March Speaker Series: Discovering Mono County Plants - Milo Baker Chapter

March 18, 2025, 7:30pm
Luther Burbank Art and Garden Center, 2050 Yulupa Ave, Santa Rosa

Zoom link to this presentation: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81066682128

Ann with a baby bristlecone pine, likely twice as old as she is.

Abstract: Ann Howald, retired botanist, will take us on a visual field trip through many of Mono County’s most interesting locales for plants, including: the Bodie Hills, the Dana Plateau, the Mono Lake Basin, the White Mountains, and more. These areas have spectacular landscapes as well as rare and interesting plants. Ann will show us the alpine flora of the Dana Plateau, bristlecone pines on the dolomite barrens of the White Mountains, “Mojave” wildflowers of remote Fish Lake Valley, and much more.

Bio: Ann Howald had a long career as a biology and botany teacher, a plant ecologist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and a field botanist who conducted rare plant surveys in many parts of California. She has a B.A. in Zoology and an M.A. in Botany from UC Santa Barbara. She has a special interest in protecting California’s flora from weeds, and was a founding member of the California Invasive Plant Council. She currently spends most of May through October in Mono County, studying plants, pulling weeds, and leading field trips for the Bristlecone Chapter of CNPS. In 2024 she co-taught with Tim Messick a 4-day Jepson Herbarium workshop in the Bodie Hills. She is a long-term member of the Milo Baker Chapter of CNPS, and has led field trips for the chapter for many years. She first joined CNPS in 1975 as a charter member of the Channel Islands Chapter.

Ann’s interest in the flora of Mono County goes back many years. In 1979, during a floristic inventory of a University of California natural reserve on Convict Creek, she rediscovered a plant thought at the time to be extinct in California – scallop-leaved lousewort (Pedicularis crenulata). She has returned to Mono County on plant expeditions every year since then. Her current project is an inventory of all the plant species known from Mono County. More than ten years of field work and extensive research at many herbaria will result in a book on Mono County plants, currently in its second draft.

Milo Baker Chapter General Meetings and Speaker Series are held on the third Tuesday of each month (except for July, August, and December) at 7:30p.m. Meetings are held at the Luther Burbank Art and Garden Center, 2050 Yulupa Ave, Santa Rosa, or via Zoom.