Environment

Rare Plant At Risk of Extinction in San Diego County

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published August 26, 2009 at 1:55 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

An environmental group says a federal agency plans to propose setting aside land to protect an endangered plant that grows in San Diego County. But the group says it's not enough to prevent the extinction of the "San Diego ambrosia."

The San Diego ambrosia is a blue-gray herb that grows on flat or gently-sloping grasslands and on upper terraces of rivers and drainages. Clusters of tiny, light-yellow flowers on the plant bloom summer through fall.

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Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the plant only exists in San Diego and Riverside Counties and Baja California.

"For that alone it's part of our natural heritage that through millions of years of evolution that this plant has endured and continued to reproduce successfully," Anderson said.

Anderson said a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to set aside 802 acres in San Diego and Riverside Counties is a good start.

But she said that may not be enough to save the plant from extinction.

Anderson also said the San Diego ambrosia has been eliminated in many areas by urban growth.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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