Search / Plant Profile / Chlorogalum purpureum var. purpureum

Plant Profile

Purple Amole (Chlorogalum purpureum var. purpureum)

Each plant produces a 25-50 cm (10-20 in) tall inflorescence, which bear 7-30 purple flowers. Photo Credit: Dieter Wilken

Global Rank: T2 - Imperiled
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Liliaceae
State: CA
Nature Serve ID: 146984
Lifeform: Forb/herb
Date Inducted in National Collection:

Description:

Purple amole is a bulbous perennial with 3-7 basal spreading leaves. Each plant produces a central naked inflorescence 25-50 cm tall, which bears 7-30 flowers. Purple amole has a fragmented distribution with less than 500 documented sites or "populations" distributed within 4-5 disjunct areas. About a third of the populations each have less than 100 individuals. Most of the largest "populations", each composed of over 1,000 plants, occur in an area of about 90 hectares in northern San Luis Obispo County. Much of the fragmentation, which occurs in Monterey County, can be attributed to extensive cultivation and grazing during the late 1800s, exacerbated by continued grazing and military training during the last 50 years.

Where is Purple Amole (Chlorogalum purpureum var. purpureum) located in the wild?

Habitat:

Purple amole generally occurs on thin, rocky to gravelly clay soils of open sites in oak savanna, grasslands, and occasionally chaparral. Common associates include other bulbous perennials and late spring to early summer annuals. (USFWS 2000)

Distribution:

Along the eastern base of the Santa Lucia Mountains of southern Monterey and northern San Luis Obispo counties, California. (USFWS 2000)

States & Provinces:

Purple Amole can be found in California

Which CPC Partners conserve Purple Amole (Chlorogalum purpureum var. purpureum)?

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 06/09/17

CPC's Plant Sponsorship Program provides long term stewardship of rare plants in our National Collection. We are so grateful for all our donors who have made the Plant Sponsorship Program so successful. We are in the process of acknowledging all our wonderful plant sponsorship donors on our website. This is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Conservation Actions

09/03/2020

Research at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden includes studies of fitness relative to self-pollination and outcrossing. (Wilken 2000)

09/03/2020

Monitoring is being conducted by Environmental Division staff at Fort Hunter Liggett, and similar studies are planned for Camp Roberts

09/01/2020

Based on an September 2020 extract of the California Plant Rescue Database, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden holds 30 accessions of Chlorogalum purpureum var. purpureum in orthodox seed collection. There are as many as 2158 seeds of this species in their collection - although some may have been used for curation testing or sent to back up.

08/05/2020

Based on an August 2020 extract of the California Plant Rescue Database, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden has collected 30 seed accessions of Chlorogalum purpureum var. purpureum from 10 plant occurrences listed in the California Natural Diversity Database. These collections together emcompass 400 maternal plants

Nature Serve Biotics

05/02/2017

Endemic to Monterey County and nearby San Luis Obispo County, California. Known from 13 extant occurrences. There may be as many as 124,000 plants. Threatened by military activities, especially tank and other vehicle traffic and a variety of other possible threats. Pigs are a real threat since this is a bulb plant. No sites are currently protected, though their presence on military lands affords some protection from development and rampant ORV use.

Dieter Wilken, Ph.D.

01/01/2010

Primary threats at Fort Hunter Liggett include loss of plants, habitat alteration, and further fragmentation, all caused by military training activities (USFWS 2000). Other potential threats include human-caused fires during the late flowering and fruiti

Dieter Wilken, Ph.D.

01/01/2010

Perhaps 300,000 plants are known to exist, but over 230,000 are restricted to an area of about 90 hectares on Camp Roberts, San Luis Obispo County. The remaining plants are distributed as patches or colonies over a much larger area in Fort Hunter Liggett, Monterey County. (USFWS 2000)

Dieter Wilken, Ph.D.

01/01/2010

Monitoring is being conducted by Environmental Division staff at Fort Hunter Liggett, and similar studies are planned for Camp Roberts. Research at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden includes studies of fitness relative to self-pollination and outcrossing. (Wilken 2000)

Dieter Wilken, Ph.D.

01/01/2010

Fort Hunter Liggett is managed by the Department of Defense, US Army. Camp Roberts is managed by the California National Guard. Military activities have been reduced on some purple amole areas at Fort Hunter Liggett and temporarily suspended on the Camp Roberts training area occupied by purple amole (JoAnn Froland, pers. comm.).

Dieter Wilken, Ph.D.

01/01/2010

Demographic and life history studies. Analyses of genetic variation at several hierarchical levels, including comparisons of disjunct populations and variation within large and small local populations. Relationship of germination and early establishment to substrate composition and disturbance, and competition from noxious weeds.

Dieter Wilken, Ph.D.

01/01/2010

Additional collection of seeds representing the entire geographic distribution.