GEOG/ES&P 330
California Ecosystems
Native Plants in Your Own Neighborhood
Calflora What Grows Here?
This lab has three purposes:- to familiarize you with a wonderful resource for biogeographical exploration: Calflora's What Grows Here
- to familiarize you with a few of the native plants that have been recorded in your own neighborhoods or other places of interest to you in California
- to give you practice in designing an attractive tabular presentation of your findings in either a word processor (e.g., OpenOffice Writer) or a spreadsheet (e.g., OpenOffice Calc)
Get Your Data
First, go to https://www.calflora.org/entry/wgh.html, where you're asked to choose how to get into the What Grows Here database. You can pick your own town or Zip code or watershed or whatever with a radio button or, and by a map. Then, click Search.You'll be asked to fill in the name or Zip or whatever and then Go to location. This brings up a map and a dialogue box. You can filter your search by status (native, rare, invasive, non-native -- let's stick to native), lifeform, blooming season, and various other choices. The Quality box refers to whether the species have only been spotted once in your area or more times and whether the identification is high quality professional or lower quality unvouched for. Area lets you fine-tune by delineating areas on the map (don't go too small!). Points lets you get a map of points where the species has actually been recorded. Results lets you shape the output into a format you like and whether you'd like a picture or just text. Search launches a search constrained by you in one or more of those dialogues.
So, try it out a few times and a few different ways. Up will come lists of sometimes hundreds of critters. You can try other filters to reduce the number. Once you've gotten the hang of how the site works, develop your more manageable list, and then learn about some of your green neighbors. When you click on a species' name, you'll be taken to its Calflora taxon report, a map of California, links to Calphotos, and a link to the Jepson flora.
Organize and Present Your Data
Click on a dozen of the species that seem most interesting to you. Learn a few facts about them, organize them into bullet statements (about half a dozen per species), and assemble your mini-reports into a common word processed document or spreadsheet table (probably 2 pages or so). The bullet statements could include such things as:- Latin name(s), common name(s)
- Life form, e.g., "shrub" or "perennial" or "forb"
- Location, e.g., "Found in most counties of California"
- Associated with, e.g., "wetland-riparian" or "Valley grassland" or "chaparral"
- Flowers, e.g., "composite flower with yellow rays"
- Height, e.g., "1-2 m"
- Status, e.g., "rare"
- Any other item of interest, e.g., "important to butterflies" (you may need to do more searching online to pick up a tidbit or two for this)
The Point, However, Is to Change Your World!
I hope you enjoy learning about what's in your backyard. Maybe, if you're into gardening or even gardening in pots, you could plant a few of the locals (sources: Theodore Payne Foundation, Matilija Nursery, Las Pilitas Nursery, or the California Native Plant Link Exchange. Many of these sell plants online (especially during COVID-19).Happy botanizing (and maybe even gardening)!