PLANT COMMUNITIES OF CALIFORNIA AS SEEN IN MARIN COUNTY

DATE OF FIELD TRIP: Saturday, 22 May 2004, Conducted by Rudolf Schmid under the auspices of the University of California Botanical Garden, University of California, Berkeley.

PERSPECTIVE: The purpose of this field trip is to examine the plant communities that occur along an itinerary traveled between Berkeley and the Pacific Ocean bordering the Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, California. We will actually walk in the following communities, as visited at six stops (Note: Stops #3-#6 are in the Point Reyes National Seashore.):

We will also identify many of the dominant and/or conspicuous plant components of these communities.

While in the vehicles we will also pass some of these eight plant communities and, additionally, drive by these communities: Intertidal-Subtidal; Northern Mixed Evergreen Forest; Chaparral; Annual Grassland; Artificial Grassland; Vernal Pool. We thus will see all of the coastal or near-coastal communities in central and northern California except Oak Woodland (specifically Northern Oak Woodland). Incidentally, Shuford & Timossi (1989) discuss twelve plant communities that occur naturally in Marin County.

READING: Some of these items can be purchased at the Point Reyes National Seashore headquarters (Point Reyes Station, CA 94056, 415/663-1092) as well as from the website for the Point Reyes National Seashore Association.


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Last revised: May 2004