California's Fading Wildflowers: Lost Legacy and Biological Invasions Book

The title of Richard Minnich's book might suggest a scientific treatise on botany. Actually it's more of a history focusing on California's changing natural environment. One need not be a biologist to appreciate this book, but it does presuppose some familiarity with California's flora on the part of the reader.

California's Fading Wildflowers: Lost Legacy and Biological Invasion begins with the earliest Spanish explorers. Ascertaining the pre-Hispanic herbaceous vegetation is no easy task due to the imprecise and unscientific language used in the descriptions. The mandate from the viceroy of Mexico was to note the resources in the newly discovered lands such as pasture, fuel and timber. The imprecise Spanish words most frequently used were pasto and zacate. Minnich argues that these terms have been misinterpreted when translated as simply grasslands, and refutes the hypothesis that California's pre-Hispanic vegetation consisted primarily of bunch-grass.

I found some interesting details in Minnich's book. For example, the early explorers encountered pronghorn antelope as far south as San Diego. There were even a couple mentions of wolves no longer found in the state. The cattle introduced by the Spaniards became wild. When a ship docked on the coast seeking hides and tallow, the cattle had to be hunted down much like deer or elk. I was also surprised that the horse thievery by Indians was mostly for food, although one reference mentions Indians riding horses as early as 1815.

In regards to the invasion of alien plants, mission bricks were used to glean information about how early certain invasive species were found. Adobe bricks that were dissolved in water left plant material to study. The earliest alien plants were mostly filaree, black mustard and wild oats followed by bromes (grasses). I was a little disappointed that some other commonly seen invasive plants in southern California such as tree tobacco (South America), castor bean (Africa) and horehound (Europe) were not mentioned at all. Minnich did briefly mention the Peruvian pepper tree that is said to have been first planted by one of the padres in 1830. The tree has been around so long that it's sometimes called the Californian pepper tree. However, Minnich mistakenly gave the location of the first pepper tree as San Juan Capistrano rather than the Mission San Luis Rey.(less)
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