Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden

Living Collection

Tim Thibault collecting seeds of Nasella pulchra

Living collections of plants can serve several roles in an integrated, ex-situ (offsite) conservation plan. Living collections are well suited to short- or medium-term housing for plants destined for reintroduction, longer term retention of critically endangered plants and bulking up collections for reintroduction or long-term seed storage. The Living Collection at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic garden fills all three of these roles, frequently in cooperation with other departments. A visitor is most likely to see our efforts involving long-term cultivation of critically endangered plants.

Arctostaphylos hookeri ssp. franciscana, Hooker’s manzanita, is not only critically endangered, it is extinct in the wild. Rancho Santa Ana holds four accessions of A. hookeri ssp. franciscana, ensuring that this plant is not lost and preserving this material for potential reintroduction. Cuttings of all accessions have been sent to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to be grown on and hand pollinated for the Millenium Seed Bank. Similar controlled pollinations will also contribute to our seed bank.

While not extinct in the wild, Cercocarpus traskiae, Catalina mountain-mahogany, is as close as a plant can come with only seven individuals remaining in a single valley on Catalina Island. Rancho Santa Ana holds vegetatively propagated representatives of all seven individuals, as well as an eighth cultivated plant determined to be genetically different from the wild plants by testing performed here at the garden. Maintaining the complete set of known individuals provides the greatest hope for allowing this species to continue on in the wild by keeping the maximum number of management options open.

It should be stressed that the important conservation work must be preservation of plant populations in the wild (in-situ). Living collections can support in-situ conservation through ex-situ projects like those described here and elsewhere.

For more information contact:

Tim Thibault (Curator of the Living Collection)