San Diego Natural History Museum Botany Department

04/17/2026

Did you all see this? (jg)

Por Mariana Delgado Fernández Por primera vez desde 1882, la planta Achyrachaena mollis —una especie que Baja California consideraba extirpada— fue localizada nuevamente. El hallazgo ocurrió en el trazo proyectado para el bypass Tijuana–Ensenada, revelando omisiones críticas en la Manifesta...

02/11/2026

Fern lovers, botanists, and nature enthusiasts don’t miss this special CNPS San Diego Chapter meeting! Join us on February 17 for an exciting evening exploring the fascinating world of Ferns and Lycophytes of San Diego County, presented by Jon P. Rebman, Ph.D., Curator and Chair of Botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum.
After years of research and dedication, Dr. Rebman and Annette Winner have published a brand-new field guide highlighting our region’s remarkable fern and lycophyte diversity. This beautifully illustrated guide includes detailed descriptions, easy-to-use identification keys, local natural history insights, and color plates to help you recognize and distinguish species in the field. The book covers 49 species known from San Diego County, plus 17 additional species that may yet be discovered here making this a must-have resource for botanists, hikers, and plant lovers alike.

📅 February 17
⏰ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
📍 Casa del Prado, Room 101 (Balboa Park) across Village Place from the San Diego Natural History Museum (NAT), in the Casa del Prado Inner Courtyard.

📚 The new field guide will be available for purchase at the meeting, with signed copies available!

🌱 CNPS Chapter meetings are free and open to the public. Everyone who loves wild places, biodiversity, and community is welcome.

Bring a friend, your curiosity, and your passion for plants. We hope to see you there!

👉 Event details: https://cnpssd.org/event/february-chapter-meeting-with-jonathan-rebman/

12/21/2025

With rain forecast later this week, plants across San Diego County will soon become more visible and ready to be discovered. If you’re interested in learning more about our region’s remarkable plant diversity, we have just published a new resource for you: the 6th edition of the Checklist of the Vascular Plants of San Diego County.
This updated checklist represents our most current understanding of every native and naturalized, vascular plant in the county. It includes 2,879 plant taxa, highlighting San Diego County as botanically richer than many U.S. states. The volume also provides voucher information for each plant, updated taxonomy and nomenclature, and appendices detailing all rare and sensitive plant species known from the region.
Notably, 21 of the plant records included in this edition represent species that are completely new to science and were described within the 11 years since the 2014 edition. San Diego County is not only exceptionally diverse, but it continues to yield new discoveries right in our own backyards.
The new checklist is available for purchase at the museum store, Gold Leaf at The Nat. Stop by and pick up a copy of this informative and unique gift just in time for the holidays.

12/12/2025

With all of the rains starting in San Diego County, the native ferns and lycophytes are all popping out and ready to be discovered. If you want to take a deeper dive into these fascinating and diverse groups of plants in our area, then we have a new book ready for you to start your journey of botanical exploration. This new field guide includes in depth info, keys for identification, and photo plates for the 49 ferns and relatives that we know to occur in our County. Plus, if you are the adventurous type, we have included 17 ferns that could very well be in our region as they occur very near, but no one has discovered them yet from within the County. Get out there and find us some new plant records! This field guide is available for purchase inside the museum in the amazing Gold Leaf at the Nat store. Come by and get your copy of the book just in time for a nice and unique holiday gift!

11/29/2025

Do you know all of these plants that occur in San Diego County in the photos below? Some may be native, invasive, rare, or just hardly ever seen. If you don't recognize these and want to improve your botanical skills then you might want to consider joining the San Diego Field Botany Class through SDSU. In this class you will learn morphology, taxonomy, and field characters for many plants and plant families in our area. Plus, with all of the field trips you are likely to have a lot of fun in the process! For more information check out and/or register here: https://globalcampus.sdsu.edu/program/science-computers-technology/field-botany-san-diego/

03/17/2025

The Museum is looking for more volunteers to help beautify and diversify the gardens around the building. The Community Planting event takes place this Saturday from 9:30 to 12:30. If you would like to participate, please register using the QR code.

01/24/2025

As we anxiously wait for the arrival of our rainy season (please come soon!) and the start of our native plant growing season, we thought it would be nice to show you a little floral variation that can happen within only one species in our region. This is a native annual species called Platystemon californicus or Cream Cups in the Papaveraceae or Poppy family. In San Diego County, this species can range from the coast to the mountains and the desert’s edge and it also occurs in northwestern Baja California with a disjunct, sky island population farther south in the Sierra La Asamblea. We are always amazed with the diversity of coloration patterns this native species can display with its flowers. If our rainfall ever does arrive this year, go out and see how many different flower forms you can find. Diversity is a very important part of nature and can be quite attractive as well!

12/09/2024

If you are interested in learning more about the local flora, you may want to check out this course. The course is designed for the serious amateur botanist, environmental consultant, or employee of an environmental governmental organization to acquire the basic knowledge and skills of plant taxonomy, native plant identification, and plant community assessment. Coursework takes place in the classroom and field.

https://ces.sdsu.edu/program/science-computers-technology/field-botany-san-diego/

10/09/2024

The Botany Department is ready to show off what we are up to for our Member’s Open House!

09/13/2024

"Heterotrophs, Mycoheterotrophs, & Saprotrophs, Oh My!" Want to know what we are talking about?? Come to the Secret Society of Adultologists tonight at The Nat and stop by the Botany table. Go down the rabbit hole and learn all about parasitic plants and more. Tickets can be purchased at the link below.
https://www.sdnhm.org/calendar/for-adults/

08/07/2024

On Monday, 5 August 2024, J. Rebman, our SDNHM Curator of Botany, took a couple of young botanists (Andy Jones & Lynna Thai) to the field in a local San Diego urban canyon to document floristic diversity as part of the Museum’s Healthy Canyon Initiative. One of the botanical goals of this project is to better understand the rare, native, introduced, and invasive plant diversity that makes up the floras of these regional urban canyons in order to protect and conserve them into the future. It is amazing that we do not really know what plant species actually occur in most of these natural fragments surrounded by the San Diego metropolitan area. Although most of the canyons likely have between 300 and 550 different species making up their floras depending upon their size and habitat diversity, I am always surprised at how many plants used for horticultural practices escape, naturalize, and compete with the native species in these natural areas. Below are just a few common landscaping plants that we found in a few hours in one small portion of a single canyon. Needless to say, but what we purposefully plant in our yards and along our streets can have significant detrimental impacts to our local native and natural resources.