In October 2009, a rare manzanita was found growing near the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Arctostaphylos franciscana was previously believed to be extinct in the wild, until a botanist drove by this lone specimen while coming home from Sonoma.

At the same time that this rare manzanita was being rediscovered, I was planting a wildlife garden in the Richmond hills. The two sisters who live on the property were very keen on their new garden, and determined to learn about the many native plants we’d introduced, which included a good sampling of various manzanitas.

One day, when I arrived for a garden visit, these excited clients greeted me with a newspaper clipping about the recent discovery of the single San Francisco manzanita. I had been following the news, as it introduced a provocative new chapter in the story of this rare manzanita, one that I’d previously come to know through tales of near-extinction, bold rescue missions, and botanic garden preservation.

No longer only a cultivated relic, here was a San Francisco manzanita that had secretly grown and flourished alongside a freeway! I was thrilled that the news meant something to them- they were nurturing both their garden and a growing awareness of native plants around them. To me, gardens are natural places for people to connect to the larger environment, to discover and rediscover the seasons, the growth, the birds and insects, the vital greens and brown, sounds and mystery, poetry, feel and smell, and embedded rhythms and reasons. When I came to their garden the next time, I planted a special plant alongside my clients’ garden’s path: a San Francisco manzanita.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Arctostaphylos franciscana was documented and named by Alice Eastwood, a curator for the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. In her tenure, she not only collected specimens of the plant for the Academy, but after the 1906 earthquake, she climbed a banister into the ruined Academy building and salvaged over a thousand plant specimens- including the San Francisco manzanita- before the building went up in flames!

The species persisted in their native habitat on the edges of the Laurel Hill Cemetery into the 1940’s. In 1947, however, developers moved in, the graves were moved, and the last known Franciscan manzanitas were bulldozed.

Jim Roof, who was then director of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, boldly took cuttings from the manzanitas before their destruction, and those cuttings begot two plants that have lived in the Botanic Garden ever since. My clients’ new Franciscan manzanita came from cuttings from those Botanic Garden plants.

Daniel Glusenkamp, the botanist who rediscovered the manzanita, later said:

“If you save someone’s life you are responsible for them. I feel that responsibility for the San Francisco manzanita… The special thing about this plant is that it is a natural plant, born of a seed that fell on the ground and germinated and has grown ever since. Our measure of success for this opportunity isn’t saving this individual plant, but saving this phenomenon.”

What does your garden connect you with?

For more info and recent update on the manzanita: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june11/pledge_03-14.html
http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/science-on-the-spot-restoring-san-franciscos-lost-manzanita/