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Eriastrum Hooveri
''Eriastrum hooveri'' is a rare species of flowering plant in the phlox family known by the common name Hoover's woollystar. It is endemic to the South Coast Ranges of California from San Benito to Los Angeles Counties, where it grows in grassy open habitat. It is an annual herb producing a wiry, usually woolly stem up to about 15 centimeters tall. The leaves are linear and threadlike, less than three centimeters long, and sometimes divided into two thready lobes. The inflorescence is a woolly cluster of narrow, leaflike bracts laced with webby fibers. The flowers are white and just a few millimeters in length. This plant was considered to be in serious jeopardy in the 1980s when many of its populations, most of which occurred on private and unprotected land, were in immediate danger of being destroyed by one or more threats, including conversion of the land for agricultural use, petroleum drilling, development for housing, grazing, agricultural pollution, invasive plants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willis Linn Jepson
Willis Linn Jepson (August 19, 1867 – November 7, 1946) was an early California botanist, conservationist, and writer. Career Born at Little Oak Ranch near Vacaville, California, Jepson became interested in botany as a boy and explored the adjacent San Francisco Bay Area. He came in contact with various botanists before he entered college. In 1892, at the age of 25, Jepson, John Muir, and Warren Olney formed the Sierra Club, in Olney's San Francisco law office. From 1895 to 1898, Jepson served as instructor in Botany and carried on research at the University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University (1895), and Harvard University (1896–1897). He received his Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1899. He was made assistant professor in 1899, associate professor in 1911, professor in 1918, and professor emeritus in 1937. He was a Professor of Botany at UC Berkeley for four decades, thus his entire career was identified with the University of California. Jepson founded the Californi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oil Well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may be termed a gas well. Wells are created by drilling down into an oil or gas reserve that is then mounted with an extraction device such as a pumpjack which allows extraction from the reserve. Creating the wells can be an expensive process, costing at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, and costing much more when in hard to reach areas, e.g., when creating offshore oil platforms. The process of modern drilling for wells first started in the 19th century, but was made more efficient with advances to oil drilling rigs during the 20th century. Wells are frequently sold or exchanged between different oil and gas companies as an asset – in large part because during falls in price of oil and gas, a well may be unproductive, but if price ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eriastrum
''Eriastrum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the phlox family which are known commonly as woollystars. These wildflowers are somewhat diverse in appearance but are usually erect, thin-stemmed herbs which bear purple to white blooms. Most species have inflorescences which are webbed with a woolly mesh of white fibers. Woollystars are native to western North America. Species: *'' Eriastrum abramsii'' - Abrams' woollystar *'' Eriastrum brandegeeae'' - Brandegee's woollystar *'' Eriastrum densifolium'' - giant woollystar *'' Eriastrum diffusum'' - miniature woollystar *'' Eriastrum eremicum'' - desert woollystar *'' Eriastrum filifolium'' - lavender woollystar *'' Eriastrum hooveri'' - Hoover's woollystar *'' Eriastrum luteum'' - yellow woollystar *'' Eriastrum pluriflorum'' - Tehachapi woollystar *'' Eriastrum sapphirinum'' - sapphire woollystar *'' Eriastrum sparsiflorum'' - Great Basin woollystar *'' Eriastrum virgatum'' - wand woollystar *'' Eriastrum wilcoxii'' - Wilcox's wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bureau Of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's landmass. President Harry S. Truman created the BLM in 1946 by combining two existing agencies: the General Land Office and the Grazing Service. The agency manages the federal government's nearly of subsurface mineral estate located beneath federal, state and private lands severed from their surface rights by the Homestead Act of 1862. Most BLM public lands are located in these 12 western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The mission of the BLM is "to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations." Originally BLM holdings were described as "land nobody wanted" because home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lost Hills Oil Field
The Lost Hills Oil Field is a large oil field in the Lost Hills Range, north of the town of Lost Hills in western Kern County, California, in the United States. Production While only the 18th-largest oil field in California in size, in total remaining reserves it ranks sixth, with the equivalent of over producible reserves still in the ground, according to the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (Chevron Corp., the principal operator, estimates considerably more oil in the ground). Production at Lost Hills has been increasing steadily: as of the end of 2006, it was California's second fastest-growing oil field, exceeded only by the nearby Cymric Field. The Lost Hills field also contains considerable reserves of natural gas. In 1998, one of the field's gas wells was the site of a spectacular blowout, producing a pillar of fire which burned for 14 days and was visible more than away. Setting The Lost Hills Field underlies a long, low range of southeast-to-n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adaptation
