American Fern Journal 
Vol. 5 OCTOBER-—DECEMBER, 1915 No. 4 
The southern California Ferns! 
S. B. Parisu 
While California is a narrow state, measured across 
from east to west, it is a very long one, measured from 
north to south. On the Pacific coast it occupies the 
same degrees of latitude as does the whole row of states 
between Boston and Charleston on the Atlantic seaboard. 
And there is no other tract of equal size on the North 
American continent which can compare with it in 
topographical and physical diversity. All altitudes, 
from 14,000 feet above sea level to nearly 300 feet below 
it; a wide range of temperature, from many degrees 
below zero to 140 degrees above; all amounts of precipi- 
tation, from at least 80 inches per annum to none at all. 
Such a diversity of environment would lead one to expect 
an extensive fern-flora, but the fact is that the combina- 
tions are not suited to produce such a development. 
If the redwood belt, the part of the state which is soaked 
in rain and blanketed with fogs, had the temperatures of 
the Colorado and Mojave deserts, or if the transfer 
were reversed, and the northern rains and fogs were 
brought down to the hot, but arid south, what a land 
of ferns California would be! Even if the total moisture 
were evenly distributed over the whole state, and the 
varied temperatures averaged throughout its whole 
‘ Pot at the meeting of the Fern Society, at Berkeley, California, August 
(No. 3 of the Journat (5: 65-96) was issued July 10, 1915.] 
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