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South Sierra Wilderness
The South Sierra Wilderness is a federally designated wilderness area in the Southern Sierra Nevada, in eastern California. It is located northeast of Bakersfield, and is southwest of Owens Lake and Olancha. Geography Created with the passage of the California Wilderness Act of 1984 by the U.S. Congress, the South Sierra Wilderness is in size. It is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, and within Sequoia National Forest and Inyo National Forest. The South Sierra Wilderness is the southernmost Forest Service-managed section of a continuous chain of wilderness areas protecting the Sierra Nevada crest from Walker Pass to Lake Tahoe. Elevations range from about near Kennedy Meadows, up to at Olancha Peak. The Wild and Scenic South Fork of the Kern River bisects the wilderness on the east side, in a north–south direction. Ecology Wildlife includes the large Monache mule deer herd, the sensitive Sierra Nevada red fox, pine martens, mountain lions, and American black be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tulare County, California
Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. Drained for agricultural development, the site is now in Kings County, which was created in 1893 from the western portion of the formerly larger Tulare County. Tulare County comprises the Visalia- Porterville, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is located south of Fresno, spanning from the San Joaquin Valley east to the Sierra Nevada. Sequoia National Park is located in the county, as is part of Kings Canyon National Park, in its northeast corner (shared with Fresno County), and part of Mount Whitney, on its eastern border (shared with Inyo County). As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117, up from 442,179 at the 2010 census. History The land was occupied for thousands of years by the Yokuts. Beginning in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kern River
The Kern River, previously Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield. Fed by snowmelt near Mount Whitney, the river passes through scenic canyons in the mountains and is a popular destination for whitewater rafting and kayaking. It is the southernmost major river system in the Sierra Nevada, and is the only major river in the Sierra that drains in a southerly direction. The Kern River formerly emptied into the now dry Buena Vista Lake and Kern Lake via the Kern River Slough, and Kern Lake in turn emptied into Buena Vista Lake via the Connecting Slough at the southern end of the Central Valley. Buena Vista Lake, when overflowing, first backed up into Kern Lake and then upon rising higher drained into Tulare Lake via Buena Vista Slough and a changing series of sloughs of the Kern River. The lakes were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemism
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceanothus Pinetorum
''Ceanothus pinetorum'' is a species of shrub in the family Rhamnaceae known by the common names Kern ceanothus and Coville ceanothus. It is endemic to the Sierra Nevada of California, where it is known only from the Kern Plateau, a section of the southern Sierra featuring wide meadows and ridges. Description This is a low-lying shrub forming a bush or mat under a meter tall but up to about 8 meters in spreading width. The evergreen leaves are oppositely arranged and generally under 2 centimeters long, each firm and hairless with a toothed edge. The inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ... is a small cluster of blue to off-white flowers yielding horned, wrinkled fruits just under a centimeter long. References External linksJepson Manual Treatment [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of California Native Plants
California native plants are plants that existed in California prior to the arrival of European explorers and colonists in the late 18th century. California includes parts of at least three phytochoria. The largest is the California Floristic Province, a geographical area that covers most of California, portions of neighboring Oregon, Nevada, and Baja California, and is regarded as a "world hotspot" of biodiversity. Introduction In 1993, '' The Jepson Manual'' estimated that California was home to 4,693 native species and 1,169 native subspecies or varieties, including 1,416 endemic species. A 2001 study by the California Native Plant Society estimated 6,300 native plants. These estimates continue to change over time. Of California's total plant population, 2,153 species, subspecies, and varieties are endemic and native to California alone, according to the 1993 Jepson Manual study. This botanical diversity stems not only from the size of the state, but also its diverse top ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpine Plant
Alpine plants are plants that grow in an alpine climate, which occurs at high elevation and above the tree line. There are many different plant species and taxa that grow as a plant community in these alpine tundra. These include perennial grasses, sedges, forbs, cushion plants, mosses, and lichens.. Alpine plants are adapted to the harsh conditions of the alpine environment, which include low temperatures, dryness, ultraviolet radiation, wind, drought, poor nutritional soil, and a short growing season. Some alpine plants serve as medicinal plants. Ecology Alpine plants occur in a tundra: a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees. Alpine tundra occurs in mountains worldwide. It transitions to subalpine forests below the tree line; stunted forests occurring at the forest-tundra ecotone are known as '' Krummholz''. With increasing elevation, it ends at the snow line where snow and ice persist through summer, also known as the Nival Zone. Alpine plan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinus Contorta
