sic] a humble secretary” (p 37); “the special [correction: "species"] of the turtle that lays them” (p 42); “dozens of men waded ino [correction: "into"] the water” (p 116); “a second animal in Dong Ho [correction: "Dong Mo"] Lake” (p 136) – as well as photos absent captions (p 27) and the suite of spacing and formatting gaffes that riddle the pages. Speaking of photo captions, the illustration on page 148 innocuously captioned “The juvenile Rafetus specimen” is surely misplaced and underwhelmingly captioned. By proximity alone, the only mention of a juvenile Rafetus in the surrounding pages is that of the remains of a turtle caught and butchered by a Vietnamese fisherman. In truth, the illustration is none other than a detail taken from an engraving of the original holotype specimen (reproduced below), which first appeared in zoologist John Edward Gray’s 1873 description of Rafetus swinhoei under the synonym Oscaria swinhoei. That alone is a pedigree worth mentioning.

Unfortunately, at times this aimlessness also carries over into the narrative. Between and within chapters, time and space are fluid, jumping back and forth between past and present events. Admittedly, Rafetus swinhoei‘s story is a convoluted one, further complicated by several hundred years of nomenclatural confusion, a full cast of players, and a dearth of data. But it is for that very reason that the reader should expect nothing less from this narrative than for Pritchard to sort the confusion out for us. Instead, occasions for travel are left undated and timelines bend, leaving the reader at best discombobulated.

Retelling the history of the Hoàn Kiếm Lake’s turtles (Chapter 10), for example, Pritchard casually backs into describing the controversy surrounding the efforts to protect the Sword Lake Turtle without tipping his hat that the multiple attempts to capture and treat the turtle took place in 2011, and then “fast foward[s]” to an April 14th, 2011 email from a colleague describing the measurements and health of the individual now in custody. All without actually explaining to the reader that after several failed attempts, the Sword Lake Turtle was eventually captured on April 3rd, treated, and released back into the lake on July 12th. As another example, while describing his trip to the West Garden Buddhist temple in Suzhou (Chapter 11), I can only say for certain that Pritchard’s visit occurred pre-2008 – the year the West Garden Rafetus died.

At other points in the book, the text teeters dangerously on the brink of filler material. Take the dispensable, non-sequiturial Chapter 7 “Museums Old and New”, in which the only two references at all to Rafetus swinhoei appear in the first and last paragraphs of the chapter. Sandwiched between them are four pages that spasm between the nature and flavor of Chinese natural history museums, museum curators and specimen catalogs, the author reflecting on visits to the British Natural History Museum (and other museums) as a youth, museum restoration and revitalization, and Chinese government sponsored biological museum exhibits on AIDS and sexual hygiene. All to say, “I visited the Municipal Museum in Hangzhou, and among the many softshell turtle specimens I examined was a single mislabeled Rafetus swhinoei – Success!”

The twenty-five pages devoted to Chapter 8 “The Rarest and Largest Freshwater Turtle?” either argue or illustrate the point (which camp Pritchard belongs to isn’t outwardly clear) that Rafetus swinhoei is or isn’t the rarest freshwater turtle and the largest freshwater turtle, claims perpetuated in contemporary magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and journal articles. It has always been clear to me that implied in these claims is the unspoken qualifier “…living today”. If they instead meant “…of all time” or “…living or extinct”, that would be a qualification worth spelling out to drive their point home. Pritchard instead muddies the waters by reviewing a bale of extant and extinct turtle species – sprinkled with a tortoise here and there – and waxes academic unnecessarily on the nature of rarity. Yes, there are no shortage of rare turtles and tortoises: some are scarce, some are cryptic, some are extinct. But it seems only natural that the candidate for “rarest turtle” should be the one with the fewest confirmed individuals known in the wild or captivity. For now, there are four Rafetus swinhoei known to exist in the wild and captivity in China and Vietnam. Years of searching for more specimens has turned up nothing but whispers and legends, stories and bones. Unless there is a freshwater turtle lonelier than that, I think Rafetus swinhoei is a shoe-in. And to answer the question about the “largest freshwater turtle”, Pritchard concludes in Chapter 8 that soft-shell turtles of the genus Chitra rank the largest of the freshwater turtles, only to upend that claim in Chapter 10 after reporting that the Hoàn Kiếm turtle in Hanoi, Vietnam – measured following its April 2011 capture – is larger than any Chitra by 3 cm (1 inch).

If I seem frustrated by this book, it is because I am. I want to love this book, and to be honest – despite any criticism I may have about the book’s nuts and bolts or the meandering nature of the narrative – I am still willing to see the forest for the trees. Rafetus: The Curve of Extinction could as easily be a call to arms to protect the world’s rarest freshwater turtle species as much as it is this species’ last will and testament. Pritchard’s work should be commended for accomplishing what no other has done for this lonely turtle. He alone has dedicated years of his life to track down those very same whispers and legends, stories and bones upon which this book was built. If only every species had so stalwart a champion, perhaps there would be fewer species on extinction’s brink.

