Rare Habitats
Rare Natural Communities & Rare and Endangered Plants
While people connect quite easily with the famous recovery of the American bald eagle, California elephant seal or other endangered wildlife, they may be less aware of the wildflowers underfoot or the subtly fragrant shrublands along the trail. Due to San Francisco's unique geology, extent of urban development, and biogeographic isolation, the city harbors rare and fragile, and yet diverse, native plant communities.
Among the dozen or so plant communities in the city – which harbor between 350 and 400 species of native plants - Serpentine grasslands, coastal dune scrub, wetlands, and maritime chapparal all have unique local expressions in the city's watersheds, and all provide very important local habitats for native wildlife and plants, many of which are locally rare (those that may occur elsewhere in abundance, but due to urbanization, are on the verge of extirpation in San Francisco).
These “special ecological areas” harbor 20 rare and endangered plant species. Most of these endangered members of the San Francisco flora grow nowhere else but here in the Bay Area, and some only in the City itself! The Presidio's watersheds harbor 5 federally-listed endangered plant species in their dunes and serpentine soils. San Francisco is truly an ecological refuge for these rare plants that need our very special micro-habitats to survive, and which are vital members of our City's biological diversity.
Take a tour of the rare plants of San Francisco!