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Closed-Cone Pine Forest
Closed-cone pine forest is a plant community of coastal California and several offshore islands. The plant community is often mono-dominant and single-aged, but dense with ladder fuels. Closed Cone forests grow in low nutrient and/or stressed soils, which can lead to slow growth. It consists of stands of coniferous species which rely on fire or shoot death to open their cones and release the seeds. Examples of species include coulter pine, monterey pine, and bishop pine. Closed-cone pines The most widespread naturally of the closed-cone pines is bishop pine (''Pinus muricata''), which can be found along the coast from Humboldt County, California in the north to the northwestern corner of Baja California in the south. Knobcone pine (''Pinus attenuata'') forests can occur further inland, on dry, rocky soils. Monterey pine (''Pinus radiata'') was once limited to the Monterey Peninsula, two other sites in central California, and Guadalupe Island, Guadalupe and Cedros Islands off the coas ...
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Pine Tree Forest02
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family (biology), family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts 187 species names of pines as current, together with more synonyms. The American Conifer Society (ACS) and the Royal Horticultural Society accept 121 species. Pines are commonly found in the Northern Hemisphere. ''Pine'' may also refer to the lumber derived from pine trees; it is one of the more extensively used types of lumber. The pine family is the largest conifer family and there are currently 818 named cultivars (or Trinomial nomenclature, trinomials) recognized by the ACS. Description Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous resinous trees (or, rarely, shrubs) growing tall, with the majority of species reaching tall. The smallest are Siberian dwarf pine and Potosi pinyon, and the tallest is an tall ponderosa pine lo ...
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Chestnut-backed Chickadee
The chestnut-backed chickadee (''Poecile rufescens''), formerly ''Parus rufescens'', is a small passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae. It is found in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and western Canada, from southern Alaska to southwestern California. It is a permanent resident within its range, with some seasonal movements as feeding flocks move short distances in search of food. They usually move to lower elevations in the same area upon onset of winter and move back up to higher elevations in late summer. Chickadees are able to use nocturnal hypothermia to regulate energy expenditure, allowing them to survive harsh winters where other bird species not utilizing thermal regulation would not be able to. Some estimates put the energy conserved while using nocturnal hypothermia all the way up to 32%. It is a small chickadee, long with a weight of . The head is dark blackish-brown with white cheeks, the mantle is bright rufous-brown, the wing feathers are dark gray ...
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Plant Communities Of California
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants") which is sister of the Glaucophyta, and consists of the green algae and Embryophyta (land plants). The latter includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. Most plants are multicellular organisms. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ability ...
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California Interior Chaparral And Woodlands
The California interior chaparral and woodlands ecoregion covers in an elliptical ring around the California Central Valley. It occurs on hills and mountains ranging from to . It is part of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome, with cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Temperatures within the coast can range from 53° to 65 °F and 32° to 60 °F within the mountains. Many plant and animal species in this ecoregion are adapted to periodic fire. Geography The California interior chaparral and woodlands ecoregion extends from as far north as Shasta Lake in Northern California to as far south as the Santa Barbara Channel in Southern California. Despite being termed as "inland", this ecoregion features extensive coastline between the Central Coast towns of Goleta and San Simeon, as well as within the Monterey and San Francisco Bay areas. These coastal regions are broken up by isolated patches of Northern California coastal forests and California mo ...
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California Montane Chaparral And Woodlands
The California montane chaparral and woodlands is an ecoregion defined by the World Wildlife Fund, spanning of mountains in the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Coast Ranges of southern and central California. The ecoregion is part of the larger California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, and belongs to the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. Geography The ecoregion spreads from low foothills up to the highest peaks of the following ranges: San Bernardino Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains, San Gabriel Mountains, Santa Susana Mountains, Santa Monica Mountains, Sierra Pelona, Topatopa Mountains, Tehachapi Mountains, San Rafael Mountains, Santa Ynez Mountains, and the long Santa Lucia Mountains. The wide elevation range and characteristic climate produce a variety of natural communities, from chaparral to mixed evergreen forest to alpine tundra. File:Angelesnationalforest.jpg, Montane woodlands in the San Gabriel Mountains File:Vasquez Rocks chaparral. ...
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Temperate Coniferous Forest
Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Temperate coniferous forests are found predominantly in areas with warm summers and cool winters, and vary in their kinds of plant life. In some, needleleaf trees dominate, while others are home primarily to broadleaf evergreen trees or a mix of both tree types. A separate habitat type, the tropical coniferous forests, occurs in more tropical climates. Temperate coniferous forests are common in the coastal areas of regions that have mild winters and heavy rainfall, or inland in drier climates or montane areas. Many species of trees inhabit these forests including pine, cedar, fir, and redwood. The understory also contains a wide variety of herbaceous and shrub species. Temperate coniferous forests sustain the highest levels of biomass in any terrestrial ecosystem and are notable for trees of massive proportions in temperate rainforest regions. Structurally, these forests are rather si ...