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the population during that process. Thirdly, it is a phenotypic trait or adaptive trait, with a functional role in each individual organism, that is maintained and has evolved through natural selection. Historically, adaptation has been described from the time of the ancient Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Aristotle. In 18th and 19th century natural theology, adaptation was taken as evidence for the existence of a deity. Charles Darwin proposed instead that it was explained by natural selection. Adaptation is related to biological fitness, which governs the rate of evolution as measured by change in allele frequencies. Often, two or more species co-adapt and co-evolve as they develop adaptations that interlock with those of the oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasive Species
An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native species that become harmful to their native environment after human alterations to its food webfor example the purple sea urchin (''Strongylocentrotus purpuratus'') which has decimated kelp forests along the northern California coast due to overharvesting of its natural predator, the California sea otter (''Enhydra lutris''). Since the 20th century, invasive species have become a serious economic, social, and environmental threat. Invasion of long-established ecosystems by organisms is a natural phenomenon, but human-facilitated introductions have greatly increased the rate, scale, and geographic range of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agricultural Pollution
Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The pollution may come from a variety of sources, ranging from point source water pollution (from a single discharge point) to more diffuse, landscape-level causes, also known as non-point source pollution and air pollution. Once in the environment these pollutants can have both direct effects in surrounding ecosystems, i.e. killing local wildlife or contaminating drinking water, and downstream effects such as dead zones caused by agricultural runoff is concentrated in large water bodies. Management practices, or ignorance of them, play a crucial role in the amount and impact of these pollutants. Management techniques range from animal management and housing to the spread of pesticides and fertilizers in global agricultural practices. Bad man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bract
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of a different color, shape, or texture. Typically, they also look different from the parts of the flower, such as the petals or sepals. A plant having bracts is referred to as bracteate or bracteolate, while one that lacks them is referred to as ebracteate and ebracteolate, without bracts. Variants Some bracts are brightly-coloured and serve the function of attracting pollinators, either together with the perianth or instead of it. Examples of this type of bract include those of ''Euphorbia pulcherrima'' (poinsettia) and ''Bougainvillea'': both of these have large colourful bracts surrounding much smaller, less colourful flowers. In grasses, each floret (flower) is enclosed in a pair of papery bracts, called the lemma (lower bract) and p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polemoniaceae
The Polemoniaceae (Jacob's-ladder or phlox family) are a family of flowering plants consisting of about 25 genera with 270–400 species of annuals and perennials native to the Northern Hemisphere and South America, with the center of diversity in western North America. Only one genus (''Polemonium'') is found in Europe, and two (''Phlox'' and ''Polemonium'') in Asia, where they are confined to cool temperate to arctic regions; both genera also occur more widely in North America, suggesting relatively recent colonization of the Old World from North America. The family can be distinguished from most other eudicot families by the ovary made up of three fused carpels (usually with three chambers, but with one chamber in some species). The members of the family have five sepals, five petals fused, and five stamens that alternate with the lobes of the corolla. For decades, most sources used a classification of the family published by Grant in 1959, but new evidence, including mol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed on the axis of a plant. The modifications can involve the length and the nature of the internodes and the phyllotaxis, as well as variations in the proportions, compressions, swellings, adnations, connations and reduction of main and secondary axes. One can also define an inflorescence as the reproductive portion of a plant that bears a cluster of flowers in a specific pattern. The stem holding the whole inflorescence is called a peduncle. The major axis (incorrectly referred to as the main stem) above the peduncle bearing the flowers or secondary branches is called the rachis. The stalk of each flower in the inflorescence is called a pedicel. A flower that is not part of an inflorescence is called a solitary flower and its stalk is al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the most populous non–State (United States), state-level government entity in the United States. Its population is greater than that of 40 individual List of U.S. states and territories by population, U.S. states. At and with List of cities in Los Angeles County, California, 88 incorporated cities and List of unincorporated communities in Los Angeles County, California, many unincorporated areas, it is home to more than one-quarter of California residents and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States. Its county seat, Los Angeles, is also California's most populous city and the second-most populous city in the United States, with about 3.9 million residents. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
