USA > California > History of California, Volume V > Part 4
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CALIFORNIAN FLORA
In spring the whole country is a beautiful flowery land except where man has usurped the soil for his crops, his flocks and herds, and his habitations. The annuals come up in masses, in colonies, one species often monopolizing the ground by millions of individ- uals over one area, another species over another, each giving its color to the landscape so that its identity can be known so far as the eye can see. They all quickly disappear when the rainy season ends, leaving their sleeping seeds to reproduce the same conditions the next year. When the first rains arrive in the fall they usher not winter but spring. Almost at once the brown hills and valleys, seemingly dead but full of dormant life, become a misty green which deepens with each succeeding rain. The myriads of sprouting seedlings have produced this miracle of a new world. The color of the winter landscape in California is a rich, luxuriant green, instead of snowy white; more species are in bloom at Christmas than in August. Of course, on the high mountains arctic and boreal conditions prevail and the higher peaks and valleys are buried for many months in snow.
It must not be thought that all the hills and valleys of the lower elevations are brown during summer. Immense areas of dense evergreen shrubby growth known as chapparal cover the hills of both the coast mountains and the Sierra Nevada. It consists of species of oak, ceanothus, manzanita (Arctostaphylos), yerba santa (Eriodictyon), azalea, rhododendron, vac- cinium, gaultheria, pickeringia, chemisal (Adenostoma), toyon (Heteromeles), styrax, tree poppy (Dendromecon), pitcher sage (Sphacele), golden plume (Ericameria) and
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many more that are less common or conspicuous. From a distance these hills seem velvety in their verdure but at close range the chapparal is almost impenetrable. This dense covering of shrubs is of the greatest impor- tance in conserving the rainfall and they are all pro- tected from the drought and heat of summer by various devices that are also characteristic of desert plants. Each of the dominant species of this chapparal has its own time for bloom and were it not for the variability of the rainy season one could tell the month or perhaps even the week of the year by the prevailing color of the chapparal. All of one kind will be in bloom at once and they are often massed together. The different species of Ceanothus are the painters of blue, purple, and white; the manzanitas pink and white; the chemise white which later turns brown; the toyon white in sum- mer, brilliant red in winter. The berries of the toyon are to Californians what holly is in other places, the chief decoration at Christmas.
The forests, too, are always green, the great primeval forests for which the Pacific coast is renowned. The deciduous trees are so few that they scarcely give color in autumn or show bare branches in winter.
In passing from the seashore to the summits of the highest mountains, belts of vegetation appear, each marked by its own peculiar trees and shrubs. These zones are neither parallel nor well defined and can be outlined only in a general way. There is always an area where the zone-marking species overlap.
Along the sea-beach where the plants grow in salt impregnated sand and are bathed by the salty spray of the ocean, they have many of the same character-
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CALIFORNIAN FLORA
istics as the plants that grow in the alkaline deserts of the interior, namely, fleshy foliage, prostrate habit of growth, great root system, and salty sap. Even the same genera are represented, such as Abronia, Atriplex, Suada, Franseria, and so forth. The species are, however, different. Among these maritime plants are some cosmopolitan species, Cakile edentula, Con- volvulus Soldanella, Mesembryanthemum æquilaterale, suggesting artificial distribution, probably by sea birds.
The bluffs that generally rise along the coast are often a tangled mass of plants growing thickest in the neighborhood of springs which are common on such bluffs. Here are several shrubs with berries, such as the blackberry, salmon berry, thimble berry, huckle- berry, gooseberry, currant, salal, garrya, myrica, twinberry, dogwood, rose, besides some willows, vari- ous shrubby composites and tall, rank umbellifers. Along the northern part of California these form thickets and are of similar species even to Alaska. In the southern part the species are different and not so dense, related to Mexican and desert species.
Above these bluffs are the grassy hills and valleys devoted to pasturing. Even when these hills are brown and dry in summer, the herbage is full of nourishment, natural hay cured by the heat of the sun so that all its sweetness is preserved. How well do these brown hills set off the evergreen trees that are scattered here and there, sometimes carved and dwarfed by the wind, as are those at the tree limit on the high mountains. How green these pastures are during the winter but in spring most beautiful, a kaleidoscope of color from the flowers growing everywhere.
