New book highlights Mt. Tam's plants
On Mount Tamalpais, as in life, there's the big picture and then there are the small details.
Both perspectives are important to Corte Madera author Robert Steers, whose book, “Plants of Mount Tamalpais: Including Muir Woods,” was recently released. There's the rugged Mt. Tam, of course beloved for its majestic stature, trails, abundance of nature and wide-open views, but there's also the often-fragile plant life that can be so easily overlooked when taking in all that is Mt. Tam.
These small details are the subject of Steers' field guide that covers the wide variety of major plants — from trees and shrubs to ferns, vines, wildflowers, grasses, rushes and sedges — that one can find at any point of Mt. Tam.
Steers, a former vegetation ecologist, hopes his book will encourage people to slow down and learn about the flora they may pass by on their way up or down Marin's biggest mountain.
“California has some of the highest plant diversity in the world and Marin County, and Mount Tamalpais in particular, have outstanding examples of this plant diversity,” says Steers, who builds hard- and software for the networking industry in his career as an engineering program manager. “Mt. Tam is a real treasure.”
Keeping that treasure protected for the future was an impetus for Steers to document the plants now.
More than 600 photographs of individual plant species, which took him more than a decade to shoot, supplement the detailed descriptions of each species, including their scientific and common names, flowering periods and the habitats in which they can be found.
These species and their habitats can vary greatly, he points out, depending upon what part of Mt. Tam you visit.
“For example, the coastal slopes, riparian canyons, serpentine rock crops and interior hills all have very different plant species,” says Steers, who moonlights as a botanical consultant, conducting rare plant surveys for local land agencies.
Many plant species “are represented by just a few known lo