Carex Species of San Jacinto Mountain This Carex flora of San Jacinto Mountain has been constructed from:
- an update of Hall's 1902 Flora and Davidson's Flora of Southern California;
- Munz (1973) and the Jepson Manual (1993);
- online vouchers above 6000 feet from SMASCH and the UCR Herbarium;
- the James Reserve plant list; and from
- my surveys of various trails there.
All names are those used by the Jepson Manual, and hence the authors are omitted here for clarity.
The taxa are organized by JM Carex group, so that similar taxa are placed together.
All locations are from vouchers or floras:
- Locations from floras are only given if no vouchers were found, and are identified by the author or editor of the flora.
- Vouchers without a weblink are the standard pressed plants in herbaria. I have not examined any of those and am merely reporting the current determinations of those vouchers. However, I suspect that some of the C. nebrascensis vouchers are actually C. senta (see below).
- Vouchers with a weblink are living vouchers with a location accurate to ~0.01 mile in one of my trail guides.
The elevations in column three below are from Munz and the JM, with the JM elevations converted to feet. These are for the entire geographic range of the species (for Munz, only the Southern California portion of the range), and hence the full range often does not apply to the San Jacinto Mountains.
JM
GroupName Elevations
(feet)Locations 1 C. multicaulis M: 4000-7200
J: 50-7200Fuller Mill Creek, 5000 feet, near Idyllwild; James Reserve, 5500 feet; Devils Slide Trail, mile 0.25 and beyond, elevation 6500 feet and higher. 2 C. rossii M: 7000-11,400
J: <12,500summit of San Jacinto Peak, 10,000 feet 3 C. lanuginosa M: <7000
J: 200-10,800Idyllwild area, N of Strawberry Valley, between Bear Trap Canyon and Lily Creek, 5200-5300 feet; SR243 at Deer Springs Trailhead, 5600-6000 feet; on Forest Service Road 4S02, ~2.5 miles due north of Pine Cove, ~0.25 miles south of Dark Canyon Campground, 5800 feet 3 C. sartwelliana M: 5000-7500
J: 3900-8500Fuller's Creek, 5000 feet; Fuller Mill Creek, 5400 feet; Strawberry Creek "above Idyllwild"; Hidden Lake, 7500 feet; "Trail from Idyllwild to San Jacinto Peak", 8600 feet. 5 C. heteroneura M: 7000-9500
J: 5900-12,500Davidson: "Tahquitz and Round Valley"; Willow Creek Trail, mile 0.46, elevation ~8000 feet. 5 C. lemmonii M: 6500-9500
J: 2300-9850Munz: "Meadows at 6500-9500 feet; Montane Coniferous Forest; San Jacinto Mountains;
JM: marshes, bogs; 700-3000 m (2300-9850 feet); SnJt.6 C. nebrascensis M: <9500
J: <8200Fuller's Mill, 5800 feet; Deer Springs, 9000 feet; Round Valley (Tamarack Valley), 9000 feet. Caution: only the Round Valley voucher might be C. nebrascensis; the other two locations might actually be C. senta. See Carex Changes With Time. 6 C. senta M: <8500
J: <9500Probably "along Tahquitz Creek, 7000 feet"; probably the "dominant Carex in Round Valley, 9000 feet; (see Carex Changes With Time for both of these); Willow Creek Trail, mile 0.52, elevation ~7900 feet; Devils Slide Trail, mile 2.35, elevation 8000 feet 7 C. alma M: <8000
J: 400-7900Strawberry Creek, 3800 feet 7 C. hoodii M: 7200-9100
J: 3900-11,200Munz: Meadow borders and gravelly slopes, 7200-9100 feet; Montane Coniferous Forest; San Jacinto Mountains; (not in SnJt in JM) 7 C. occidentalis M: ~6300
J: ~6200On Forest Service Road 4S02, ~2.5 miles due north of Pine Cove, ~0.25 miles south of Dark Canyon Campground, 5800 feet 7 C. praegracilis M: <7000
J: <8900West end Fuller's Ridge, 5200 feet 8 C. bolanderi M: <7500
J: <8200On Forest Service Road 4S02, ~2.5 miles due north of Pine Cove, ~0.25 miles south of Dark Canyon Campground, 5800 feet 9 C. abrupta M: <9500
J: 4600-10,800West fork of Tahquitz Creek, 7800 feet 9 C. athrostachya M: 6500-7500
J: 300-10,500Thomas Mountain, 4800 feet; Black Mountain, 7350 feet 9 C. fracta M: 2600-9000
J: 2600-10,800Strawberry Valley, 5300 feet; Devils Slide Trail, mile 0.94 and beyond, elevation 6900 feet and higher; Tahquitz Valley, 7000 feet; Willow Creek Trail, mile 0.08, elevation ~8000 feet 9 C. multicostata M: 5000-11,000
J: 500-11,500Lake Surprise, 9000 feet 9 C. subfusca M: 4000-11,500
J: 300-11,500Fuller's Mill, 5800 feet; San Jacinto Peak Summit, 10,800 feet The following species, all without vouchers for the San Jacinto Mountains in the online sources above, were not included in the above list:
- Species listed as SW in JM but not in San Jacinto Mountains in Munz: Carex deweyana ssp. leptopoda, C. diandra, C. globosa.
- Species listed as PR in JM, but not in San Jacinto Mountains in Munz: C. douglasii, C. integra, C. microptera, C. schottii, C. triquetra. The last two taxa are low-elevation taxa below the San Jacinto Mountains range.
- C. mariposana is listed in Munz as being in San Jacinto Mountains in "Drier parts of meadows and on slopes, 6000-10,800 feet", but the JM places this taxon only in the Sierra Nevada. Apparently the taxa formerly determined to be this taxon are now called the very similar C. abrupta. Since I have found no vouchers of either of these two taxa, I've left C. mariposana off the list above.
- C. tenaraeformis is listed in Munz as being in the San Jacinto Mountains, but the JM has folded it into C. subfusca.
I am deeply grateful to SMASCH, the UCR Herbarium, and the James Reserve for putting their vouchers and plant lists online. This compilation would have been depauperate without their information.
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Copyright © 2004 by Tom Chester.
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Updated 14 October 2004.