Our City Forest Joins the iNaturalist Community

At dawn, mist settles low across our arboretum at Martial Cottle Park. Everything is washed in tones of pink and blue as the sun rises to the chorus of the birds. The crepuscular coyote tracks down the gophers and squirrels whose tunnels network through soil where the beetle grubs sleep in tight curls.

Anyone that has spent an extended period of time at our Community Nursery or Urban Forestry Education Center (UFEC) knows that a variety of wildlife can be found living in our gardens and trees. As we expand our gardens and as they mature into their larger forms, we hope to see a growth in biodiversity as well. Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is the variety of life forms in a specific area. The size of this area where biodiversity can be measured varies widely and depends on the needs of the person who is doing the measuring. You can measure the biodiversity found in 1 square foot of soil or an entire ecosystem. In our case, we are trying to measure the biodiversity at our Community Nursery and Urban Forestry Education Center, both of which are approximately 2 acres. And we need your help to document this information through iNaturalist! 

What is iNaturalist?

iNaturalist is a nonprofit social network and database that connects community scientists, naturalists, and other scientists from around the world to document observations of the biological world. These observations are documented through pictures, audio recordings, and data such as an organism’s sex, life stage, your own written notes and details, and much more. The app and website have a multitude of features such as AI assistance in species identification, creating projects for a variety of purposes, and keeping project journals to keep in touch with a project’s community.

iNaturalist has led to the discovery of new species and unprecedented amounts of biodiversity have been discovered in urban environments, such as three researchers who documented over 1,000 species in their home and backyard. Like these researchers, scientists around the world use many observations of the observations uploaded to iNaturalist for their own research and even use iNaturalist as the platform for their projects. This not only allows community members of all backgrounds to participate in the scientific process but also connects people to their environment and to each other. 

While iNaturalist can be used for a wide variety of projects, there are a few things that iNaturalist is not intended for, such as:

• Documenting domestic animals and cultivated plants. There may be some specific exceptions to this rule but these exceptions must have a specific purpose to upload observations of domestics and cultivars. An example would be that you are creating a project intended to document and study interactions between domestic animals or cultivated plants and wildlife.

• Observations of humans. iNaturalist is not intended for uploading pictures of people.

• Abiotic observations. iNaturalist is made for documenting and observing living organisms (biotic), not the abiotic sphere which includes things such as rocks and minerals. Abiotic observations can be noted and pictured when it is relevant to the context of the organism that is being focused on. For example, if you are documenting a California Poppy and you observe that it is growing in serpentine soil, that is very important key information that tells us a lot about that plant and its natural history.

Image sourced from U.S Forest Service

Our City Forest’s Projects

As of March 2024, our two new projects already have 122 documented species between our Community Nursery and Education Center, including:

• Coyotes (Canis latrans)

• California Ground Squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi)

• Fence lizards (Sceloporus undulatus)

• Pacific Gopher snakes (Pituophis catenifer catenifer)

• Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna)

• Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias)

• Great Egret (Ardea Alba)

• Paradise Jumping spiders (Habronattus sp.)

• Wolf spiders (family Lycosidae)

• Bird’s Nest Fungi (family Nidulariaceae)

Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias). Image sourced from Great Ecology.

Common Bird’s Nest Fungus (Crucibulum laeve). © randomtruth, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA)

What is a BioBlitz?

A BioBlitz is a community effort to document and identify species diversity in a specific location and sometimes within a certain time period such as a single event that takes place over a few hours. These events are held around the world by community leaders, non-profits, and other institutions.

A BioBlitz hosted by Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful. Image sourced from Open Space Authority.

Currently, we have two BioBlitz projects, one at our Community Nursery and the other at our Urban Forestry Education Center. These projects are location bound, but not time bound meaning that any observation recorded within our plots at any point in time will automatically be added to our projects page. In the future, we may host BioBlitz events to more intensively document the biodiversity at our plots but for the moment anyone can visit either our Nursery and Education Center during open hours and make observations.

BioBlitz at Our City Forest's Community Nursery

The goal of this project is to document the wildlife that comes to our various gardens, specifically pollinators and birds. While a large amount of the trees and shrubs that are at our nursery get sold and taken to a new home, our nursery also has a collection of permanent gardens that feature primarily California native plants as well as some non-native drought tolerant species we hope will attract more wild pollinators and not just our own bees from our hives.

