California’s Fading Wildflowers: Lost Legacy and Biological Invasions

Description

Early Spanish explorers in the late eighteenth century found springtime California covered with spectacular carpets of wildflowers from San Francisco to San Diego. Yet today, invading plant species have devastated this nearly forgotten botanical heritage. In this lively, vividly detailed work, Richard A. Minnich synthesizes a unique and wide-ranging array of sources―from the historic accounts of those early explorers to the writings of early American botanists in the nineteenth century, newspaper accounts in the twentieth century, and modern ecological theory―to give the most comprehensive historical analysis available of the dramatic transformation of California's wildflower prairies. At the same time, his groundbreaking book challenges much current thinking on the subject, critically evaluating the hypothesis that perennial bunchgrasses were once a dominant feature of California's landscape and instead arguing that wildflowers filled this role. As he examines the changes in the state's landscape over the past three centuries, Minnich brings new perspectives to topics including restoration ecology, conservation, and fire management in a book that will change our of view of native California. Cover Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations List of Tables Preface 1. The Golden State 2. Pre-Hispanic Herbaceous Vegetation Spanish Explorations The Viceroy Mandate and Spanish "Botany" California Vegetation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Desert Scrub Esteril Coastal California Pasto and Zacate Baja California Southern California Santa Barbara to Monterey Monterey to San Francisco Summer Barrens in the Interior Flowers and Barrens 3. Invasion of Franciscan Annuals, Grazing, and California Pasture in the Nineteenth Century The Bunchgrass-Grazing Hypothesis The Written Record, Spanish Land Tenure, and Diseños Grazing by Native Herbivores Buildup of Cattle Self-Sufficient Grazing Economy Distribution of Cattle "Wildstock" and Matanza Cattle Expansion to the Interior with the Gold Rush Wild Horses Sheep Grazing and Other Livestock Early Expansion of Franciscan Annuals Coastal and Interior Valley Pastures Perennial Bunch Grassland Summer Barrens in the Interior Wildflowers and Bunch Grasses in the Desert Carrying Capacities and Productivity of Historical California Pastures Drought, Fluctuations in Livestock, and Overgrazing Space-for-Time Substitution versus Historical Records 4. A Century of Bromes and the Fading of California Wildflowers A New Exotic Annual Grassland Early lnvasion of Bromes and Other "Second Wave" Invasives The "Altar Cloth of San Pasqual" Floral Brilliance and Collapse along the "Circle Tour" "Second Wave" Invasions and the Fading of California Wildflowers Historical Development of Exotic Annual Grassland 5. Lessons from the Rose Parade Notes Appendices Appendix 1. Location of Franciscan campsites, Franciscan place names, and modern place names Appendix 2. Spanish plant names for California vegetation Appendix 3. Selected earliest botanical collections of exotic annual species in California Appendix 4. References to wildflowers in the Los Angeles Times, The Desert Magazine, and the Riverside Press Enterprise References Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T V W Y Z