Movement Strategy Center Explores Point Reyes National Seashore with FSP Alliance For Felix Cove

This spring, the MSC communications team had the opportunity to tour Felix Cove, an enchanting corner of the Point Reyes National Seashore in northern California. The visit was led by Theresa Harlan, visionary founder and executive director of the Alliance for Felix Cove — a fiscally sponsored project of MSC. The organization is fighting to protect, restore, and rematriate the ancestral homestead of the Coast Miwok/Támal-ko Felix Family — Harlan’s ancestors. 

You can read more about that visit and the site’s history here and more about the mission of the Alliance for Felix Cove at their website — but neither can do the fascinating plants and flowers of Felix Cove justice — especially after California’s wet winter and spring. Here, in honor of July’s Clean Beaches Week, we offer an unofficial field guide of our spring sightings along the mile-long trail down to this picturesque cove.

Harlan (center) shares her aspirations for Felix Cove, which include a native plant garden, and discusses some of the plants her ancestors would have harvested, photo by Hewitt Photography.
This view of the water is accented with the white flowers of cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum), photo by Hewitt Photography.
Coast lotus (Hosackia gracilis) (yellow and white), photo by Hewitt Photography.
Blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum), photo by Hewitt Photography.
This tiny flower goes by many names including pussy ears, hairy star tulip, California fuzzy star tulip, and Tolmie star-tulip (Calochortus tolmiei).
Douglas iris (Iris douglasiana), photo by Hewitt Photography.
The beach strawberry or coastal strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis), is an important symbol for the Coast Miwok/Támal-ko peoples. The berries — which are foraged in late spring — lend their name to the Alliance for Felix Cove’s Strawberry Sister Leadership Circle.
These calla lilies or arum lilies (Zantedeschia aethiopica) are not native to California, but they are certainly striking. The Felix family cabin is in the background, photo by Hewitt Photography.
Broad-leaf forget-me-nots (Myosotis latifolia) are also non-native and considered invasive.

Alliance for Felix Cove is rewriting the narrative of Indigenous heritage and environmental advocacy and you have the power to make a difference by supporting their work through donations, volunteering your time, and by uplifting their mission online. 

Special thanks to Bryan and Vita Hewitt for capturing this unforgettable journey through their captivating photography and videography.