BioBlitz at Our City Forest's Urban Forestry Education Center

The long-term vision for our Education Center is to create more demonstration and education-based gardens such as a native pocket forest and plant an understory in our arboretum. Our arboretum features many species of trees, both native and non-native, and in 20 years when they have all matured the arboretum will be mostly shaded. At the moment, the spaces in between the trees are taken over every year by fast growing invasive grasses that reproduce before we have the chance to remove them. Our goal is to plant more native shrubs, grasses, perennials, and annuals that can outcompete these invasive weeds and provide a wealth of diversity that will attract wildlife such as pollinators, songbirds, raptors, and reptiles as well as non-animal species such as lichens and fungi! As we move towards this goal and our gardens expand and mature, we want to document the biodiversity and hopefully see an increase in the amount of species we encounter.

How Can I Learn More About iNaturalist?

If you have never used iNaturalist, you can download the app onto your phone. While the app is great for uploading observations on the go, the website is best for navigating projects, discovering new observations, making identifications for other users, reading journals, reading species profiles, and much more!

For more in-depth information, we highly recommend the iNaturalist trainings created by our community partner Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful (KCCB). KCCB hosts regular webinars about iNaturalist as well as Naturalist Trainings for community members and naturalists looking to continue learning about the natural world. They also host monthly BioBlitz events for those who want to get out into nature!

Recorded iNaturalist Trainings:

7/19/23: Naturalist Training - Community Science & Introduction to iNaturalist

8/23/23: A Deeper Dive into iNaturalist webinar

Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful BioBlitz at Alum Rock Park. Image sourced from Open Space Authority.

Aromatic Shrubs

Here at Our City Forest (OCF) we love all kinds of plants. But those of us on the Lawn Busters team especially love shrubs. Our Community Nursery has tons of drought-tolerant and California native shrubs that can be used for lawn conversions. Today on the blog we will learn about a select few of them: some aromatic shrubs that smell heavenly and have some cool history behind them! And, you can cook with most of these too!

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• Artemisia Californica. Common name: California sagebrush.

  While this plant is called “sagebrush” it is not actually a true sage. In fact, it is in the Asteraceae, or daisy, family. It can grow up to approximately 4 ft wide and 4 ft tall. This shrub is native to California and exists across western North America, as it belongs in a coastal habitat. It can easily be spotted whilst hiking right here in the Silicon Valley! The stems are thin, with needle-like but supple leaves. The leaves are a lovely silvery-green color, up to 4 inches long, and pinnately arranged. According to the USDA online plant guide, California Sagebrush was used by indigenous people for numerous medicinal purposes, such as toothaches, asthma treatment, menstrual pains, to ease childbirth, and for bathing in when one had a cold or cough. Additionally, it is historically known as “Cowboys’ Cologne” because cowboys used to ride through large amounts of it on their journeys, brush up against it, and come home smelling of it.

• Lavadula. This is a lavender plant! The genus lavandula has 47 species within it. At the OCF Community Nursery we have three of these species:  French (dentata), English (angustifolia), and Spanish (stoechas ‘anouk’). They all belong to the family Lamiacea, which is the mint and sage family. Depending on the exact species this plant varies from 1-3 ft tall and 1-3 ft wide. It is native to the Mediterranean. Lavender has been used historically for thousands of years, and for an immense number of purposes. In ancient Egypt, it was used in the mummification process. It has also been claimed to be a romance charm, as noted in stories involving Cleopatra and other famous faces. In Ancient Rome it was used to scent bathhouses, and in Elizabethan times it freshly scented clothes and bedding as bathing was not a daily thing yet. It was often used for and associated with cleanliness, the very name “lavender” comes from the Latin verb lavare which means “to wash”. Even today, it is still utilized as a scent for many household products such as laundry detergent. In addition, lavender is said to be very soothing. It has traditionally been dubbed a treatment for insomnia, headaches, hyperactivity, sore joints, toothaches, and to ward off disease. Currently it is popular in essential oil form to diffuse, also with the goal of promoting sleep and calm. The enchanting tales and quirky anecdotes involving lavender go on and on, but one thing we can all agree on is that it smells absolutely divine! 

