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Juniperus Californica
''Juniperus californica'', the California juniper, is a species of juniper native to southwestern North America. Description ''Juniperus californica'' is a shrub or small tree reaching , but rarely up to tall. The bark is ashy gray, typically thin, and appears to be "shredded". The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, between in diameter. The foliage is bluish-gray and scale-like. The juvenile leaves (on the seedlings) are needle-like and long. Arranged in opposite decussate pairs or whorls of three, the adult leaves are scale-like, long on lead shoots and broad. The cones are berrylike, in diameter, blue-brown with a whitish waxy bloom, turning reddish-brown, and contain a single seed (rarely two or three). The seeds are mature in about 8 or 9 months. The male cones are long and shed their pollen in early spring. This juniper is largely dioecious, producing cones of only one sex, but around 2% of plants are monoecious, with both sexes on the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Diablo
Mount Diablo is a mountain of the Diablo Range, in Contra Costa County of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. It is south of Clayton and northeast of Danville. It is an isolated upthrust peak of , visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area. Mount Diablo appears from many angles to be a double pyramid and has many subsidiary peaks. The largest and closest is North Peak, the other half of the double pyramid, which is nearly as high in elevation at , and is about northeast of the main summit. The mountain is within the boundaries of Mount Diablo State Park, which is administered by California State Parks. Geography The summit is accessible by foot, bicycle, or motor vehicle. Road access is via North Gate Road or South Gate Road. Also you can hike in various places in Mount Diablo. Mount Diablo State Park The peak is in Mount Diablo State Park, a state park of about . The state park was the first public open space established on or near the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and light intensity. Biotic factors will include the availability of food and the presence or absence of predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, with habitat generalist species able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species requiring a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a geographical area, it can be the interior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinyon–juniper Woodland
Pinyon–juniper woodland, also spelled piñon–juniper woodland, is a vegetation type (biome) of Western United States higher elevation deserts, characterized by being an open forest dominated by low, bushy, evergreen junipers (''Juniperus osteosperma,''Damian Fagan, Canyon Country Wildflowers, p. 3Pam MacKay, Mojave Desert Wildflowers, p19-20 ''Juniperus californica'',Karen Wiese, Sierra Nevada Wildflowers, 2013, p. 18 '' Juniperus grandis''), pinyon pines (''Pinus monophylla'', ''Pinus edulis''), and their associates which vary from region to region.Ronald J. Taylor, Sagebrush CountryLaird Blackwell, Great Basin Wildflowers, p5-6 The woodland's density and crown height varies dramatically depending on the site's soil and climate, the age of the stand, and the particular species present, with mature trees ranging in height from as low as 2 meters up to 15 meters. At lower elevations, junipers often predominate and trees are spaced widely, bordering on and mingling with grasslan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guadalupe Island
Guadalupe Island ( es, Isla Guadalupe, link=no) is a volcanic island located off the western coast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula and about southwest of the city of Ensenada in the state of Baja California, in the Pacific Ocean. The various volcanoes are extinct or dormant. In 2005 Guadalupe Island and its surrounding waters and islets were declared a biosphere reserve to restore its vegetation (decimated by feral goats) and to protect its population of marine mammals and birds. The island is a popular destination for great white shark cage diving. Guadalupe Island is inhabited only by scientists, military personnel operating a weather station, and a small group of seasonal fishermen. The island is mostly arid and has very little surface water. The two other Mexican island groups in the Pacific Ocean that are not on the continental shelf are the Revillagigedo Islands and Rocas Alijos. Guadalupe Island and its islets are the westernmost region of Mexico. Discovery a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah. The Mojave Desert, together with the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Great Basin deserts, forms a larger North American Desert. Of these, the Mojave is the smallest and driest. The Mojave Desert displays typical basin and range topography, generally having a pattern of a series of parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is also the site of Death Valley, which is the lowest elevation in North America. The Mojave Desert is often colloquially called the "high desert", as most of it lies between . It supports a diversity of flora and fauna. The desert supports a number of human activities, including recreation, ranching, and military training. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sky Island
