These pages initially began in 1996-1997 solely as a detailed record of the evolution of the Main Vernal Pools on the Mesa de Colorado. The 1997-1998 bloom was so spectacular that I began to record some notes about the flowers along the Vernal Pool Trail, as well as other observations of trail conditions, etc. In 1998-1999, the pools never existed, so I began to record the flowers along all the trails I hiked, as well as general conditions at the SRP. In 1999-2000 I, along with Jane Strong, began a new page solely devoted to the flowers. In 2001, I accidentally started becoming a botanist, stimulated by the flowers of the SRP. In 2005 and 2006, aided by Kay Madore, I devoted my efforts full-time to compiling a current professional flora for the trails of the Santa Rosa Plateau.
Hence these pages now contain:
- detailed records of the plant bloom at the SRP;
- general trail conditions and other such observations;
- a detailed record of conditions at the Main Vernal Pool;
- detailed plant trail guides to almost every public trail of the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve; and
- an updated Flora of the Santa Rosa Plateau.
I have learned a great deal since 1996, and went from being someone who knew very little about plants and other features of the Santa Rosa Plateau to having considerable knowledge on these topics. Thus be aware that some of what I wrote in the early years may not be 100% correct for plant and animal identifications! Please carefully note the date at the bottom of each page to see where I was on my learning curve. It is unlikely that I will ever have time in the future to annotate my previous writings.
For plant identifications, see the latest checklists. If an old report mentions a plant name not on that list, I probably made one of the usual rookie mistakes in plant identification.
For vernal pool critter identifications, see Introduction To The Pool Critters. Note that I incorrectly identified clover fern spore cases as "toad eggs" until 2008.
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Copyright © 2000-2008 by Tom Chester.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce any or all of this page as long as credit is given to me at this source:
http://tchester.org/srp/vp/intro.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Updated 1 February 2008.