Exploring Ring Mountain

With Wendy Dreskin
Ring Mountain is home to more than 150 native plants, including eight that are endangered, rare, or of limited distribution. We'll look for mule ears, tidy tips, and the bright Indian pink, and we'll check out butterflies and other insects that visit the flowers. Many of the plants on Ring Mountain are adapted to the challenges of growing on serpentine soils, and you'll learn how adaptation to toxic soil saved them from the invasion of non-native species common lower on the mountain. At the Indian Grinding Rock, we'll learn about the Miwoks who ground their acorns there and look at other plants they used for food, medicine, and basketry. Then we'll head up to Petroglyph Rock, where their ancestors carved circles and ovals, whose meaning has been lost with time, into the blue schist. At the top of the mountain, we'll enjoy a panoramic view of the Bay and give thanks to the few determined individuals who, along with the Nature Conservancy, saved this mountain from a planned 2100-home development so that we can still enjoy it today.