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Calflora provides information on wild California plants for conservation,
education, and appreciation.
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About Calflora
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CalFlora Database
Project is nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information
about California plants. CalFlora started as a collaborative project
of the USDA Forest Service,
the UC Berkeley Digital Library
Project, the United States Geological
Survey, the UC Davis Information
Center for the Environment, the Santa
Barbara Botanic Garden, and other organizations
and individuals.
Introduction
CalFlora is a comprehensive database of plant distribution information
for California, a web accessible, publicly available tool for synthesis
of data from disparate sources. Calflora is designed to provide ready access to educational information,
as well as scientific data needed to identify critical issues in
conservation of plant diversity at varying scales and to analyze
consequences of land use alternatives and environmental change on
distribution of native and exotic species. It also serves research
in ecology, botany, and conservation biology. CalFlora is a community resource. It has been built by collaboration
among people and institutions who have each brought different ideas,
resources, and areas of expertise to our common effort. Stable funding
for Calflora remains uncertain, with efforts to develop support
from state & federal agencies, conservation organizations, foundations,
and private individuals. The project welcomes donations, new collaborators,
data contributors, and volunteers. CalFlora has three primary interconnected components:
Summaries of geographic distribution, habitat, and lifeform data
for the approximately 7,600 vascular plants known to be native
or naturalized in California, based on published literature as
well as specific documented observations.
Over 800,000 specific observations of plants at locations within
California, uniting data holdings of numerous public agencies,
herbaria, private organizations, and individuals. Distribution
maps on Calflora are built upon this information.
Relationships between plants names throughout the history of
botany in California. This information is uniquely applied as
a tool to access historical observations, as well as providing
a stand-alone resource of plant name usage in California. In addition, Calflora collaborates on the CalPhotos
library of plant images managed by UC Berkeley
Digital Library research Project. Calflora is providing a focused
effort to build the photo collection to represent all California
species. CalPhotos is composed of more than 29,000 photos of California
plants, contributed by individual photographers and organizations.
The CalFlora Project was initiated in 1994 as part of the USDA
Forest Service-Kings River Ecosystem Project, in collaboration
with the California Native Plant Society and the UC Davis Information
Center for the Environment. Since 1997, the UC Digital Library
Project has been a major supporter and project participant. In
1999, the US Geological Survey-Biological Resources Division and
the California Department of Transportation joined in supporting
the CalFlora Project. In January of 2000, Calflora was established
as a Non-profit organization in order to enable fundraising opportunities
and ensure long term support for the project. Other agencies participating as major data contributors include
the USDA National Plant Data Center, the California Department
of Food and Agriculture, the California Department of Fish and
Game, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, the UC Berkeley and Jepson
Herbaria, and others. |
Calflora - 1700 Shattuck Av #198, Berkeley, CA 94709 - 510 528-5426 - CONTACT