today and is used on a daily basis by scientists, land planners, and agency officials. CNPS also created A Manual of California Vegetation publication and online database, the standard vegetation reference now relied upon by state and federal agencies. Both of these resources are recognized as the most advanced available for identifying and managing critical habitat in California. A popular project in collaboration between the Education and Rare Plant Programs is the "Rare Plant Treasure Hunt", or RPTH. In the first five years of the RPTH project, between the 2010-2014 seasons, volunteers and staff successfully updated over 2,500 occurrences of rare, threatened, and endangered species to both the California Rare Plant Ranks and California Department of Fish and Wildlife's California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB). Over 1,000 of these recorded occurrences were new to science. A new offshoot of the RPTH is the California Rare Plant Seed Rescue Project, in which volunteers will collect seeds and tissue from every population of rare plants in California, and seed bank them in long-term storage facilities to protect them against future extinction. In 2010, the California Native Plant Society was successful in having the state legislature designate the third week in April each year as "California Native Plant Week". The legislature recognized that "California native plants, being perfectly suited to California's climate and soil, require far fewer fertilizers, soil amendments, or pesticides, and use 60 to 90 percent less water than conventional landscapes". The California Native Plant Society also organizes a triennial conservation conference every three years which hosts over 1000 attendees from across California and beyond, and an annual conservation symposium every September. Publications Besides books, bulletins, and posters, the society publishes the academic journal Artemisia (previously Fremontia), devoted to botany, horticulture, vegetation science, land management, CNPS projects, and related native plant topics, three times a year, and the CNPS Bulletin, a quarterly newsletter. See also Native plant gardening Bibliography References External links Official California Native Plant Society website California Native Plant Week A Manual of California Vegetation online database Native plant societies based in the United States Botanical societies Botanists active in California Environmental organizations based in California Non-profit organizations based in California Natural history of California Nature conservation organizations based in the United States Scientific societies based in the United States Organizations based in Sacramento, California Environmental organizations established in 1965 1965 establishments in California 501(c)(3) organizations