Flora of Extreme Northeast San Diego County

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Introduction
Checklist

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Introduction

This checklist is a start at a flora of the portion of the Coachella Valley that is in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in the extreme northeast corner of in San Diego County. It consists of a species list from voucher records kindly supplied by Jon Rebman from the San Diego Natural History Museum Herbarium, along with field observations on 21 January 2008. This is a subset of a checklist for the larger area of the southeast Santa Rosa Mountains.

The voucher records were all collected by Frank Gander, 79 specimens on 6 April 1937 and 3 specimens on 7 April 1937. The location of all these vouchers was given simply as extreme northeast corner of San Diego County, so their precise localities is unknown.

The survey on 21 January 2008 was done by the three authors with the help of Philip Erdelsky. The route we surveyed is shown in red on the following map:

The thick blue lines with arrows delineate the borders of San Diego County. The jagged blue lines highlight the 1000 foot and 3000 foot elevation contours.

This area contains no roads at all, and therefore it takes some effort to explore. There is no doubt that the vast majority of this area is completely unsurveyed botanically, and the following checklist is very incomplete.

The survey on 1/22/08 found 52 species. Of those 52 species, 33 were vouchered by Gander and 19 were not. (In this checklist, we assume that Gander's voucher determined as Opuntia acanthocarpa var. coloradensis is actually O. ganderi; see Opuntia ganderi In Extreme Northeast San Diego County).

The most abundant species not found by Gander are two non-native species that were introduced after 1937: Brassica tournefortii and what is probably Schismus sp. (there were no flowers yet on the plants at the time of our survey). The probable Schismus sp. is widespread on the flattish wash area. Brassica tournefortii has not yet become widespread here. We found only a few areas that had a heavy infestation, a wider area that had scattered plants, and fairly large areas with no specimens of this species.

Gander vouchered 82 taxa. Of those 82 taxa, our survey found 33 and missed 49. Nearly all of species we missed are annuals or perennials that we would not have been expected to see on our survey. About 11 taxa would have been seen if they were present, but nearly all of these taxa grow on the rocky slopes that we didn't explore.

The following gives a brief summary of the habitat covered on our 1/22/08 survey:

• 0.9 miles from the exact northeast corner of the county south to Travertine Palms Wash, just inside the county line. This area consists almost entirely of zillions of braided washes, with quite a large area of cryptobiotic crust found in patches between the active washes.

• 0.75 miles along the north-northwest-facing bottom of the ridge of the Santa Rosa Mountains extending toward the Salton Sea. There were occasional intact benches along the mountains, but the Travertine Palms Wash was mostly right up against the base of the steep slopes. Much of the hillsides consisted of recent sediment that was sparsely covered by plants.

• 0.15 miles into a west-flowing drainage cut into the steep slopes.

• A 0.7 mile loop around and on an old north-facing alluvial slope (bajada) which is being dissected by the current drainage system. Large areas of the slope are still intact, bounded by deeply-cut drainages on the east and west, and the alluvial slope itself is only very shallowly dissected.

One of the surprises from our survey is that this area on the northeastern rain-shadow side of the Santa Rosa Mountains is much wetter than the area on the other side! Essentially no annuals had germinated on the southern side of these mountains at the same longitude, but there were zillions of annuals in the area we surveyed.

This apparent contradiction is because the area on the south side of the Santa Rosa Mountains is in the rain shadow of the mountains to the west of the town of Borrego Springs. Hence it receives very little moisture from winter rain due to orographics (moisture being squeezed out of the atmosphere from elevation differences alone, without convection). But areas on the rain-shadow side that are immediately next to the high mountains do receive some spill-over rain from such storms.

This area is much more similar to the area immediately west of Borrego Springs than to anyplace on the south side of the SnRsMtns in this area.

Checklist for Southeast Santa Rosa Mountains

The Checklist is sorted first by category - dicots, monocots, and ferns - and then by family and scientific name. The Family and Scientific Name are from the Jepson Manual. An asterisk before the Common Name indicates a non-native taxon. A "~" before the Common and Scientific Names indicates a the determination that is likely, but is not 100%, usually because we have not yet seen flowers.

