After a hard spring rain, the skies quickly cleared above Skyline. I met Friends of Sausal Creek board member and ornithologist Mark Rauzon in the boggy woods of Joaquin Miller Park, to brave the mud and find signs of a rare plant. In his green galoshes, he tread a path like a tin man over the sunning, steamy earth.

Rauzon's love for this sun-loving chaparral partly stems from its rarity; pallid manzanita (Arctostaphylos pallida) only grows along the backbone of the East Bay hills. Seeds regenerate through scarification, acid treatment or fire; white and pink bellflowers bloom from the pallid's sinewy arms every winter. All told, there are approximately 1,200 pallid manzanitas left in the world. And more keep dying each year due to environmental concerns that, if unresolved, will mark the end of this remarkable and yearning-to-burn bush.

The spotlight issue for the pallid manzanita is one some hill residents share: who is in the way of my view? Native and non-native trees block access to the sun and thus put the shrubs in a chokehold. That is why the Friends of Sausal Creek - who protect, enhance and restore the watershed from Chabot Space & Science Center down to the Fruitvale Bridge - want to put the heat on the pallids.

"A strategic burn would be ideal," Rauzon said. "But since fire is out of the equation, our focus should be selective thinning."

Through the tangled coast live oak and Scotch broom, the maroon bark gave the pallid away. We approached the wide crown base of the smooth branches and Rauzon stopped me short of new growth at my feet.

"See," he said, "A few babies have sprouted."

The grass green leaves that resemble hens and chicks shoot from a place where breathable space is at a premium. That the plants grew at all is due to FOSC volunteers who, in 2004, prepared a plot behind Big Trees by clearing it, raking it and stomping the seeds into the ground. In an area just 10 or so feet in diameter, the pallid population doubled to roughly 80 plants.

This rescue mission is all part of a master Pallid Manzanita Habitat Enhancement and Conservation Plan - a study of their plight that was completed last September. Independent consultants Environmental Science Associates and Nomad Ecology prepared the report. Its proposals, which Chabot Space & Science Center must fulfill to comply with requirements of the 1995 Environmental Impact Report, are conditions of the facility's construction and occupancy on city land. About five pallid manzanitas remain on the center's campus - less than a quarter of those living when the EIR was issued.

When I asked Rauzon about the restoration project's timeline, he grumbled something about 15 years late and pending city of Oakland tree ordinance permits. Meanwhile, the paperwork required for tree clearing has piled high.

Whether either plan bears fruit before the pallids shrivel up remains in question. In a sunny patch at Big Trees, Rauzon pointed out the pallid's berries; grown from the fertilized flowers, they had the same rouge of Gala apples. The invasive broom already encroaches on the new growth and troubling grey growth on more shaded manzanita. Rauzon said that the City of Oakland's Tree Services have offered a day of cutting at the site.

"We need to clear out some of the dead wood," he says, his eyes peering through his circular glasses frames. Monterey Pine and Eucalyptus trees also loom large of the low-lying pallids. "Since FOSC isn't allowed to use chainsaws or cut anything that's nine or more inches in diameter, we defer to the city."

That is especially true in the case of redwoods, some of which are non-natives. Rauzon recalled, "We once enlisted Oakland to cut down a redwood that hung over a struggling pallid." The iconic redwood still could not compete with a bush that California registers as endangered and the United States regards as threatened.

"It just goes to show you that not all trees are created equal," Rauzon said.