Why are toadshades disappearing from the Santa Cruz Mountains? For big reasons and small.

Toadshades have been losing their homes to housing tracts, highways, tennis courts, factories. You name it. Toadshades have the habit of growing in dangerous places, too close to where drainage water may come thundering down.

Toadshades are also losing their homes because of changes in the ways humans deal with vegetation. Toadshades prosper after fires have knocked down the brush or beaten back the forest. For a time, in burnt over places, toadshades flourish in full sun. They may persist for years and years after heavy brush or dark forest returns. But where there is little sun they seldom or never flower.

Weedy blackberries are sometimes too much for toadshades. But the real weed enemy is Vinca major, which is silently and steadfastly spreading and choking them out.

Humans occasionally pick toadshades. Picking is hard on toadshades. It really sets them back. But the frightful menace is often deer. Deer may, for deer-like reasons, ignore toadshades for years. But then deer may decide they want toadshades, simply need them and have to have them. Deer then seek them out, and toadshades are unfortunately hard to miss. People used to eat deer, and deer used to be scarce and afraid of people. Now they just multiply, take sudden likings to toadshades, and ignore people.