Join Don Thomas of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter and members of the Yerba Buena Chapter for our fall fountain thistle habitat restoration work party near the intersection of I-280 and Hwy. 92. We’ll meet on Sunday, November 10 and work from 10am to noon.

Fountain thistle (Cirsium fontinale var. fontinale) is a federally endangered plant species that grows in an unusual specialized habitat, serpentine seeps, and is only found at our work location and in a few other nearby locations on the Peninsula.

Fountain thistle’s recovery here is a restoration success story. Once almost completely displaced by jubatagrass (Andean pampas grass), it has largely recovered here, as a resultoftheworkdonebyCNPSvolunteers. TheCNPS

project is a cooperative of our Santa Clara Valley and Yerba Buena Chapters. However, fountain thistle is still under threat from invasion by new jubatagrass seedlings and by other non-native plants such as bristly ox-tongue (Helminthotheca echioides). It’s also threatened by native woody plants such as coyote brush, which threaten to convert the area to shrubland or woodland.

During our work, we expect to see some end-of-season wildflowers, such as Western goldenrod (Euthamia occidentalis).