Letters frickin' work, man. I strive to pen something to someone about some transgression on our Mother Earth every day. Usually only takes a brief moment of research to figure out who's in charge and who can make shit happen. When gov't agencies receive a written letter, some count it as at least 10 other people's opinion, so one letter can mean a project gets prioritized over others. Time & time again I get positive reinforcement like this that shows that state agencies actually need citizen input for their decision making. This heavily used trail local to me overlooking epic ocean beauty has not been adequately maintained for decades had a literal creek running down it all winter & people have been trampling through the woods along the edges to avoid the muck, squashing rare orchids and mushrooms, making the trail over 20' wide and now several new trails off on the edges. I wrote to people in charge of the resource & got this back: "The trails leading from the Parking lot to the beach are actually slated as a project for Spring 2024. Our trail crew needs to wait for the weather to become a bit more dry and less frequent with rain. Once the weather has improved, the work will start. They are waiting so that the improvements they make can be more permanent with their install, but you'll see them out there working very soon!
A suspected plant-trafficking kingpin, Diana Mashiku (29) from Tanzania, and her three Namibian co-accused are scheduled to apply for bail on Thursday in the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court....
For #TreeTuesday some rare Torrey Pine trees, together with blooming California Buckwheat, in morning fog. These trees, Pinus torreyana, only grow here in San Diego, California (and a subspecies "insularis" on Santa Rosa Island of the Channel Islands National Park). They are also very photogenic I think, and in particular in fog of course. :)
Many Downingia cuspidata (Toothed Downingia) blooming in a vernal pool, with some white popcorn flowers and the long, thin leaves of Orcutt's Brodiaea. San Diego, California; April 2023.
For a plant nerd like me, in California, the CalFlora database at https://www.calflora.org/ is an absolutely invaluable tool.
I don't think they're on Mastodon and they're raising funds right now to continue their operation, so I hope it's okay to share this here (there's a little "Donate" button on their home page) with any other plant nerds. 😄
And here's a photo of Lyrocarpa coulteri aka Coulter's Lyrepod (click & see alt-text!).
Namibia: bail hearing in rare-plant poaching case (www.namibian.com.na)
A suspected plant-trafficking kingpin, Diana Mashiku (29) from Tanzania, and her three Namibian co-accused are scheduled to apply for bail on Thursday in the Opuwo Magistrate’s Court....