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4. AN INTRODUCTION TO 

 CALIFORNIA PLANT COMMUNITIES 



California Plant Communities and Their Major Components 



A plant community is a regional assemblage of interacting 

 plant species characterized by the presence of one or more domi- 

 nant species. The concept of the community has been the subject 

 of considerable argument in past decades and there is no uniform 

 application of the term even today. Some botanists define a 

 plant community simply as an assemblage of plants living in a 

 prescribed area or physical habitat. Other botanists deny the 

 "reality" of plant communities and do not believe that they exist, 

 except in the minds of some ecologists. Nevertheless, there are 

 practical reasons for recognizing plant communities in California 

 as a basis for discussing the plant life of the state. 



In Munz' A California Flora eleven vegetation types and 

 twenty-nine plant communities are recognized for California, 

 based on a scheme that Munz and D. D. Keck devised ten years 

 earlier. The vegetation types they recognize in California are: 



1. Strand 7. Woodland-Savanna 



2. Salt Marsh 8. Chaparral 



3. Freshwater Marsh 9. Grassland 



4. Scrub 10. Alpine Fell-Field 



5. Coniferous Forest 11. Desert Woodland 



6. Mixed Evergreen Forest 



Another classification of California plant communities that 

 is relatively simple and useful is given below. Some of the charac- 

 teristic plant species of each community are listed along with 

 their distribution in that plant community in California. Each of 

 these communities is discussed later in the text. This classification 

 of California plant communities is my modification of one 

 brought to my attention by J. R. Haller of the University of 

 California, Santa Barbara. The phrase in parentheses under the 

 names of the communities in the listing indicates their equivalent 



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