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Along the streams and the lower edges of the inner hills rise the forests. These forests in northern Cali- fornia are the home of many splendid trees, chief among all being the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). Associ- ated with this will be found the douglas spruce (Pseu- dotsuga taxifolia), the California nutmeg (Torreya californica), the different oaks (Quercus Kelloggii, Garryana, lobata, agrifolia, chrysolepsis, densiflora), the maple (Acer macrophyllum), box-elder (Negundo cali- fornica), the laurel or bay (Umbellularia californica), the incomparable madroña (Arbutus Menziesii), the wax-myrtle (Myrica californica), the ash (Fraxinus oregana), the elderberries (Sambucus glauca and calli- carpa), the buckeye (Æsculus californica). Many of these trees have a much wider distribution, extending into the Sierra Nevada and growing at a much greater altitude. Above the forests and running into them through shrubby forms of these same trees come the chapparal covered slopes. Alders and willows frequent the lower part of the streams and away from the coast the sycamores also protect the water courses by their shade. Where the coast mountains rise to high peaks of from four to six thousand feet, pines appear, also incense cedar and other species of similar elevations of the Sierra Nevada. They both catch the moisture from the high winds that carry vapor across the coast mountains to the Sierra Nevada. The eastern slope of the coast mountains and the western side of the Sierra Nevada are very hot and dry in summer as are also the great valleys stretching between. Except in the vicinity of streams or occasional areas where oaks
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abound, the verdure is all gone in summer but reap- pears in winter, and in spring it is a flowery paradise everywhere.
In the higher mountains of the Sierra Nevada and a few peaks of the coast mountains the different zones are well marked by species of pines and firs. On the hot, dry foothills are the digger pine (Pinus Sabiniana) and the blue or white oak (Quercus Douglasii), also Quercus Wislizeni, an evergreen oak; higher up we find the yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa) accompanied by the black oak (Quercus Kelloggii), still higher is the zone of the sugar pine (Pinus Lambertiana) and with it we find the incense cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), Jeffreys pine, related to Pinus ponderosa, the white fir (Abies concolor Lowiana) and the giant redwood (Sequoia gigantea). Still higher are the red fir (Abies magnifica) which grows even to timber line, the mountain pine (Pinus monticola) the foxtail pine (Pinus Balfouriana) and the hemlock spruce (Tsuga Mertensiana). This last comes pretty close to timber line on some mountains where Pinus albicaulis forms wind-carved ridges and clumps like dense hedges. The tree commonly known in California as the tamrac is really a pine (Pinus Contorta Murray- ana) which loves to grow circling the meadows where snow lies long and the streams head. It is a widely distributed species in several varieties and in the Rocky mountains is known as the lodge-pole pine. In the southern part of the state where the mountains do not rise so high and run east and west instead of north and south, some different species are found, as Pinus monophylla, Pinus Parryana, Pinus Coulteri, and Pseu- dotsuga macrocarpa. Between the extreme south and
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
the extreme north of California the zone marking species have a great difference in altitude, for as one goes to the arctic regions the vegetation of the loftiest peaks of the southern mountains is similar in character and even in some species to that at the very sea level.
The desert flora is related to that of Mexico and is full of queer plants not found elsewhere. The best represented families are the Composite with a great many genera, the best known being the sage brushes (Artemisia) ; the rabbit brush (Chrysothamnus); Cheno- podiaceæ with species of Atriplex or salty sage; Polygo- naceæ, species of Eriogonum, Chorizanthe. There are many kinds of grasses, also of cactus. The Leguminosæ have most beautiful trees, the palo verde or Parkin- sonia, the mesquites or Prosopsis, and the daleas which are all shrubs except Dalea spinosa. The yuccas belong to the lily family and the agaves to the amaryllis family. Indeed, many of the desert species are of surpassing beauty in flower and most of them are armed with thorns or spines. It is a wonderful experience to see the desert blooming after a plenteous rainfall. Never shall I forget the ocotilla (Fouquiera splendens) as I saw it in the spring on the edge of the Colorado desert in San Diego county. The stems of this plant rise in groups of single stalks and grow to a height of six to ten feet. Before the rains they are gray and bare except for the most awful thorns that completely cover the stems. After the rain these thorns become hidden beneath the delicate green leaves and the summit of the tall stems are glorified by great clusters of the most brilliant red flowers. For miles these groups of
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CALIFORNIAN FLORA
wonderful plants are scattered over the desert accom- panied by different kinds of cactus, daleas, krameria, ephedra and others not so noticeable. On the Mojave desert the most conspicuous species is the tree yucca, a fantastic tree with spreading branches entirely bare except for the tuft of dagger-shaped leaves at the ends. It has a weird appearance in keeping with the desolate country over which it is spread. Where water flows during the rainy season, the desert willow, a peculiar tree related to the catalpa, the arrow-wood (Pluchea borealis), the mesquites (Prosopsis pubescens and juliflora) together with real willows (Salix), cotton woods, and sometimes the walnut.