Presumed Extinct: Address Unknown

LOST SPECIES OF THE BAY AREA

Presumed Extinct: Palo Alto lost thistle, Pitkin Marsh Indian paintbrush

As with the presumed extinct ivory-billed woodpecker reported in Arkansas in 2004, there is always the chance that a long-lost plant or animal will be rediscovered, thanks to persistent searching and luck. That’s true even in a busy metropolitan area like the San Francisco Bay Area. In May 2005, botanist Michael Park stumbled upon a population of Mount Diablo buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum) on the slopes of Mount Diablo. The buckwheat was a  species long thought extinct, last seen in 1936 by UC Berkeley botany graduate student (and later Save Mount Diablo cofounder) Mary Bowerman. 

Spurred by the rediscovery of the buckwheat, it bears asking today which plants and animals endemic to – but presumed extinct in – the San Francisco Bay Area scientists continue to search for in the hope they may still be hanging on by a thread, waiting to be found and protected.

Palo Alto lost thistle (Cirsium praeteriens)

Pitkin Marsh Indian paintbrush (Castilleja uliginosa)

Illustration by Devin Cecil-Wishing

The little that’s known about the Palo Alto lost thistle (Cirsium praeteriens) would fit on a postage stamp. This elusive white-flowered thistle was collected by lawyer and botanist Joseph Whipple Congdon in 1897 and 1901 at a location identified simply as “Palo Alto,” roughly mapped at the present-day site of the Palo Alto post office. “It seems remarkable,” wrote Harvard botanist James Francis Macbride, “that this splendid thistle should have escaped notice so long since it grows at the very door . . . of one of the principal herbaria [Stanford’s Dudley Herbarium] of the Pacific coast.” Since we know nothing about the thistle’s habitat, botanists like California Polytechnic’s David Keil, the de facto expert on the species, don’t know where to begin looking. “I would guess that it would be a wetland species, since a number of the other native thistles occur with their feet wet,” he explains, “[but] I won’t go looking for it because I don’t know where to start. Going into an urban area to find a plant is a real challenge.”

Illustration by Devin Cecil-Wishing

The story of the Pitkin Marsh Indian paintbrush (Castilleja uliginosa) is one fraught with tragedy. It was first collected in 1937 by botanist John Thomas Howell from two freshwater marshes near Sebastopol. At Trembley’s Marsh, the paintbrush plants were reportedly common between 1937 and 1950, but vanished altogether the following year. They persisted longer at Pitkin’s Marsh, but by 1971, only a single plant remained. The marsh was fenced off in 1978, and in 1984 the paintbrush’s rhododendron host plant—paintbrushes live in part by parasitizing other plants—was trimmed to reduce shading on the single remaining paintbrush stem. Four weak stems survived but were soon overtaken by rushes and sedges. These too were trimmed, but February rains in 1986 flooded the marsh, wiping the palette clean of all traces of the Pitkin Marsh Indian paintbrush in the wild (some plants still grow at the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley).

Field Guide to the Lost Species of the Bay Area

SPECIES: Palo Alto lost thistle (Cirsium praeteriens)

LISTING STATUS: CNPS List 1A (presumed extinctin California)

FIRST/LAST RECORDED: 1897/1901

RANGE: known only from Palo Alto in Santa Clara County

HABITAT: unknown

FIELD NOTES: with nothing but “Palo Alto” recorded for the type specimen’s collection location, botanists know nothing about this thistle’s preferred habitat; notes to the effect that the species represents an introduction from the Old World are unsubstantiated and the species is still recognized today as a native California thistle

RESOURCES:

CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants of California, Online Edition, 2007, by the Rare Plant Scientific Advisory Committee, California Native Plant Society

Digitized type specimen at Harvard University Herbarium Index of Botanical Species

Flora of North America, Flora of North America Committee

_______________________________________________

SPECIES: Pitkin Marsh Indian paintbrush (Castilleja uliginosa)

LISTING STATUS: state Endangered; CNPS List 1A (presumed extinct in California)

FIRST/LAST RECORDED:1937/1986

RANGE: Pitkin Marsh, Trembley’s Marsh in Sonoma County

HABITAT: marshy meadows

FIELD NOTES: the Pitkin Marsh Indian paintbrush grows solely in association with rhododendron plants in a type of hemiparasitic relationship; all known plants were reported on private land, which has prevented further surveys to determine if any unrecorded plants have persisted

RESOURCES:

Indian Paintbrush: The Sunset Shades of Castilleja (Bay Nature), by Geoffrey Coffey

CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Plants of California, Online Edition, 2007, by the Rare Plant Scientific Advisory Committee, California Native Plant Society

The account excerpted above was originally featured in the October/December 2007 issue of Bay Nature magazine.

Illustrations by Devin Cecil-Wishing.