White Mists and 

 Emerald Hills 



The Central Pacific Coast Ranges and 

 Parklands, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascades 



We have noted that the Parklands lie between the open grass- 

 lands or prairies on the one hand, and the closed-canopy forests 

 of the temperate regions on the other. Further, we have noted 

 that the Parklands thin out in eastern Texas, swing north around 

 the Interior Highlands, and then veer northeast to cover the 

 Illinoian drift plain. We have also stumbled upon the prairies 

 away up in extreme northwestern Alberta near the Yukon bor- 

 der, and again in isolated, low-altitude patches in British Colum- 

 bia. Since the Parklands must lie north of the prairies, they too 

 must appear in these places; and they do. Moreover, if we 

 should fly a plane north from Dallas, Texas, to the region of 

 Springfield, Illinois, and then follow from there what is almost 

 exactly a great-circle route to the northwest, we could remain 

 all the time over parkland until we reached a point about 

 57 degrees north and 120 degrees west — though this belt would 

 narrow to only a few miles for certain stretches along the United 

 States— Canadian border. From that point the Parkland Belt, as 

 we may see from the general map, turns almost due south and 

 "plunges under" the Rockies — to reappear first ringing the little, 

 isolated, valley-bottom prairies in southern British Columbia, 

 and then on the delta of the Fraser River. On parklands there 

 is grass, while the trees may be anything from mesquites, 

 junipers, and live oaks (as in Texas) to firs, pines, or maples (as 

 in the lower Fraser valley). 



If all the mountain ranges of the West were to be swept away, 

 the distribution of the vegetational belts would doubtless not be 

 exactly as it is today, but it might be substantially so. The whole 

 of the coastal plain would then be clothed in parklands from 

 the Fraser River south to the region of San Francisco, while 

 inland from this prairies would stretch from Kamloops to the 

 Sacramento valley and San Luis Obispo. As it is. all the low- 

 lands of this province are thus clothed, there being parklands 

 down Puget Sound and along the coast of Washington, while 

 a "lake" of prairie fills the Willamette valley from just south 

 of the Columbia River and then continues through the volcanic 

 ranges east of the Klamath Mountains via the valley bottoms 

 to link with the great grass-covered valley of the Sacramento. 

 Prairie also covers all the low inland coastal ranges of Cali- 

 fornia (numbered I to III on map) from north of San Francisco, 

 inside the Redwood highlands, all the way south to the Santa 

 Maria River, while isolated trees or clumps of trees (i.e., park- 

 land conditions) occur on the upper slopes of these. 



Today, the Willamette and Sacramento valleys are extensively 



and intensively cultivated, and the latter, which contains large 

 marshes, is widely irrigated; but there is still considerable 

 acreage around their peripheries that is relegated to stock-raising 

 or is simply left virginal. These regions I have always found to 

 be exceedingly beautiful, with a coloring all their own. In the 

 summer when the sun is bright and the temperature high, the 

 grass (mostly wild oats) turns a glowing golden color, while 

 tiny clumps of brilliant green bushes and small trees sometimes 

 nestle in the shallow gutters that intersect the rolling surface 

 where there is some water at or near the surface. 



It is recorded that the wild turkeys once ventured out from 

 the nearby copses to feed on the grass seeds. Today one may 

 see in some places considerable flocks of peacocks, which appear 

 to be quite feral and to breed successfully in the wild. They are, 

 of course, introduced birds, and they or their parents have 

 simply wandered away from private gardens or parks. Their 

 presence is a most notable example of how "nature fills her 

 (ecological) niches," that time-honored truism of biological 

 literature. The turkey is a gallinaceous bird of large size, spend- 

 ing much time and feeding on the ground but retreating to the 

 woods or forests to roost. When it vanished from this area, an 

 ecological niche for such a bird was left empty. The peafowl, 

 also a large gallinaceous bird of similar habits from a similar 

 environment in Asia, fits into that niche and may, in time, fill it. 



These prairielands appear at first to be sterile and lifeless, but 

 if you will go out upon them and spend time quietly observing, 

 you will be rewarded far beyond your expectation, for they 

 swarm with small creatures both by day and by night. By day, 

 most of these are birds, many of which come out of the sur- 

 rounding parklands or even from the woodlands beyond and 

 above them. The most obvious are western meadow larks, which 

 are everywhere, and great clouds of house finches (also called 

 "linnets"). Less conspicuous are numerous sparrows of half a 

 dozen species — savannah, grasshopper, lark, chipping, and song — 

 flocks of goldfinches, some pipits, and white-winged doves. Lines 

 of little California quail march about usually in single file, and 

 there are horned larks, and sometimes a plethora of robins. 

 Nearer the trees, mourning doves and band-tailed pigeons are 

 everywhere, the introduced pheasant may often be seen, and 

 there are enormous numbers of the ground-feeding red-shafted 

 flickers busily pursuing ants. Both Steller's and the scrub jay 

 make their appearance, and Brewer's blackbirds are seen in the 

 evening. In any moist place the ubiquitous red-winged blackbird 

 appears, and its close relative the tricolored redwing is indige- 

 nous to these areas only. 



At night the mammals take over, though by day a ground 

 squirrel and a chipmunk may be seen along with the desert 

 cottontail rabbit, the black-tailed jack rabbit, and the little brush 

 rabbit in suitable localities. Never seen but widely spread on 

 these lowland plains are pocket gophers — a giant form in the 

 Willamette and a smaller one in the Sacramento valley — and 

 there are quite a lot of moles. On the driest parts to the south 

 are kangaroo rats; on the open plains grasshopper mice; in the 

 taller grass, harvest mice; and among what shrubbery there is 

 under the trees on the parklands, white-footed mice of several 

 kinds, and woodrats. There are also many voles (called "field 

 mice"). To feed on these lesser folk come both striped and 

 spotted skunks, badgers, gray foxes, and in some areas even 

 coyotes. There is a weasel on these prairies too. With few 



Squaw Grass is a prominent feature above the tree line of 

 the higher alps in the Cascade Mountains. Such uplands 

 reproduce conditions found on the Arctic tundras. 



