Gifford Fire burned SLO County’s only bloom of a rare plant. Will it grow back?
The Gifford Fire destroyed the only known cluster of a rare flowering shrub in San Luis Obispo County — but with a little luck, the plant could rise from the ashes of the blaze.
White flowers once hung like bells from the California snowdrop bush in the Garcia Wilderness. The flowers dropped waxy, white petals each spring, resembling a dusting of snow on the soil, Morro Bay resident and science writer Jeff Wheelwright said.
“They’re beautiful,” he said. “My attitude about them is kind of mushy and unscientific.”
But the largest wildfire in California recently chewed through the Garcia Wilderness — likely scorching away any above-ground trace of the snowdrop bushes.
Fortunately, the California snowdrop evolved to withstand fire, according to retired Cal Poly plant science professor Dave Keil — meaning all hope is not lost.
“If the plant didn’t get completely cremated in a fire, it would have some surviving parts down at the ground level, or a little below,” he said. “That would then re-sprout and the plant could then come back.”
Snowdrops could rise from ashes of the Gifford Fire
Underneath the soil, snowdrop bushes are anchored to a basal burl, which is a knob of stem tissue that holds dormant buds, Keil said.
“Most of the time those dormant buds just sit there,” he said. “But when a fire has removed the top of the plant, those dormant buds can spring into action and begin regrowing.”
There’s no guarantee that the Caldwell Mesa cluster of snowdrops will resurrect from the fire, however.
The snowdrops may have once grown more abundantly in the county before fire wiped them out, Keil said.
“(The Gifford Fire is) an opportunity to find out if they will re-sprout,” Keil said. “If they don’t, well, it’s one more species that’s disappeared from the area.”
Wheelwright, however, felt more hopeful about the snowdrop’s ability to regrow.
“There’s got to be one or two hardy ones,” he said. “I just feel that it’s not the end.”
A quest to find the snowdrops
One fateful April, Wheelwright organized a hiking trip to the Garcia Wilderness in search of the elusive California snowdrop.
Snowdrops grow in small, fragmented clusters from Northern California to San Diego County, but the Caldwell Mesa is the only recorded location of the plant in San Luis Obispo County.
Wheelwright’s group hiked for a day and a half before reaching the Caldwell Mesa, accessible from Hi Mountain Road or Avenales Road. Finally, the vegetation changed — revealing a grove of snowdrop bushes.
“They were just everywhere. You suddenly crossed an invisible barrier,” he said. “I was ecstatic.”
Wheelwright later returned to the grove twice to collect seeds and enjoy the beauty of the plant.
He gave away some seeds, and potted the others. Only one of his seedlings survived, and it’s now about 4 years old and 18 inches tall. Wheelwright read that snowdrops prefer serpentine soil, so he placed a serpentine rock in the pot to please the plant.
Now that San Luis Obispo County’s only known snowdrops burned in the Gifford Fire, Wheelwright said he’s taking special care of his potted plant.
“I’ve been talking to mine very, very sweetly,” he said.
Wheelwright said he expects the snowdrops to grow back on the Caldwell Mesa.
“I’m hopeful,” he said. “We could have snuffed them all out, but, you know, I just don’t believe it.”
