With April's "Flower of the Month"--Giant Vetch--we are presenting the first of a series of feature articles that look a little closer at Garber Park and its many wildland treasures. We will select a native flower that is prominent in a particular month, that you might easily see from the Loop Trail, and that has ecologic significance both for Garber Park and for wildland on the East Bay ridge in general.
In creating this feature we acknowledge and build upon Kay Loughman's pioneering website, Wildlife in the North Hills, http://www.nhwildlife.net/, where a beautiful catalog of carefully identified wildland species may be found. Kay's work is both inspiration and archive for our new feature, in which we hope to present the individual or community, the species, the context, the range where we know it, and the overall health of the plant.
In considering these several aspects, we wish to explore what we often discover in Garber Park--Garber is vitally related to the larger biologic unity of the remaining wildland in the East Bay. Our task as Stewards is to promote the preservation of the entire expanse by understanding and protecting our local communities.
The Garber Park Stewards
