Steps toward conservation of Quercus cedrosensis along the US-Mexico border

Quercus cedrosensis is a scrub oak found in Baja California, Mexico south to Cedros Island. In the U.S. it is known by only a few small occurrences in San Diego county, CA along the international border. Despite a majority of this U.S. population growing on protected lands, the trees face threats from drought, wildfire, and border activities. As an exceptional species the most common method of ex situ conservation is to maintain living plant collections, but as recently as 2017 only one known individual of Q. cedrosensis existed outside of any natural populations in the entire world. To increase ex situ representation of Q. cedrosensis, the San Diego Botanic Garden (SDBG) has partnered with the Global Conservation Consortium for Oaks (GCCO) and other pertinent organizations since 2020. The GCCO network has enabled SDBG to pursue several avenues of collaborative conservation. After extensively surveying all known U.S. occurrences, we continue to explore propagation through several means, and have begun to introduce new specimens into living collections to provide a more robust and genetically diverse ex situ collection of this species for the future.