The UC Hopland Research & Extension Center houses a fine herbarium collection that contains almost 700 vascular plant species that have been collected from the Center over the last 60 years. The majority of the collections were done by Mr. Harold Heady and Mr. Alfred Murphy during the 1950s and 1960s, with significant additions added by botanist Kerry Heise during the 1990s and 2000s. There a a few of those species that were collected initially that have not been relocated on the Center since, and may have been lost from the Center due to a variety of environmental manipulations over the decades. Or, perhaps they are just few-and-far-between and have just remained hidden from knowledgeable eyes.
One of those plant species is the showy Chaparral Lily (also called Redwood Lily) (Lilium rubescens) which was collected on HREC during the 1950s. It is a rare perennial of dry wooded and brushland ridges and slopes. The white trumpet flowers are extremely fragrant, and they gradually turn to pink as they age. This photo is from an area of north-facing slopes located a few miles away on federal Bureau of land Management lands - South Cow Mountain Recreation Area, which borders the UC-HREC property on the northeast side.
