After removing European beachgrass from 80 acres at Abbotts Lagoon, the Point Reyes National Seashore is battling new invaders threatening the growth of Tidestrom’s Lupine, an endangered plant. On Martin Luther King Day, volunteers can help park staff remove the non-natives, such as European searocket, New Zealand spinach, iceplant and nightshade. The area was the focus of the first phase, starting in 2011, of a restoration of Abbotts through the removal, by mechanical excavators, of the beachgrass, which crowds out native plants and plovers. The grass sends down rhizomes six feet deep, and it propagates extremely efficiently. Lorraine Parsons, a vegetation and wetland ecologist for the park, said that since the beachgrass removal, drought conditions made it difficult for most plants—but, surprisingly, the lupine started thriving. Yet rains both last winter and this winter have spurred latent seeds of other non-natives. In the spring, the area looked relatively normal, but park staff kept away during the snowy plover nesting season, and did not notice how widespread the problem had become until recently. “[The spread was] so extensive it was actually covering the Tidestrom’s lupine,” she said. Secondary invasives, as she referred to them, are not unusual. “We removed the first invasive, European beachgrass, and these other plants are like, ‘Thank you! Now we can move in.’ It’s not uncommon, but it shows how difficult it can be.” See the calendar for details about the volunteer workday.