Conclusion

Associated with the tremendous diversity of the physical landscape is a tremendously diverse flora. Much of that plant life is native to California, and a large percentage is endemic, meaning it occurs no where else on earth. At the same time, there are some trends that jump out of a study of Californian plant life.

The first is the importance of fire, both natural and artificial. Many plants in California depend on fire for reproduction, understory clearing, and nutrient cycling (Barbour and Major, 1988). Some species of Manzanita have fire resistant burls to ensure that the periodic fires that clear shrubs from the coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevada don’t wipe them out. Chaparral species, though not discussed here, need to be burned regularly, or else the community becomes overcrowded and chokes itself to death. Try walking through old Chaparral and this becomes clear. Another example of the importance of fire in California is the oak: oak regeneration is closely tied to fire (Pavlik et al, 1991).

The example of the oak brings up an important distinction concerning fire in California: that of natural and artificial fire. In the Sierra Nevada, fires of natural origins were the majority of fires. Lightning was the major incidiary mechanism. Trees growing in the Sierra Nevada adapted to periodic fires (Barbour and Major, 1988). The fires generally occurred on a regular enough basis that the underbrush was kept to a relatively low level. In most cases, the fire resistance of a trees bark was enough to save them from a fire. Stand replacing fires did occur, and species not adapted to fire did die our periodically.

In the grasslands and coastal areas of California, however, fires were of a different sort. In these areas, the fires were generally started by Native Californians (Pavlik et al, 1991). The Native Californians used fire as a means of game herding. The idea was that if one could burn grassland over a great enough area, the game would be concentrated on the areas that weren’t burned. There, the animals would be easier to hunt and kill. Despite being, by strictest definition, artificial, the Native Californian burning became worked into the ecological cycle in low elevation California.

The importance of fire for vegetation in California, however, was not realized by modern conservationist and resource managers until very recently (Barbour and Major, 1988). National Forests, National Parks, municipalities, etc. prevented all fires on their lands. The regimes of fire prevention had negative effects on the reproduction and growth of some trees. It is only recently that the importance of fire has been fully recognized. Today, most management agencies use “managed burns” to simulate the pre-European fire regimes in their particular region.

Another thing that is interesting about trees and shrubs in California is the large number of native, endemic, or otherwise peculiar species that occur in California. According to Barbour and Major (1988) California has an incredibly high number of native and endemic plants. In a way, California is like a climatic and geographically isolated island, with extreme variability of habitat. This variability might be an explanation for the amount of endemism. California has the tallest, the oldest, and the biggest trees in the world. It has the tree with the biggest cones. California developed an amazing amount of very unique plant life that merits closer study.