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Fire Ecology
Fire ecology is a scientific discipline concerned with natural processes involving fire in an ecosystem and the ecological effects, the interactions between fire and the abiotic and biotic components of an ecosystem, and the role as an ecosystem process. Many ecosystems, particularly prairie, savanna, chaparral and coniferous forests, have evolved with fire as an essential contributor to habitat vitality and renewal. Many plant species in fire-affected environments require fire to germinate, establish, or to reproduce. Wildfire suppression not only eliminates these species, but also the animals that depend upon them. Campaigns in the United States have historically molded public opinion to believe that wildfires are always harmful to nature. This view is based on the outdated beliefs that ecosystems progress toward an equilibrium and that any disturbance, such as fire, disrupts the harmony of nature. More recent ecological research has shown, however, that fire is an integral com ...
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California Honeysuckle
The perennial vine ''Lonicera hispidula'' is a species of honeysuckle known as pink honeysuckle and, less often, California honeysuckle. It is a low-elevation woodlands shrub or vine found on the West Coast of North America. Description Like other honeysuckles, ''Lonicera hispidula'' has pairs of leaves that grow opposite each other on the stem, with the uppermost pair fused at the bases to surround the stem. At the end of the stem grow pink blossoms. It is a perennial shrub or vine. It bears spherical red fruits which are edible but bitter. Ecology ''Lonicera hispidula'' grows in riparian and woodland areas. The flowers attract hummingbirds, while other birds eat the fruits. Human uses The stems are hollow and sturdy and were used by the Pomo people as smoking pipes. It is cultivated by specialty native plant plant nurseries as an ornamental plant for drought-tolerant wildlife gardens and natural landscaping Natural landscaping, also called native gardening, is the use of n ...
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Stachys Bullata
''Stachys bullata'' is a species of flowering plant in the mint family known by the common name California hedgenettle. Distribution It is endemic to California, where it is known from the Central Coast Ranges, the Transverse Ranges, and other coastal mountain ranges in the central and southern parts of the state. It can also be found in maritime coastal habitat, such as the canyons of the Channel Islands. Description This mint produces an erect stem up to about 80 centimeters tall. It is coated in rough and soft hairs, some glandular. The hairy, glandular leaves are up to 18 centimeters long, borne in opposite pairs along the stem. The hairy, glandular inflorescence is made up of interrupted clusters of six flowers each. The flower has a tubular pink corolla up to a centimeter long borne in a hairy calyx of sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often ...
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California Wild Rose
''Rosa californica'', the California wildrose, or California rose, is a species of rose native to the U.S. states of California and Oregon and the northern part of Baja California, Mexico. The plant is native to chaparral and woodlands and the Sierra Nevada foothills, and can survive drought, though it grows most abundantly in moist soils near water sources. This thorny, flowering, fruit-bearing shrub is also deciduous, and grows vertically up to six feet tall. The meaning of its name is twofold; ''Rosa'', that it resembles or is composed of roses, and c''alifornica,'' that it originates from California. Description ''Rosa californica'' is a bush or thicket-forming shrub with prickly, curving stems. The fragrant flowers may grow singly or in inflorescences of several blooms. Each rose is open-faced and generally flat, with five petals in any shade of pink from almost white to deep magenta. The five smooth petals and sepals have a bowl-like bloom, semi-inferior ovaries, and com ...
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Rubus
''Rubus'' is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae, with over 1,350 species. Raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries are common, widely distributed members of the genus. Most of these plants have woody stems with prickles like roses; spines, bristles, and gland-tipped hairs are also common in the genus. The ''Rubus'' fruit, sometimes called a bramble fruit, is an aggregate of drupelets. The term "cane fruit" or "cane berry" applies to any ''Rubus'' species or hybrid which is commonly grown with supports such as wires or canes, including raspberries, blackberries, and hybrids such as loganberry, boysenberry, marionberry and tayberry. The stems of such plants are also referred to as canes. Description Most species in the genus are hermaphrodites, ''Rubus chamaemorus'' being an exception. ''Rubus'' species have a basic chromosome number of seven. Polyploidy from the diploid (14 chromosomes) to the tetradecaploid (98 ...
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Mule Deer
The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), which is found throughout most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains and in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains from Idaho and Wyoming northward, mule deer are only found on the western Great Plains, in the Rocky Mountains, in the southwest United States, and on the west coast of North America. Mule deer have also been introduced to Argentina and Kauai, Kauai, Hawaii. Taxonomy Mule deer can be divided into two main groups: the mule deer (''sensu stricto'') and the black-tailed deer. The first group includes all subspecies, except ''O. h. columbianus'' and ''Sitka deer, O. h. sitkensis'', which are in the black-tailed deer group. The two main groups have been treated as separate species, but ...
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