Sky islands are topographic isolation, isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau, and has extended to similarly isolated montane ecosystems, high-elevation forests. The isolation has significant implications for these natural habitats. The Southwestern United States, American Southwest region began warming up between and 10,000 years Before Present, BP and atmospheric temperatures increased substantially, resulting in the formation of vast deserts that isolated the sky islands. Endemism, altitudinal migration, and Relict (biology), relict populations are some of the natural phenomena to be found on sky islands. The complex dynamics of species richness on sky islands draws attention from the discipline of biogeography, and likewise the biodiversity is of concern to conservation biology. One of the key elements of a sky island is separation by physical distance from the other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Nevada (U
The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is part of the American Cordillera, an almost continuous chain of mountain ranges that forms the western "backbone" of the Americas. The Sierra runs north-south and its width ranges from to across east–west. Notable features include General Sherman, the largest tree in the world by volume; Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America; Mount Whitney at , the highest point in the contiguous United States; and Yosemite Valley sculpted by glaciers from one-hundred-million-year-old granite, containing high waterfalls. The Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks; and Devils ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacramento Valley
, photo =Sacramento Riverfront.jpg , photo_caption= Sacramento , map_image=Map california central valley.jpg , map_caption= The Central Valley of California , location = California, United States , coordinates = , boundaries = Sierra Nevada (east), Cascade Range, Klamath Mountains (north), Coast Range (west), Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta (south) , towns = Redding, Chico, Yuba City, Sacramento , watercourses = Sacramento River The Sacramento Valley is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies north of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the Sacramento River. It encompasses all or parts of ten Northern California counties. Although many areas of the Sacramento Valley are rural, it contains several urban areas, including the state capital, Sacramento. Since 2010, statewide droughts in California have further strained both the Sacramento Valley's and the Sacramento metropolitan region's water security. Geog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Coast Ranges
The Coast Ranges of California span from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains. Physiographically, they are a section of the larger Pacific Border province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. UNESCO has included the "California Coast Ranges Biosphere Reserve" in its Man and the Biosphere Programme of World Network of Biosphere Reserves since 1983. * Physiography The northern end of the California Coast Ranges overlap the southern end of the Klamath Mountains for approximately 80 miles on the west. They extend southward for more than 600 miles to where the coastline turns eastward along the Santa Barbara Channel, around the area of Point Conception. Here the southern end meets the Los Angeles Transverse Ranges, or ''Sierras de los Angeles''. The rocks themselves that com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transverse Ranges
The Transverse Ranges are a group of mountain ranges of southern California, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region in North America. The Transverse Ranges begin at the southern end of the California Coast Ranges and lie within Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Kern counties. The Peninsular Ranges lie to the south. The name Transverse Ranges is due to their east–west orientation, making them transverse to the general northwest–southeast orientation of most of California's coastal mountains.Dibblee Jr, T.W., 1982. Regional geology of the Transverse Ranges Province of southern California. ''Geology and mineral wealth of the California Transverse Ranges'', ''10'', pp.7-26. The ranges extend from west of Point Conception eastward approximately 500 kilometers into the Mojave and Colorado Desert. The geology and topography of the ranges express three distinct segments that have contrasting elevations, rock types, and vegetation. The wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peninsular Ranges
The Peninsular Ranges (also called the Lower California province) are a group of mountain ranges that stretch from Southern California to the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula; they are part of the North American Coast Ranges, which run along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Mexico. Elevations range from . Geography The Peninsular Ranges include the Santa Ana Mountains, Temescal and other mountains and ranges of the Perris Block, San Jacinto and Laguna ranges of southern California continuing from north to south with the Sierra de Juárez, Sierra de San Pedro Mártir, Sierra de San Borja, Sierra de San Francisco, Sierra de la Giganta, and Sierra de la Laguna in Baja California. Palomar Mountain, home to Palomar Observatory, is in the Peninsular Ranges in San Diego County, as are Viejas Mountain and the San Ysidro Mountains. The Peninsular ranges run predominantly north-south, unlike the Transverse Ranges to their north, which mostly run east-west. Geology Rock ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Four Corners region with Utah to the north, Colorado to the northeast, and New Mexico to the east; its other neighboring states are Nevada to the northwest, California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase. Southern Arizona is known for its desert cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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