Insular floras have a great value in the light they have thrown on the evolution of species. It was from the study of such floras and faunas that both Darwin and Wallace discovered the Law of Evolution. The Californian islands that lie off the coast from about Santa Barbara southward are full of interesting sug- gestions. They have not been so long separated from the mainland to lose all connection but not only do they have peculiar endemic species but where they have similar species each island will often show some slight variation from the species on the other islands and also from what grows on the mainland. A few conspicuous examples will illustrate. The Lyonthamnus is a pecu- liar tree found only on these islands, belonging to the rose family, but with some characteristics of the saxifrage family. The species as it grows on Santa Catalina island has simple leaves; on Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands the leaves are compound, each leaflet resembling a simple leaf of the Catalina species.
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
The holly-leaved cherry (Prunus ilicifolia) common on the hills of the mainland from northern to southern California has a related species on Catalina island having leaves without the prickly edge, much larger flowers and fruits, forming a fine, large tree. To num- ber or list the endemic species of each of these islands would be quite unsatisfactory because of the great difference of opinion that would arise over specific lines.
It has been possible in this brief survey of the botanical features of California to merely touch upon the interesting features. To fully describe and explain at length would make a book of good size. While it is incomplete in so far as details go, yet the main points have, I think, been touched upon so as to give the average reader some knowledge of the character of one of the most interesting floras of the whole world.
alice Eastwood
THE FAUNA OF CALIFORNIA
O NE of the most fascinating phases of the polychrome science, biology, is that aspect dealing with the adjustment of a fauna or a flora to the physical character of its habitat. Men nowadays commonly think of earth, air, water as passive matter and brush them aside into the category we call "inanimate nature." Birds sing, squirrels bark, flowers bloom; but mountains, rivers, and deserts live and breathe only in the imagination of the senti- mental poet or of the superstitious barbarian. As one's horizon of appreciation widens, however, he sees things in the large, his vision reaches over areas of continental magnitude and extends through almost incalculable time. He sees in operation, forces which remain unnoticed through the briefer periods that can be meas- ured in the pulse beats we call generations. He sees the world of organic things take shape and change that shape in response to environmental influence almost as though the physical in nature were the animate thing and organisms the insensate warp and woof plastic to its touch. The materialistic attitude toward nature is measurably tempered by this time and space vision and a faunal biologist sees the animate appear almost as a garment woven upon the inanimate. The robe is wondrously fitted to the form beneath it, displaying rather than hiding its contours, thrown into ample and luxuriant folds over the deep, quiet places, only to be drawn tense and spare over the points of highest tension; perhaps a bit sun-bleached or worn in spots of severe attrition and exposure, but maintain- ing an oriental splendor in deeper folds. Figures of the original pattern may in some places have completely
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disappeared, in others, simply mellowed or been enriched. So at times it almost seems that earth were alive and we its mere clothing. To the real naturalist, be he technical or otherwise, seeing with the larger vision the fauna of California, the wonder of this biological garment, its varied texture, its infinite range of coloring, yet withal its orderly conformity to law, cannot but appeal most forcefully.
