#NolinaInterrata AKA #DehesaNolina or #DehesaBeargrass, a plant limited to about a six square mile area in San Diego county and a few small locations in northern Baja California. It was considered for the federal endangered species list but ultimately rejected because fortunately most of them are on protected lands (like #SycuanPeakEcologicalReserve). Still it’s ranked 1B.1 by the California Native Plant Society (rare, threatened or endangered in CA & elsewhere) and threatened by altered fire regime, invasive plants, and overall habitat destruction. This species is an #edaphicendemic and grows on mafic gabbroic and metavolcanic soils which have high amounts of iron and magnesium and are inhospitable to most plants. There are a lot of cool rare plants in San Diego adapted to these soils. Dehesa nolina is kind of hard to tell apart from chaparral yucca (Hesperoyucca whipplei) sometimes because they’re both grassy rosettes and chaparral yucca sometimes has similarly long, bluish-grayish foliage. Other than the flowers being very different you’ll notice that the nolina lacks those needle-sharp spines at the end of its leaves and instead they have jagged edges to them. The leaves on nolina get droopy too. They also form clusters of rosettes whereas the yucca only grows one before it flowers and dies. Check out the last three pictures to see chaparral yucca and Dehesa nolina next to each other and then one with just the nolina. In one photo the foliage is a very different shade of green and in the other one you can tell by their overall shapes. I found out fairly recently that I had been seeing these plants with some regularity for a large portion of my life and had no idea that they were different from chaparral yucca and only lived my very small area of the world. Learn about your local flora and fauna! It’s eye-opening. (And correct me if I’ve said anything inaccurate, because I’m just some nerd who likes plants a lot. 😅) (at Sycuan Peak) https://www.instagram.com/p/CkCqG4LjAsT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
