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Calflora is an online library of information
about wildland plants,
including plant characteristics and distribution.
Calflora and CNPS share the same educational goal:
to increase understanding and appreciation of
California's native plants by the public.
Calflora runs on a shoestring, and depends on
dedicated volunteers for many management, quality control and
data entry tasks.
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Observations of
Acaena pinnatifida
var. californica
in the Bay Area
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Calflora's
What Grows Here?
web application
shows
native and weedy plants
that have been observed growing
near any particular location in California.
To use What Grows Here?, start by choosing a location -
a zip code, town, park, CalWater watershed, or any one of over
10,000 California place names. Then open a map,
zoom in and out, and highlight various features
(towns, peaks, creeks, watersheds, open space...).
In the example on the right, the user began by searching
for "Toro Peak", and brought up a map centered on the summit.
Then the user moved slightly north, zoomed in, and
pressed the "Search for Plants" button
to view an illustrated table of
plants observed in the map area.
The red points on the right are courtesy of Ann Kelly,
who inventoried the plants of Deep Canyon from Route 74
up to Toro Peak.
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an illustrated list of plants
growing on the north side of
Toro Peak, Riverside Co.
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Calflora's
Places to View California Native Plants
application
suggests locations
(trails etc.),
where you can see native plants.
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...
in the Santa Monica Mountains
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CNPS chapters can utilize Calflora in many ways --
to serve educational purposes specific to their region.
Here are some possibilities:
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In preparation for a field trip, use What Grows Here?
to prepare a list of plants previously
observed growing near the location of the trip,
and have the list available as a handout to participants.
Better yet, post a link to a relevant What Grows Here? page
on the chapter website where the field trip is announced,
so that potential participants can familiarize
themselves with the appearance and characteristics of
the plants ahead of time.
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Example field trip announcement from East Bay CNPS
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Field Trip
Sunday, June 22 - Mt Diablo: Knobcone Point Road, Blackhawk Ridge Road.
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We will go through woodland, grasslands, chaparral areas,
with Pickeringia, Salvia, Arctostaphylos,
Quercus, Garrya,
Calochortus splendens and lots of Clarkia rubicunda.
Directions: Take 680 to Diablo Road. Go east on Diablo Road. At Green valley Road ...
Map and plant list from Calflora What Grows Here
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- If you go on a chapter sponsored field trip,
or just an interesting hike, and can identify
the plants you saw,
then please
contribute your observations to Calflora.
In this way, the knowledge of what plants grow in
a particular place will accumulate.
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- Some chapters
have compiled plant lists for particular locations,
and contributed the lists to Calflora.
This kind of data is extremely valuable.
Using the new entry applications based on Google Maps,
it is easy to add and maintain observation data on Calflora.
It is now possible to associate photos of plants
(photo vouchers) with an observation record.
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- If you have other ideas about how Calflora
can support the activities of your chapter,
please
let us know.
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Areas where Calflora needs some help
(insert "for your county / region" into each item below:)
- Tracking down available checklists.
For instance, sometimes land trusts or private reserves
have plant checklists that they have never published.
- Making sure that the
Places
application is
showing all of the best publically accessible
places to see native plants, including public gardens.
- Finding publically available
floristic surveys done by environmental consulting firms.
Some cities and counties publish this kind of material online.
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