The state of California embraces within its borders as great if not a greater variety of vertebrate animals than does any one of her sisters in the union. No less than 530 distinct races of birds and 337 species of mammals have been listed by the Museum of Verte- brate Zoology at the State University from this commonwealth. Of freshwater and littoral marine fishes, an equally imposing number has been recorded by the Zoology department of Stanford University. Reptiles and Batrachians have been too imperfectly surveyed to afford positive census as yet while inverte- brates teem in such myriad numbers as to almost discourage the cataloging.
The great array of species thus listed from California is due not solely to the immense area involved but is attributable to a peculiar combination of many and widely diverse environmental factors. These factors include such important ones as great range of latitude, of elevation, of temperature, of humidity, of insolation. There extend throughout the length of the state great parallel ranges of mountains with at least one trans- verse barrier; there are partly disconnected peaks, there are continental islands and deep submerged valleys close inshore; there are unrelated river systems
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draining blindly into desert sinks. The whole country is geologically young, there have been recent and varied changes in its topography. There was never a general ice cap over the entire surface in glacial times to level off organic inequalities with the planing down of its physiographic contours. Under such conditions a biological monochrome is impossible. It is a commonly accepted bionomic principle that variety of conditions or rapid change in conditions will be reflected in the faunal fluctuation of the region involved, hence nature has here followed a logical course in weaving for herself a coat of many colors and California is rich in organic species.
Were the earth a sphere of unvaried surface from pole to pole, then would distance from the equator probably constitute the chief if not the only factor governing the distribution of its organic life. A species would assume position to north or to south in that temperature zone congenial to it until there resulted the phenomenon of species distributed in uniform bands along the parallel isotherms or lines of equal temperature through- out the earth. In the large, such zones do exist roughly outlined upon the continents despite the diversity of surface. Students of geographic distribution recognize in North America the so-called Sonoran Zone roughly coincident with the area of the United States lying between the Tropical Zone of Mexico and Central America to the southward and the Boreal Zone of Canada and Alaska to the northward. Latitude will thus be seen to constitute an important determinant in the distribution of species. California extends in its greater dimension over more than ten degrees of lati-
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
tude, a distance here sufficient to traverse the entire Sonoran Zone. Her southern boundary lies at its southern isotherm, her northern counties reach beyond its northern isotherm into the Boreal Zone which is here deflected southward by the west American mountain systems.
The state, possessed of such great range of latitude, is then in a position to attract within its borders a number of forms from neighboring zones both to north and to south of her. Hence we find crossing our southern bor- ders from Mexico a host of animal forms, some just peeping in as it were and others pushing further to the northward well into the center of the state. Scott's ori- ole, Arizona hooded oriole, Texan cardinal, vermillion flycatcher all are migratory forms capable of crossing such topographic barriers as intervene, yet, though coming north only in the warm season from the Tropical Zone they stop n the southern counties of the state. The zebra tailed lizard, the chuckawalla, the iguanid lizard, Dipsosaurus, the banded gecko are nonmigratory forms diffusing north from the deserts of Mexico into our southeastern corners where they find a congenial climate. At the opposite extreme from these gentle- men of fervid tastes we find in the northern counties of California the ruffed grouse, evening grossbeak, wolver- ine, otter, marten, and fisher, all of them forms we share with our Canadian neighbors to the northward. Back and forth for varying distances up and down the state, these organisms pass either in seasonal migration or in the slower course of species diffusion, each finding his environmental setting there to flourish.
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FAUNA OF CALIFORNIA
In many respects comparable to the effect of longitude upon organic life is the influence of elevation above sea level. East and west continental life zones dependent in the main upon temperature find counterpart locally in the abrupt mountain ranges of the west. Within a score of miles one may pass from Lower Sonoran to Upper Sonoran, thence through Transition to Boreal at the summit of the range. California is rich in mountains and the ranges trend in the main parallel with the meridian. The Sierra Nevadas of the eastern border of the state rise to the height of perpetual snow and their north and south direction causes them to become a pathway for the southward diffusion of boreal forms such as the leucosticte, cross-bill, sierra grouse, Mount Whitney coney, marmot and wolverine. In the vicinity of San Francisco bay the western golden crowned kinglet occurs in winter at practically sea level. In Los Angeles county it is seldom if ever noted below an elevation of five thousand feet. This little visitor from the cold Boreal is thus able to pass the entire length of the state, climbing farther and farther into the mountains as he comes south and so escaping the scorned mildness of the warmer Sonoran Zone which laps like waves higher and higher along the flanks of the range until in southern California, its warmer airs wash across the ridge through the east and west passes and break the mountain chain into a number of biological islands of the Boreal. Upon these isolated peaks there appear thus segregated, larger or smaller patches of a more northern biota entirely surrounded by animals and plants distinctive of the south. Mount Whitney, Mount Piños, Mount San Gorgonio, and Mount San
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
Jacinto constitute such "islands" comparable to the southern end of the Andes trailing off into an archipelego in the antarctic sea.
