By Alessandra Bergamin, Bay Nature
For Mike Wood, 1995 was the year of discovery. That was the year the U.S. Navy found him, a well-traveled botanist with a penchant for history, and commissioned him to undertake a rare plant survey of Yerba Buena Island as the Navy prepared to withdraw from the base. For the Navy, the rare plant survey was one part of a required, environmental impact review that would primarily be used to assess any groundwater or soil contamination from hazardous materials. But that original survey has since been adapted and used in the planning process for the redevelopment of Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island.
Like thousands of other Bay Area residents, Wood had driven through the five-lane Yerba Buena tunnel countless times. He had never thought much of the scenery, since from the Bay Bridge, as he approached that gaping mouth drilled through the island’s core, all he could see was a forest of French broom and eucalyptus.
But he accepted the Navy’s proposal, thinking it would, at the very least, be neat for the views. And over the next two years, as he explored each corner of the island, treading lightly through dense vegetation and negotiating steep slopes along the sandstone cliffs, he found himself — botanically — very, very surprised.
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