Manzanita for Protection
WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has initiated a year long status review of the San Francisco manzanita to determine if it should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The agency determined that a petition submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity, the California Native Plant Society, and the Wild Equity Institute contained sufficient scientific and commercial evidence to warrant a full status review.
The San Francisco manzanita was thought to be extinct until it was discovered at the Presidio, a San Francisco unit of the National Park Service which was an active military base until it the base was closed in the 1990's. The tree had not been seen in the wild since 1947.
The tree was known to occur at the Masonic and Laurel Hill Cemeteries in the Richmond district and Mount Davidson in south central San Francisco, areas which were not developed until the middle of the last century.