Wildflowers

of the

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

Updated 02-04-10. Over the last several months I've been going through my plant photos in an effort to get caught up before the flowering season starts going. The result has been the addition of over a thousand previously unpublished photos to this site. Simultaneously I have had to grapple with the growth of this site far beyond its original design. I still have several usability enhancements I would like to make but they are all pretty low priority. This is a goal I've had for years and I finally feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It should be a great year! I have also been working on an iPhone app that would allow users to carry the entire contents of this web site into the field and would not require cell coverage or WiFi to work. While publishing the app is still some time off one of the side benefits will be a new version of this site that is more friendly to hand-held devices with small displays. (If you would like to take a look at a preliminary draft of the "Small Device" version of this site drop me an email and I'll send you its link.) Stay tuned... Recent changes: - Added a set of links to the TOC-CN that jump-forward and jump-backward between letters. - Added a couple of hundred more pictures to existing plants. - Added a couple of new plants. - Several cosmetic tweaks. - Added a table of links to the Family Names in the TOC-SN. To see a list of species added in the most recent update cycle: New To see a list of species added over the last few months: Recent Additions See you on the trails! General Notes: This site was designed to work best with a monitor resolution of 800x600. If you have difficulty reading the text you can try changing the text size displayed in your browser by going to its "View" menu and then either "Text Size" or "Zoom." The zoom feature is generally always available via the key combinations Ctrl + (i.e., pressing the "Control" key and the plus key (+) simultaneously) and Ctrl -.   If you wish to cancel the zoom press Ctrl 0. Access to the plants available on this site is by way of a set of three large tables of links or through the Flower Finder. The table of links (called the Table of Contents or TOC) comes in three versions: a simplified table with only common names, a table composed of only the scientific names, or a more complete table that has both common names and scientific names. If your browser supports tool tips you can use your mouse to "hover" over an entry in the tables to cross-reference the names (this "hover" feature is actually built into many aspects of this web site.) All of the species on this site are available in these tables including the grasses and the ferns. The links in these tables lead to a web page featuring details of the plant listed. In almost all cases you can scroll down to see more pictures of the plant. It is also possible to access the grasses or the ferns through their own separate Table of Contents. Because of the large size of these tables it can be quicker to find the plant you want by searching for its name rather than scrolling through the lists. Most web browsers support searching the current web page (often called "finding") via the Edit menu or by pressing the key combination Ctrl F. Each web page featuring a flower includes the scientific name, the family name, and at least one common name. In addition, we provide the approximate location, habitat, and date for the plant that was photographed. If more than one common name is given we will capitalize the one which we have cross-referenced to the scientific name. In the case of the scientific names we will generally use the one listed in the 1993 version of  The Jepson Manual,  but in some cases may use a more currently accepted name. Scientific names which are no longer current will be enclosed in [square brackets]. An asterisk ( * ) denotes an established non-native or an introduced plant. The links to the Next Species and Previous Species at the top of each page are to the next or previous plant as ordered by scientific name sorted by families. The two tables of abbreviated names at the top of each page are for plant families, and then below that the species within the current family. These links make it possible to navigate to any other plant on this site with a maximum of two clicks (assuming you know the family it belongs to and its scientific name.) Again, hovering your mouse over these abbreviations opens a tool-tip with the full name of the abbreviated item. The common names have been pulled from many different sources including local common usage, printed materials, and electronic databases. In no way should the listing on this site be considered complete, even within the localization of Southern California. It might be observed that the reliability of the sources I have consulted varies. If I have erred on the side of including more names than absolutely necessary it seems to me the chief disadvantage is a greater number of collisions in which different plants are referred to by the same name. Such is the situation in general with common names. In the interest of saving space and minimizing confusion I have tried to eliminate spelling variations for the same plant (for example, cobweb and cobwebby, or bind weed and bindweed and bind-weed). On the other hand I have generally deliberately included spelling variations if there are two different common names that make use of a variable word. For example, Artemisia californica has listed for it both "California Sagebrush" and "coastal sage brush" hinting that different authorities treat the word "sagebrush" differently. In a situation like this you might expect that both "California sage brush" and "coastal sagebrush" could be found as well. Some of the principal sources I have consulted for common names include M. McAuley's Wildflowers of the Santa Monica Mountains, The Jepson Manual, and the USDA website. In most cases I have used McAuley's common name as the main entry name since his excellent wildflower book is one of those most commonly used locally by flower enthusiasts. The thumbnail pages generated by the Search function available through the Flower Finder may have many pictures on them (in some cases several hundred pictures.) These large web pages can take several minutes to load over a slow internet connection. Depending on the settings of your web browser, this can lead to a "time-out" situation where some pictures may fail to load. In that case you can try refreshing the page, or alternatively, right click a missing picture and choosing 'Show Picture'. The arrangement of the thumbnails is alphabetically by families and then by scientific name. The "Compact Version" of the Flower Finder is for users who do not need the usage notes to help them make selections. A final note about the Flower Finder is that it requires JavaScript to operate. If it is disabled in your web browser then noting will happen when you click the "Submit Search" button (it is unlikely that this will be a problem since almost all web browsers have this enabled by default.) When photographing the thumbnail pictures the camera was frequently positioned as close to the flower as possible, occasionally resulting in a greatly enlarged view of the flower. In plants with a large inflorescence we usually tried to focus on a single flower while still retaining enough of the inflorescence to indicate that it exists. Clicking on a thumbnail picture itself will open the page specific to that flower with at least one additional higher-resolution picture. All pictures and photomicrographs containing a measurement grid employ a 1mm scale unless otherwise noted. If you have comments or questions please contact e-mail: Tony_Valois@partner.nps.gov phone: 310-457-6408 [ NPS Home ] [ Santa Monica Mountains NRA Home ] [ What's Blooming ] [ Copyright Notice ]