Flanking the somewhat abrupt western base of the Sierra Nevada from Shasta to the Tehachapi, through the major part of the length of the state, shielded from the cool sea-winds by the Coast range immediately to the west, warm, dry, and level, there lies the great interior valley of the Sacramento and San Joaquin drainage basins. Here cradled between two great ranges of mountains, is a region of low elevation, great flatness of contour and of sluggish drainage, the wheat field of California. This great valley, so broad that its limiting ranges fade into the haze of drowsy weather or recede as vertical walls of white-capped blue on crystal days, gives the impression of limitless expanse and offers to animals and plants of plains loving nature, a congenial habitation. One or two residual bands of the once abundant antelope and a few of the vanishing dwarf elk still roam its open stretches protected by a rigorous state law which brands their killing a felony. Along its willow and cottonwood bordered water courses occur the wood-dwellers of the lower Sonoran, finding here a pleasant highway upon which they venture well into the northern part of the state. Along this tem- pered path goes that incarnate spirit of semi-tropic moonlight, the mocking bird. The anomalous road runner, a cuckoo with long legs and degenerating wings, his heritage of tree-dweller foot only slightly adjusted to the swift coursing habit, finds here a hot open country with abundant lizard and grasshopper diet quite to his fancy.
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FAUNA OF CALIFORNIA
Shallow, ephemeral, and often alkaline lakes accumu- late quickly on the level valley floor to form ideal haunts for such migratory southern gentlemen as the black necked stilt and the fulvous free duck. Bell's sparrow and the kangaroo rat, dwellers in sage and sand, find homes in the low marginal foothills while out over the plain from spurs of the Coast range sails the great California condor going easily fifty miles to breakfast on the once elk and antelope populated plains of this great level basin, the valley of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin.
The second great mountain mass, the Coast range, is less positive as a biological factor than is the Sierra Nevadan system. Elevations are less pronounced, continuity is less perfect, slopes less steep, and the vertical projection of life zones, in consequence, less perfectly defined. There are no perennial snows, no upper timberline, no hanging gardens in high glacier meadows, no crag-set lakes to attract the nesting water fowl, no roof gardens of tamarak and aspen groves. Nor are there at the other extreme any sun browned deserts at their feet such as cling about the skirts of Whitney, San Gorgonio, and San Jacinto. The system does, however, suffice to shut off from the west the wheat field of the interior valley and, among its broken spurs, to cradle a host of smaller patches of fertile garden. Where its western slopes do not drop sheer into the sea it serves to define fragments of a discon- tinuous coastal plain. In some of the enclosed pockets to the southward occur isolated colonies of the appar- ently disappearing yellow billed magpie. Here, too, is probably the last intrenchment within our borders of
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the California condor, unique in the northern hemis- phere in point of size and equaled elsewhere in the world only by the great condor of the Andes.
At their northern end these broken coastwise mountains serve to bring well within our borders the northwestern Humid Belt, a biological area stretching down the coast from British Columbia practically to the San Francisco region. Being cool throughout the year, shaded by fog and clouds, watered abundantly and timbered in accordance, this area tempts southward such cold proof Canadians as the chestnut backed chickadee and Nuttall's sparrow. The dark coastal form of the wren tit is here segregated from the pale colored inland phase which ranges from Shasta county to Mexico in the Sonoran. The plumed quail, the coast jay, a dark colored species of that peculiar isolated rodent, the swellel, not to mention a host of smaller mammals-all help to characterize this well defined area.
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