Southern California Botanists

02/13/2026

Last Sunday, while many Southern Californians were watching football, others of us were out enjoying the beautiful early spring wildflowers. Here are a few of the better photos captured within Anza Borrego State Park. Things are looking wonderful right now and hopefully the incoming storm will prolong the bloom.

11/13/2025

WORKSHOP ALERT! 🚨 an Introduction to Keying Plants by CalBG students

10/23/2024

In anticipation of the upcoming Southern California Botanists Symposium, we will be sharing information about this year’s speakers. To see their talks, follow the link in our bio to register today!

Up next is Nick Jensen, who will be speaking on “National Monuments and the 30x30 Initiative”.

Nick Jensen currently serves as the Conservation Program Director for the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and is a fellow of the Switzer Foundation. In this position, he oversees the conservation work of staff and volunteer advocates statewide. Nick’s work involves state and federal legislative advocacy, project-level work including presiding over litigation, participation in coalitions of environmental organizations, media relations, and collaborating with a team of talented conservation professionals. Nick earned his BS in Environmental Horticulture at UC Davis and completed his Ph.D. in botany at California Botanic Garden/Claremont Graduate University. As a graduate student Nick produced the first Flora of Tejon Ranch, documenting plant diversity on California’s largest contiguous piece of private land. He also studied evolutionary patterns in perennial Streptanthus (jewelflowers). From 2006-2010, he was employed by CNPS, first as a Vegetation Program Assistant, and later as the Rare Plant Program Director. Nick has also worked as a botanist or ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, U.C. Davis, the Chicago Botanic Garden, and the private consulting industry. He has taught botany classes to professionals and interested members of the public for CNPS, California Botanic Garden, the Jepson Herbarium, and Theodore Payne Foundation. He feels strongly that, in a rapidly changing world, scientists will play an important role in designing networks of conserved land. These conserved lands will provide plants and animals habitat necessary for survival, while also providing humanity with the ecosystem services necessary for a high quality of life. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, hiking, gardening, and photographing wildflowers, activities that are often not mutually exclusive.

10/23/2024

In anticipation of the upcoming Southern California Botanists Symposium, we will be sharing information about this year’s speakers. To see their talks, follow the link in our bio to register today!

Up next is Jon Rebman, who will be speaking on “Plant discoveries and rediscoveries in the Southern California/Baja California Region”.

Jon P. Rebman is the Mary and Dallas Clark Endowed Chair/Curator of Botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum since 1996. Dr. Rebman is a plant taxonomist and conducts extensive floristic research in Baja California and in San Diego and Imperial Counties. His primary research interests have centered on the systematics of the cactus family in Baja California, especially the genera Cylindropuntia (chollas) and Opuntia (prickly-pears). However, he also does a lot of general floristic research and has co-published the most recent edition of the Checklist of the Vascular Plants of San Diego County and the Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plant of Baja California, Mexico. He has over 30 years of field experience with surveying and documenting plants including rare and endangered species. As a field botanist, he is a very active collector of scientific specimens with his personal collections numbering over 37,200. To date, he has named and described 33 new plants for science from the southern California and Baja California
region.

10/23/2024

In anticipation of the upcoming Southern California Botanists Symposium, we will be sharing information about this year’s speakers. To see their talks, follow the link in our bio to register today!

Up next is Ben Nyberg, who will be speaking on “A new-era in botanical exploration of cliff environments”.

Ben Nyberg works for the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) on the island of Kauaʻi. Their work focuses on the conservation of rare and endangered Hawaiian plants. Ben has a background in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and has set up NTBG with a cutting-edge botanical drone program. This interface between technology and conservation is an exciting and ever-changing field that Ben loves to explore.

10/22/2024

In anticipation of the upcoming Southern California Botanists Symposium, we will be sharing information about this year’s speakers. To see their talks, follow the link in our bio to register today!

Up next is Drew Kaiser, who will be speaking on “Widespread, abundant, and imperiled: The dilemma of western Joshua tree and the
power of concerted conservation”.

Drew Kaiser is a Senior Environmental Scientist (Specialist) with the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife. He was hired by CDFW in June 2023 to provide
technical support for the planning and implementation of the WJTCA. Prior to his
current position, he spent 12 years working for the National Park Service in Mojave
National Preserve and Death Valley National Park. He has also been on the board of the Southern California Botanists since 2019 and is currently the President. In his free time, he enjoys backpacking, brewing beer, and volunteering with the GLORIA Great Basin Chapter. If all goes to plan you should be able to enjoy some of his tasty beer while rocking out to Sage Against the Machine at the reception. Cheers!

10/22/2024

One of the amazing vendors that will be at the symposium this Saturday! Tickets still available at our website 🏃🏻‍♀️

Hi guys!
Here’s the first event of the season! I’ll be at the 50th Souther California Botanists Symposium on October 26th🌿🌸 I’ll have a booth with my art alongside other really cool artists. We will be outside so even if you don’t buy tickets for the symposium you can still come down and say hi!
But if you’re interested in buying tickets you can still get them through Southern California Botanists

10/22/2024

In anticipation of the upcoming Southern California Botanists Symposium, we will be sharing information about this year’s speakers. To see their talks, follow the link in our bio to register today!

Up next is Karen Thorne, who will be speaking on “The future of California’s tidal wetlands with climate change”.

Dr. Karen Thorne is a Research Ecologist with the USGS Western Ecological Research Center in Davis, CA. Her research focus is on climate change impacts to coastal ecosystems. In particular, her work has included assessing sea-level rise and storm impacts to coastal ecosystems, wetland ecology, restoration, and blue carbon. She conducts research to inform climate adaptation and planning to help managers mitigate impacts and conduct restoration. Her research is based on field data collection methods that can be developed into climate change impact models. She received her Ph.D. and MS from the University of California, Davis.