Coastal Scrub

Coastal scrub is one of the predominant remaining natural communities in San Francisco. This maritime plant community thrives in the fog belt from Mendocino County to San Diego County, and is dominated by coyote bush, California sage brush, poison oak, California blackberry and occassional stands of California coffeeberry.

The Presidio contains a unique serpentine (the state rock) variant of coastal scrub that still includes a serpentine chaparral community, supporting many rare plants, as well as significant stands of blue blossom ceanothus.  This unique ecosystem is found along the coastal bluffs north of Baker Beach, as well as near Fort Point and behind Crissy Field.

Coastal scrub habitat can be found in Glen Canyon and on Twin Peaks, where we have iconic slopes of California sage in view of downtown.  Coastal scrub used to be the predominant habitat on Mount Sutro as well as Mount Davidson, where a deciduous shrub - dominated version still thrives along with San Francisco's only stand of native huckleberry. This area of Mount Davidson has some of the best birding in the city due to theresource rich scrub habitat.