"Most people have little or no opportunity to experience and enjoy nature except near their own locality of residence. For this reason it is not sufficient to save the redwoods, the everglades and ... other area of distant wilderness. It is equally important to protect nature in urban area."   

The Madrona Marsh Preserve is the last remaining vernal marsh in Los Angeles County . A vernal marsh is a depression flooded by runoff water from surrounding upland slopes. Vernal means spring, thus by connotation themarsh is fed by winter and spring storms. After the rainy season passes, evaporation, percolation and transpiration reduce the water depth by about one fourth inch per day. By the end of August, the wetland is dry and remains dry until the next rainy season.

What's on the Madrona Marsh Preserve?

The preserve encompasses elements of four associations/habitats of plants and animals. Their topographic position and their component vegetation define the habitat.

 In the lowland there are: A 10 acre vernal marsh and an alkaline margin. The upland supports: A back dune system and Vernal Pools.

The preserve is a valuable habitat for birds, insects, reptiles and small mammals. During winter and spring seasons, one can observe the ducks and coots on the water, redwinged blackbirds in the tules, meadowlarks and shrikes in the uplands. Finches and warblers in the willows during the fall and spring, Hawks in the the eucalyptus trees in fall and winter. A variety of insects like dragonflies, butterflies, grasshoppers as well as Pacific tree frogs in the spring and summer seasons. More details in the Tools and References section...

The preserve as a back dune habitat has a wide variety of plants, shrubs, herbs. The native species are cultivated and the non-natives are weeded out. Some of the native plants found in the preserve are Dune Lupine, Bladderpod, Mock Heather, Beach Primrose, Deerweed and Dune Wallflower. Click to find out more about the plants, animals and geology and soils of the Marsh 

History of the Marsh

When the Palos Verdes Peninsula was geologically uplifted, it blocked off the Los Angeles River . The natural drainage to the sea was halted and created a large inland drainage area as the river proceeded to shift to the east to its existing course. Historians say that during the early 1800s when the Gabrielino Indians inhabited the South Bay area, Torrance was part of the extensive marshlands north of the San Pedro and Long Beach area.

The local Indians knew the marshlands as "cienegas". The largest of the nearby villages was called sunga, "place of the rushes," and was located on a plain near a cienegas. Older Californians today reminisce about their youth and being able to canoe from Wilmington to the sane dune area in Redondo, through the remaining systems of wetlands. These marshlands provided the early California inhabitants with a rich food source of game birds, fish, fresh water clams and shrimp.

According to one author, "...across much of the land between what is now Los Angeles and the seaports to the south, except for an occasional cluster of hills, there lay a vast forest, under grown with almost impenetrable thickets and laced with hidden pools and swamps. Well into the Spanish era, half-wild cattle and horses found hiding places in this jungle of sycamores, willows, alders, wild grape vines and bramble bushes."

After floods of 1824-25 and 1832 the greater part of the marshland north of Wilmington and Long Beach drained away through these defined channels. In the stage coach era travelers wrote of crossing the plains between San Pedro and Los Angeles . The forest had disappeared.

The Madrona Marsh, although geologically relatively young, is reminiscent of the natural state of much of the South Bay area. The Marsh preserve is a remnant of once extensive natural systems that existed along the coastal plain and coastal terraces of Southern California . The preserve is situated on land that has been in oil production since 1924. This is why it was never developed as commercial or residential uses.

While the area had gone unnoticed to many there have been some citizens who have been actively aware of the area for many years, For example, the local Audubon Society has used the area since 1967 in their annual bird census, and for years bird watchers parked along nearby streets and watched the area through the fence for their recreation. Biologists teach at El Camino College have used the site as a resource to botany, zoology and geography classes for over 30 years. 

Visit the Nature Gift Shop at the Nature Center and see the historical aerial map of the Madrona Marsh Preserve.