Home | The Nature Reserve at Rancho Mission Viejo

The Nature Reserve at Rancho Mission Viejo is a growing habitat reserve located in South Orange County. Over time The Nature Reserve will grow to include over 20,000 acres of Rancho Mission Viejo lands, inclusive of The Richard & Donna O’Neill Conservancy. This protected open space is managed by the Rancho Mission Viejo Land Trust, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to "preserve and enhance Reserve lands for ecological, educational, charitable, conservation, open space, scientific, and recreational uses."

Species Spotlight

Many-stemmed dudleya (DM) is a low, succulent perennial originating from a corm that grows in open-habitat soils associated with coastal sage scrub and grassland plant communities in southern California. It usually grows in shallow weathered cobbly loam or clay soils, and open barrens associated with rock outcrops and ridgelines. The plant is endemic to southwestern California, and is known only from southeast Los Angeles County, Orange County, western Riverside County, extreme southwestern San Bernardino County, and the northernmost portion of San Diego County. Orange County supports the majority of the known populations of this species.

The Nature Reserve actively monitors and manages the DM populations on the Reserve. Our monitoring tracks survivorship and reproduction. Our management actions include seed collection for propagation purposes and salvage of plant populations. Seed collection occurred in 2007. Tree of Life Nursery grew container plants from the collected seed for several years. The first container plants were installed in the Nature Reserve in 2013 and continued through 2016. Over 8,000 plants were planted to increase the overall DM population in the Nature Reserve. Beginning in 2020, we also initiated a salvage program to remove DM populations from within the impact footprint of development and replant them in the protected habitat reserve.

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