{"id":3987,"date":"2020-03-06T14:47:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T22:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/?p=3987"},"modified":"2023-01-06T09:03:56","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T17:03:56","slug":"endangered-sphaerocarpos-drewei-discovered-palomar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/endangered-sphaerocarpos-drewei-discovered-palomar\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny plant on campus turns out to be a big find"},"content":{"rendered":"

A biology student with a keen eye spotted the rare bottlewort growing near Palomar\u2019s arboretum, and a retired professor recently identified the plants as a critically endangered species.<\/p>\n

SAN MARCOS \u2014 Clumped beside a footpath on the outskirts of the Edwin & Frances Hunter Arboretum at Palomar College, the little plants went unobserved for decades by those who hiked through the native coastal sage scrub overlooking the campus.<\/p>\n

Then, one day in March 2019, a biology student named Isabelle Massaro stooped and found them\u2014bright clumps of Sphaerocarpos drewei<\/em>, or S. drewei<\/em> for short, each colony no bigger than a pencil eraser.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a favorite patch of moss in the arboretum and this bottlewort happens to be right nearby,\u201d Massaro recalled. \u201cThe first time I saw it, it didn\u2019t look like anything I\u2019d seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beth Pearson, a biology professor at Palomar and one of Massaro\u2019s teachers, was the first to hear about the find, which the two women identified as some kind of bottlewort.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I knew why I\u2019d never seen it before, because you really have to be on your hands and knees,\u201d recalled Pearson. \u201cIsabelle\u2019s got an eye for that sort of thing. She was always poking around in the arboretum and elsewhere, taking samples and sending me pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re outside looking at all these different mosses and you see something new, it\u2019s really exciting,\u201d said Massaro.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photos courtesy of Wayne Armstrong.<\/p><\/div>\n

Pearson said she was equally thrilled, but she \u201chad no idea what this was, no idea how to identify it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enter retired biology professor Wayne Armstrong, who remains active as a researcher, and maintains an extensive online database known as Wayne\u2019s Word<\/a>. (Armstrong\u2019s documentation of S. drewei is available here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since Beth showed me the bottlewort in the arboretum I have been obsessed with its correct ID,\u201d he wrote in an email. Armstrong had his hunches, but \u201cnever felt 100 percent certain because I could not see the detail of (the plant\u2019s spores) with my equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Feb. 29, a Saturday evening, Armstrong set up his compound microscope with targeted lighting and finally saw the detail he\u2019d been missing.<\/p>\n

He wrote that S. drewei<\/em> is classified by the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) as 1B.1\u2014\u201ca rare, seriously endangered little plant indeed. Hopefully, its location on Palomar property will ensure its survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pearson said the little plant is the biggest botanical find on Palomar\u2019s 200-acre campus in the 22 years she\u2019s been here.<\/p>\n

In broader terms, she said, \u201cWe\u2019re still not sure how big of a deal it is. I think because they\u2019re so small, they\u2019re not observed very often. I don\u2019t know how many records there have been of this plant in San Diego County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Called \u201cbottleworts\u201d for the shape of the individual plants\u2014which are the size of a pin\u2019s head\u2014S. drewei<\/em> is biologically similar to some mosses and grows in the shade of Southern California\u2019s native habitat.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoastal sage scrub, in general, is an endangered habitat,\u201d said Pearson. \u201cThis is an underappreciated plant, because it\u2019s so small people have to know what they\u2019re looking for, and go out with a magnifying glass to find it. But just because it\u2019s small doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s unimportant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe little things always fascinated me,\u201d said Massaro. \u201cIt probably hasn\u2019t sunk in entirely that we\u2019ve found an endangered species.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A biology student with a keen eye spotted the rare bottlewort growing near Palomar\u2019s arboretum, and a retired professor recently identified the plants as a critically endangered species. SAN MARCOS \u2014 Clumped beside a footpath on the outskirts of the Edwin & Frances Hunter Arboretum at Palomar College, the little plants went unobserved for decades… \u00a0Continue Reading: Tiny plant on campus turns out to be a big find<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10413,"featured_media":3990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,23,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carousel","category-features","category-home","category-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTiny plant on campus turns out to be a big find - Palomar News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/endangered-sphaerocarpos-drewei-discovered-palomar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tiny plant on campus turns out to be a big find - Palomar News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A biology student with a keen eye spotted the rare bottlewort growing near Palomar\u2019s arboretum, and a retired professor recently identified the plants as a critically endangered species. 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