Education

The Santa Clara Valley Chapter promotes awareness and appreciation of native plants through a variety of educational activities.

• Talks, lectures, classes, and workshops
• Native Plant ID (formerly Keying With Natives)
• Annual scholarships
• A variety of books on native plants in the wild and in the garden

2026 CNPS Conference Scholarships Available

Every three years, the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) organizes the largest native plant conference in California, uniting the native plant community along with the various disciplines and perspectives that shape it. The sessions encompass a wide range of subjects, while special events allow for collaboration, networking, and a celebration of California's wonderfully diverse flora. Historically, the conference has attracted over 1,000 participants, including both professional and amateur botanists, biologists, ecologists, conservationists, architects, landscaping experts, nursery managers, educators, researchers, outdoor enthusiasts, culture keepers, and many others.  This year the conference will be held in downtown Riverside, from February 5-7, 2026.  For further details about the conference, visit:https://conference.cnps.org/

The Santa Clara Valley Chapter of CNPS is providing several scholarships for eligible local students to attend the conference. These scholarships will cover the registration fee and offer a travel and lodging stipend of $750. However, the scholarships do not include costs for field trips and workshops that occur outside the main conference. The scholarships are available to college students who are attending a college in our chapter area (Santa Clara County and southern San Mateo County). Preference will be given to those students who are presenting a poster or giving a talk at the conference.  The application can be found at:https://forms.gle/7ZW9RpUVuear5JFAA.  The deadline for applications is November 28,^, 2025, and the awardees will be notified in mid-December. 

Community College Scholarship

In 2021, the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS SCV) established a Horticulture Scholarship Program to support a local student pursuing a horticultural career with a focus on California native plants. This $1,500 scholarship has been broadened to support students who show a commitment to their studies in one of the following fields: native plant horticulture, native plant ecology, native habitat or park management. The student should have a goal of working in a field with a focus on native plants or their habitat, and should have already taken, or plan to take a course that is dedicated to or includes substantial information about native plants before completion of their degree. The recipient of the scholarship will also receive a complimentary membership to the California Native Plant Society.

Requirements to Apply

• Must be a community college student whose primary residence is in San Mateo or Santa Clara County and/or is attending a community college in one of these counties
• Demonstrated a goal of furthering native plant ecosystems or native plant horticulture and has already taken or has a plan to take before completion of their degree, a course in native plant horticulture or ecology. 
• A minimum cumulative 2.5 Grade Point Average (GPA).
• Two letters of recommendation: these can be from the department director, an academic teacher or another related (program, organization, company) leader.

The recipient of the scholarship should be willing to meet with representatives from the CNPS SCV chapter to learn ways to connect with the group and use group activities to enhance their career path. The recipient will also be asked to attend one CNPS chapter program to introduce themself or record a short video or contribute a short article of introduction in the chapter newsletter, The Blazing Star. 

Application Process 

• Fill out application form here: https://cnps-scv.org/cc-scholarship-application
• Application deadline is March 15, 2025.
• Send a sealed official transcript from your college or high school (copies or unsealed transcript not accepted) to the address below, and
• Original sealed letters of recommendations should be sent directly to the address below and postmarked by March 15, 2025:

CNPS Santa Clara Valley Chapter
Attn: Community College Scholarship
3921 East Bayshore Road, Suite 205
Palo Alto, CA 94303

If you have any questions about the scholarship, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Donors

If you would like to contribute to the Community College Scholarship Fund, a check written to “CNPS”, with a notation of “Community College Scholarship” may be mailed to the address below. Company matching programs are welcome.

The Treasurer, CNPS Santa Clara Valley Chapter
3921 E. Bayshore Road, Suite 205
Palo Alto, CA 94303

Resources

What's in Bloom?

• You can call the Theodore Payne Foundation Wildflower Hotline at 818-768-3533 or  https://theodorepayne.org/learn/wildflower-hotline/
• Desert Wildflower Watch http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/ca.html
• For what is in bloom at Tilden Park Botanical Garden
• If you are looking for mushrooms

Native Plants

• California Native Plant Society (CNPS)
• CalFlora Database. This database contains geographic and ecological distribution information for California vascular plant taxa, as well as additional habitat information for rare taxa and species of the Sierra Nevada. It was compiled from two major sources, an electronic transcription of distribution and lifeform data from A California Flora and Supplement (Munz 1959 and 1968) and the CNPS Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California (Skinner and Pavlick 1994, electronic version).
• Cal Academy California Wildflowers and photos (no longer maintained)
• Almaden Quicksilver County Park Wildflowers. Charles T. Rettner has put together a collection of some of the flowers to look out for. You can begin by picking a color, then chose from the list of flowers on the individual color pages. Clicking on the thumbnail of a given flower will link you to a page about that flower. Alternatively, you can go to the list of Almaden wildflowers.
• California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB) is a "natural heritage program." It provides location and natural history information on special status plants, animals, and natural communities. 
• CalPhotos Plants CalPhotos has been on the web since 1995 and was one of the first online image databases specializing in natural history subjects.
•  Native Plants of Montara Mountain
•  Native Habitats (Georgia Stigall)
•  Native Plants Journal. Information about planting and growing North American (Canada, Mexico, and the United States) native plants for conservation, restoration, reforestation, landscaping, highway corridors, and related uses. A cooperative effort of the USDA Forest Service and the University of Idaho. Subscription required.

Horticulture

• Gardening With Natives email group
• Growing Natives Garden Tour (http://gngt.org/)
• Calscape (http://calscape.org/) - Comprehensive California native plant gardening database - from CNPS
• California Native Plant Link Exchange (http://www.cnplx.info/). Find sources of plants or seeds, wholesale or retail, for many, many California native plants.

Invasive Plant Control

•  California Invasive Plant Council
• CDFA Integrated Pest Control Branch: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/ipc/

Botany/Herbariums

• Carl Sharsmith Herbarium, San Jose State University.
• California Academy of Sciences: Botany Collections (Herbarium), Botany Department
• Oakmead Herbarium, Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford

Other Resources

• California Native Grasslands Association (http://www.cnga.org/index.php)
• Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregional Council (http://www.scmbc.net) SCMBC is a biodiversity planning and conservation group for the Santa Cruz Mountains bioregion.
• The Natural Resources Database (nrdb.org) is an inventory of plant and animal resources on open space and natural preserves in the San Francisco Bay Area. a compilation of observations of flora and fauna made at open space and nature preserves in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The database can be searched for available data on flora, mammals, birds, and reptiles-amphibians-fishes seen at one or more preserves. The database was designed and implemented by Dennis H. Smith, who maintains the data. Bill Korbholz adapted the database for Internet use and designed and implemented the web interface.
• San Francisco Bay Area EcoAtlas. Produced by the San Francisco Estuary Institute, this site has great maps of historic or potential vegetation around the bay, an extensive article on introduced plants in the baylands, and also a 1990s survey of fish in most of the streams that drain to the San Francisco Bay.
• EcoNet serves organizations and individuals working for environmental preservation and sustainability. 
• Common Ground Environmental Videos

The sites on this page have been recommended by chapter members. Many additional resources are available at cnps.org