''Pinus contorta'', with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpine, but is rare in lowland rain forests. Like all pines (member species of the genus ''Pinus''), it is an evergreen conifer. Description Depending on subspecies, ''Pinus contorta'' grows as an evergreen shrub or tree. The shrub form is krummholz and is approximately high. The thin and narrow-crowned tree can grow high and achieve up to in diameter at chest height. The ''murrayana'' subspecies is the tallest. The crown is rounded and the top of the tree is flattened. In dense forests, the tree has a slim, conical crown. The formation of twin trees is common in some populations in British Columbia. The elastic branches stand upright or overhang and are difficult to break. The branches are covered with short shoots that are easy to remov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abies Magnifica
''Abies magnifica'', the red fir or silvertip fir, is a western North American fir, native to the mountains of southwest Oregon and California in the United States. It is a high-elevation tree, typically occurring at elevation, though only rarely reaching tree line. The name red fir derives from the bark color of old trees. Description ''Abies magnifica'' is a large evergreen tree typically up to tall and trunk diameter, rarely to tall and diameter, with a narrow conic crown. The bark on young trees is smooth, grey, and has resin blisters, becoming orange-red, rough and fissured on old trees. The leaves are needle-like, long, glaucous blue-green above and below with strong stomatal bands, and an acute tip. They are arranged spirally on the shoot, but twisted slightly S-shaped to be upcurved above the shoot. The cones are erect, long, yellow-green (occasionally purple), ripening brown and disintegrating to release the winged seeds in fall. Varieties There are two, perh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Pine
''Pinus jeffreyi'', also known as Jeffrey pine, Jeffrey's pine, yellow pine and black pine, is a North American pine tree. It is mainly found in California, but also in the westernmost part of Nevada, southwestern Oregon, and northern Baja California.Safford, H.D. 2013. Natural Range of Variation (NRV) for yellow pine and mixed conifer forests in the bioregional assessment area, including the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, and Modoc and Inyo National Forests. Unpublished report. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region, Vallejo, CA/ref> It is named in honor of its botanist documenter John Jeffrey (botanist), John Jeffrey. Description ''Pinus jeffreyi'' is a large coniferous evergreen tree, reaching tall, rarely up to tall, though smaller when growing at or near tree line. The leaves are needle-like, in bundles of three, stout, glaucous gray-green, long. The cones are long, dark purple when immature, ripening pale brown, with thinly woody scales bearing a short, sharp ... [...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 interi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Black Bear
The American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), also called simply a black bear or sometimes a baribal, is a medium-sized bear endemic to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most widely distributed bear species. American black bears are omnivores, with their diets varying greatly depending on season and location. They typically live in largely forested areas, but will leave forests in search of food, and are sometimes attracted to human communities due to the immediate availability of food. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the American black bear as a least-concern species, due to its widespread distribution and a large population estimated to be twice that of all other bear species combined. Along with the brown bear (''Ursus arctos''), it is one of only two modern bear species not considered by the IUCN to be globally threatened with extinction. Taxonomy and evolution Despite living in North America, American black bears are n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cougar
The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. It is an adaptable, generalist species, occurring in most American habitat types. This wide range has brought it many common names, including puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther (for the Florida sub-population). It is the second-largest cat in the New World, after the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Secretive and largely solitary by nature, the cougar is properly considered both nocturnal and crepuscular, although daytime sightings do occur. Despite its size, the cougar is more closely related to smaller felines, including the domestic cat (''Felis catus'') than to any species of the subfamily Pantherinae. The cougar is an ambush predator that pursues a wide variety of prey. Primary food sources are ungulates, particularly deer, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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