Loch Lomond Vernal Pool Ecological Reserve

The Loch Lomond Vernal Pool Ecological Reserve is a nature reserve of 8.22 acres (33,300 m2) in the community of Loch Lomond in Lake County, California. It is one of 119 ecological reserves managed by the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG). The ecological reserve system was authorized by the state legislature in 1968 for the purpose of conservation and protection of rare plants, animals and habitats.

The vernal pool provides habitat for the rare and endangered Loch Lomond button celery (Eryngium constancei) (also called coyote-thistle and Constance's coyote-thistle). The button celery was first collected in the vernal pool in 1941, and not until the late 1990s was there another discovery at two other locations in Lake County and one location in Sonoma County.

The southern portion of Lake County is in the Mayacamas Mountains of the California Coast Ranges. Nearby Cobb Mountain (4,722 ft) is the highest peak. Although extensively logged in the past, this area still has Ponderosa pine, sugar pine, and Douglas fir, as well as black oak, with an underbrush of manzanita, ground rose, coffeeberry and California lilac.

Read more about Loch Lomond Vernal Pool Ecological Reserve:  Background, Loch Lomond Button Celery, Other Rare Plants

Famous quotes containing the words loch, vernal, pool, ecological and/or reserve:

    Oh, many a day have I made good ale in the glen,
    That came not of stream, or malt, like the brewing of men;
    My bed was the ground, my roof the greenwood above,
    And the wealth that I sought, one far kind glance from my love.
    —Unknown. The Outlaw of Loch Lene (l. 1–4)

    The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
    Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
    The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
    Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
    Led on th’ eternal Spring.
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    I caught a blackjack right behind my ear. A black pool opened up at my feet. I dived in. It had no bottom. I felt pretty good—like an amputated leg.
    John Paxton (1911–1985)

    It seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the earth can sustain, and that human civilization will collapse when the number of, say, tax lawyers exceeds the world’s total population of farmers, weavers, fisherpersons, and pediatric nurses.
    Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)

    If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.
    Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)