Life on the Watershed: Serpentine Wildflowers

The annual wildflower bouquets are out on the Peninsula Watershed’s normally sparse serpentine ridges. 

Serpentine is California’s state rock—a gray-greenish rock originating from the earth’s mantle (and closely associated with our fault lines).  Its thin covering of serpentine soil is high in magnesium and iron, but low in plant-nutritious calcium, aluminum, and clay. So most of the year, the plants that do survive there are limited to stubby low-growing native grasses and small herb-like plants. 

But, come spring, it’s home to a multitude of native wildflowers—many of them rare or endangered—that thrive in the harsh conditions so unfavorable to their more common or non-native competitors. 

In fact, the long-protected watershed harbors the highest concentration of rare, threatened and endangered species in the Bay Area. In all, we have over 800 species of plants and trees, 165 species of birds, 50 mammal species, and 30 species of reptiles and amphibians. The place is also a State Fish and Game Refuge.