The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service published a revised list of Candidate Plants under the Federal Endangered Species Act on November 22, 2013.  Six California endemic plants remain formal Candidates (including their number of documented occurrences):                Family                  Taxon                      ..read more

Type specimens of many California endemics described in the 1850s are often uncertain. in the instance of Torreya californica, the NY holotype Barcode 1212 is not attributed to either a collector, date or place! In the protologue “Notice of the California Nutmeg” (New York J. Pharmacy Vol. 3 3: 49. 1854}) Torrey writes “About a year ago, I received from the late Mr. Shelton, a specimen of what was called California Nutmeg”. Who was Shelton? C.C. Shelton does not appear in the Harvard Index of Botanists. Fortunately that question was explored by Ewan (1981), wherein Shelton is placed in ..read more

Based on tally of 1.3 million specimens, the 10 most well collected California species are:  Taxon # sheets Bromus carinatus 3202 Eriogonum umbellatum 3288 Eriophyllum confertiflorum 3383 Vuplia microstachys 3440 Eriogonum fasciculatum 3525 Frangula californica 3686 Arctostaphylos glandulosa 4070 Diplacus aurantiacus 4469 Salix lasiolepis 4966 Poa secunda 5242 Note: the taxon in the data is a full binomial, and includes all infrataxa of a given taxon Data from: California_Specie ..read more

Toxicodendron diversilobum. Rhus diversilola, Torr. & Gray, FL i 218. E.L. Greene had the facility to view specimens, and immediately pronounce them as known or new species.  In 1905, Greene described several segregates from common poison oak, Toxicodendron diversilobum (T&G) Greene.  These names do not appear in the Jepson eFlora, nor on the Interchange. They are below. Greene remarked (in his Leaflets 1905 emphasis added): This represents a peculiar type of Toxicodendron belonging exclusively to the Pacific coast. The leaflets and their lobes are in general rounded and obtu ..read more

Peterson PM, Romaschenko K, Soreng RJ, Reyna JV (2019) A key to the North American genera of Stipeae (Poaceae, Pooideae) with descriptions and taxonomic names for species of Eriocoma, Neotrinia, Oloptum, and five new genera: Barkworthia, ×Eriosella, Pseudoeriocoma, Ptilagrostiella, and Thorneochloa. PhytoKeys 126: 89–125. https://doi. org/10.3897/phytokeys.126.34096 California has by my count 42 taxa of needlegrasses: the Tribe Stipeae Dumort.  In the Jepson Manual, a broad (and overly simplified) generic concept was used: a single genus Stipa L.  Robustly supported phylogenetic and biogeo ..read more

This basionym was published in Konigliches Gymnasium zu Sorau, Beilage zum Jahresbericht. Sorau 7. 1911.  The protologue is apparently not available on line (accessed 7/2/2019).  Brand (1913) and Jepson (1943) cite the holotype as “Hites Cove, J.W. Congdon, 8 May 1892”.    Brand (1913) cited only one specimen as “Parish”.  Two Congdon specimens database on line bear this date: UC126012 is a specimen that was originally part of the Brandegee Herbarium (Carter 2011), acquired afterwards by UC Berkeley.  A second specimen, DS134418 is labeled as an isotype.   Parish's herbarium was sold to Stanf ..read more

Extinction Density of World Flora Humphreys et al (2019) compiled a global roster of presumed extinct seed plants.  Their assessment (based on their Supplementary Data 1 spreadsheet) tallies but 9 plants as being extinct in California.  This is incorrect: CNPS (2019) records 22 presumed extinct plants (all seed plants).   No presumed extinct plants have been rediscovered in California since 2001 (CNPS 2019), hence this number is considered factually correct as compared to the Humphreys et al (2019) tally.  The Humphreys et al (2019) tally used as sources CPS (1990) and Kartesz (1994), but not ..read more

Size of the California Flora(Numbers of minimum rank TAXA) Category Native Exotic TOTAL Treated in TJM2 or eFlora 6570 1121 7691 Treated only in Munz & Keck 1959 600 8291 New taxa not yet treated in TJM2/eFlora 86 8377 Newly documented 16 8393 Exotics not treated (JFP 4, 5 & 10) 223 9596 TOTAL 7269 1344 9596 Category Endemic Not Endemic Percent Endemic All vascular plants 4087 5509 42.4 % Native vascular plants 4087 2483 56.1% Considered endemic if limited t ..read more