6. PLANT COMMUNITIES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 



Foregoing discussions were concerned with the major plant 

 communities that were encountered along a transect in northern 

 California. Because of the relatively symmetrical and orderly ar- 

 rangement of the chief mountain ranges in northern California, 

 a transect approach was used: most of the plant communities 

 in this part of the state tend to be distributed in a pattern that is 

 related to climatic patterns, and these in turn are strongly in- 

 fluenced by the position of mountain ranges in a north-south 

 series. We now turn to plant communities restricted to southern 

 California, especially the desert portions of the state. In this 

 region, the topography forms more of a mosaic pattern. 



Coastal Sage Scrub (Plate 14C;Map 3) 



In some respects, a southern counterpart of the Northern 

 Coastal Scrub is the Coastal Sage Scrub, also called Soft Chapar- 

 ral. The term counterpart is used because the Coastal Sage Scrub 

 occupies a narrow strip along the coast stretching along the 

 coastward side of the South Coast Ranges (and some of the Pen- 

 insular Ranges) into Baja California, in much the same relative 

 position occupied by Northern Coastal Scrub in the northern 

 portion of the state. But although the general aspect of the two 

 communities is similar, there is little floristic similarity between 

 the Northern Coastal Scrub and the Coastal Sage Scrub. The 

 Coastal Sage Scrub occurs on rather dry, often steep, gravelly 

 or rocky slopes below 3,000 feet (915 m). Climatically, the area 

 occupied by this plant community is rather mild and has an aver- 

 age of 20 inches (5 1 cm) of rainfall per year or less. The "scrub" 

 refers to the fact that the major plant species found in the com- 

 munity are shrubby species one to six feet (1 .3 to 1 .8 m) tall, 

 although a few of the component species are considerably larger 

 than this and might be considered small trees. 



The name of this plant community comes from the presence 

 o{ Salvia species such as Black Sage {S. mellifera) and Purple or 

 White-leaved Sage {S. leucophylla, Labiatae). Other shrubs 



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