2026 November 19 – The Quarter Century Treasure Hunt: Rare Plant Surveys on the Old Irvine Ranch Lands
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. | Presentation begins at 7 p.m.
Duck Club at the San Joaquin Marsh
Join us in person or via Zoom. Register for Zoom Meeting Description Orange County Parks and the City of Irvine manage some of the county’s most biologically important landscapes, encompassing approximately 37,000 acres in the Lomas de Santiago, Santa Ana Mountains, and San Joaquin Hills.During the 1980s and 1990s, the future of much of this land was uncertain. These landscapes could become a vast open space network or give way to housing tracts, commercial developments, and prisons. Eventually, much of the land was conserved.Fred Roberts had the rare opportunity to contribute to that conservation effort and conduct botanical surveys across nearly 24,000 acres, with a particular focus on rare plants. His surveys were conducted under the direction of The Nature Conservancy, Irvine Ranch Conservancy, and Nature Reserve of Orange County.Join Fred for a window into his quarter century of rare plant exploration on the old Irvine Ranch lands, from 1999 to 2023. Through stories of his discoveries and the adventures that accompanied them, he will introduce us to the diversity, beauty, and significance of these places.
Along the way, we’ll meet intermediate mariposa lily (Calochortus weedii var. intermedius), Catalina mariposa lily (Calochortus catalinae), many-stemmed dudleya (Dudleya multicaulis), California copperleaf (Acalypha californica), chaparral nolina (Nolina cismontana), and Arizona cottonrose (Logfia arizonica). Fred will also reflect on his early contributions to the conservation efforts that helped preserve these lands.
Annual chapter voting for members will take place at the beginning of the meeting.
Presenter Bio
Fred Roberts has been working with native plants since high school. He is the author of Illustrated Guide to the Oaks of the Southern Californian Floristic Province (1995) and Vascular Plants of Orange County (2008), and co-author of Wildflowers of Orange County and the Santa Ana Mountains Regions (2013).
Fred served as assistant curator of the herbarium at UC Irvine’s Museum of Systematic Biology and as a botanist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where his work focused on adding species to the endangered species list. He has spent the past 25 years as an independent botanical consultant, author, and artist.
Since 1999, Fred has served as rare plant chair or as a member of the Orange County CNPS Rare Plant Team, following an earlier stint in the 1980s. His specialties include the flora of Orange County, oaks, lilies and their relatives, and rare plants of Southern California. He also creates botanical artwork for his books, prints, and T-shirts.