When the sudden appearance of an endangered flower halted a controversial housing project in the heart of California's wine country, the developer, Scott Schellinger, suspected he was the victim of a plant. Now, after calling in experts from the state's fish and game commission, who have backed his findings, he is claiming that the "discovery" of rare and protected Sebastopol meadowfoam on the eight-hectare (20-acre) site near San Francisco was the work of opponents who transplanted the flowers from elsewhere."It looked like a bad toupee," claimed one botanist, who observed the small, white flowers - latin name Limnanthes vinculans - growing through clods of "alien" soil.
The row has escalated into a scandal known as Foamgate. The residents of Sebastopol, a town of 7,800 environmentally conscious residents in the centre of Sonoma county's grape and apple growing region, deny wrongdoing. Bob Evans, a retired grammar school teacher and leading campaigner against the $70m development, says he had come across the meadowfoam while walking his dog. "It's our job to protect endangered species," he said. "I didn't plant it. No one planted it. It's clearly a natural plant that grew there because that's where it belongs."
But Mr Schellinger insists the reappearance of the bowl-shaped blooms is evidence that his opponents are desperate. "The people who planted it mistakenly believed that it would be the silver bullet that killed the project," he said.
Sebastopol's council has ordered the parties to mediation to try to find a compromise that could include a scaled-down development. And the state has ordered that the plants be removed after deciding they were deliberately introduced. "They didn't belong there. It was appropriate to remove them," said Eric Larson, a regional manager of the California fish and game commission.