• Rosmarinus officinalis aka Salvia rosmarinus (the name was changed in 2017). At our Community Nursery we have two different cultivars, ‘prostratus’ which is the creeping kind as well as ‘tuscan blue’ which is upright. This plant is also from the Lamiaceae family. It is native to the Mediterranean, Portugal, Northwest Spain, and Asia and likes to grow in dry scrub and rocky places, especially near the sea. This plant is woody, evergreen, and has needle-like leaves that are long and narrow with dense, short, woolly hair.  It has flowers that are often a pale blue color - but can also be white, pink, purple, or deep blue. These flowers bloom in the springtime, but bloom time can vary a bit based on the exact climate the plant resides in. Sometimes it will bloom as late as November, or as early as February. Pollinators very much like the creeping kind, but will be attracted to either. In terms of size, the upright forms can reach 1.5 m (5 ft) tall, while the creeping kind can get up to 6 ft wide! Something quite interesting about rosemary is that the seeds have a low germination rate and growth is relatively slow, but rosmarinus can live as long as 30 years. Rosemary was used all the way back in 500 BC, for culinary and medicinal purposes by both the Greeks and Romans. It has also been used by various other cultures to treat headaches for centuries. During the Middle Ages, it was thought to have the power to dispel negativity, as such it was tucked under pillowcases to ward off bad dreams and used to cleanse sacred spaces by burning it. It is even being studied right now for its potential anti-cancer effects and the ability to treat Alzheimers.

• Salvia. This is a sage plant. The genus salvia contains nearly 1,000 species! All sage is aromatic to varying degrees. At our Community Nursery we have many species of sage: ‘Frankie Lee’, apiana, brandegeei, leucophylla, clevelandii, mellifera, microphylla, officinalis (a culinary sage), spathacea, and uliginosa. We even have multiple cultivars of some of these species available, so there are about 14 to choose from at OCF! Sage is also of the family Lamiaceae. Much like the other plants in this family, salvia has been around for a long time and is historically praised for its medicinal and culinary benefits. It is closely linked to indigenous tribes; as food, medicine, in spiritual practice (ie. the psychoactive salvia divinorum), and for smudging (ie. white sage, salvia apiana). Personally I really like the scent of Salvia spathacea, which is commonly known as Hummingbird Sage. As the name implies, hummingbirds really like this one too! This particular sage grows up to 2 ft tall and 3 ft wide; however, other species can be much larger, reaching up to 10 ft tall and 15 ft wide. The Hummingbird Sage is native and endemic to California. It prefers low elevations near the coast.

• Tulbaghia violacea, commonly known as Society Garlic. Our nursery has a regular version and a variegated version, distinguished under the cultivar name ‘silver lace’. The term “variegation” refers to color zonation in the leaves of this plant. As the name suggests, they are lighter and a more silvery-green compared to their counterpart. This shrub belongs to the family Amaryllidaceae, often referred to as the Amaryllis family. It is native to Southern Africa. Society Garlic can grow up to 2 ft tall and 2 ft wide. The flowers are a lovely lilac-pink color when in bloom. The leaves are very thin and long, similar to a grass. This wild garlic has similar antibacterial and antifungal effects of traditional garlic, and likewise is good for the digestive system. Recently it was discovered to have potential anti-cancer properties in vitro, and it is said to be a treatment for throat cancer. The Zulu people who reside in the plants' native South Africa are said to use the leaves/flowers as a food seasoning, the bulb as an aphrodisiac, and to plant it around their homes as a snake-repellent.

• Coleonema pulchellum ‘Sunset Gold’ aka Golden Breath of Heaven. It is from the family Rutaceae, commonly known as the Rue or Citrus family. An evergreen shrub that grows up to 2 ft tall and 6 ft wide. It has tiny pink flowers when in bloom and soft needle-like foliage. This plant is originally from South Africa, and prefers climates that are warm and arid with some rainfall in the winter season. An interesting anecdote, Coleonema comes from the Greek word koleos which means 'a sheath', and nema meaning 'a thread or filament'. Pulchellum represents 'pretty' in Latin. So it is basically a ‘pretty needle holder’. Essential oils can be extracted from the plant and used as a bug repellent.