The two columns after the Common Name indicate whether a taxon was present in the 1/21/08 survey, and give a rough estimate of the number of plants and number of locations for each species in the entire survey. Maximum values are 99 plants, and 9 locations. The main intent of these columns are to indicate the species for which we found very few plants or locations.

The final column, Gander Voucher, indicates whether a Gander voucher exists.

#	Family	Scientific Name	(*)Common Name	1/21/08 Survey		Gander Voucher
				# Plants	# Locations
1	Asclepiadaceae	Sarcostemma hirtellum	trailing townula			X
2	Asteraceae	Ambrosia dumosa	burroweed	99	9	X
3	Asteraceae	Bebbia juncea var. aspera	sweetbush	50	9	X
4	Asteraceae	Calycoseris wrightii	white tackstem			X
5	Asteraceae	Chaenactis carphoclinia var. carphoclinia	pebble pincushion			X
6	Asteraceae	Chaenactis fremontii	Fremont pincushion			X
7	Asteraceae	Encelia farinosa	brittlebush	99	9	X
8	Asteraceae	Hymenoclea salsola var. salsola	cheesebush	50	9	X
9	Asteraceae	Monoptilon bellioides	desert star			X
10	Asteraceae	Perityle emoryi	Emory's rock-daisy	50	9	X
11	Asteraceae	Peucephyllum schottii	desert pine			X
12	Asteraceae	~Rafinesquia neomexicana	~desert chicory	20	2
13	Asteraceae	Senecio mohavensis	Mojave ragwort			X
14	Asteraceae	Stephanomeria pauciflora var. pauciflora	wire-lettuce	3	3
15	Asteraceae	Trichoptilium incisum	yellow-head			X
16	Asteraceae	Viguiera parishii	Parish's viguiera			X
17	Boraginaceae	Amsinckia sp.	fiddleneck	10	1
18	Boraginaceae	Cryptantha barbigera	bearded cryptantha			X
19	Boraginaceae	Cryptantha pterocarya var. cycloptera	wing-nut cryptantha			X
20	Boraginaceae	Pectocarya recurvata	curvenut combseed			X
21	Brassicaceae	Brassica tournefortii	*Asian mustard	99	9
22	Brassicaceae	Descurainia pinnata ssp. glabra	smooth western tansy-mustard			X
23	Brassicaceae	Draba cuneifolia	wedge-leaved draba			X
24	Brassicaceae	Lepidium lasiocarpum var. lasiocarpum	hairy-podded pepper-grass			X
25	Cactaceae	Echinocereus engelmannii	Engelmann's hedgehog cactus			X
26	Cactaceae	Ferocactus cylindraceus	California barrel cactus	20	9
27	Cactaceae	Mammillaria tetrancistra	common fish-hook cactus	1	1
28	Cactaceae	Opuntia basilaris var. basilaris	beavertail cactus	3	3	X
29	Cactaceae	Opuntia ganderi	Gander's cholla	20	1
30	Cactaceae	Opuntia ramosissima	pencil cholla	10	5
31	Campanulaceae	Nemacladus rubescens	desert nemacladus			X
32	Chenopodiaceae	~Chenopodium murale	*~nettle-leaved goosefoot	1	1
33	Crassulaceae	Crassula connata	pygmy-weed	30	1
34	Cucurbitaceae	Cucurbita palmata	coyote melon			X
35	Euphorbiaceae	Chamaesyce polycarpa	small-seeded spurge	30	9	X
36	Euphorbiaceae	Ditaxis lanceolata	narrowleaf ditaxis	20	9	X
37	Euphorbiaceae	Euphorbia eriantha	beetle spurge			X
38	Fabaceae	Acacia greggii	catclaw	10	3
39	Fabaceae	Astragalus nuttallianus var. cedrosensis	Cedros milk-vetch			X
40	Fabaceae	Calliandra eriophylla	fairyduster			X
41	Fabaceae	Cercidium floridum ssp. floridum	blue palo verde	30	9	X
42	Fabaceae	Dalea mollissima	downy dalea			X
43	Fabaceae	Lotus salsuginosus var. brevivexillus	short-bannered coastal lotus			X
44	Fabaceae	Lupinus arizonicus	Arizona lupine			X
45	Fabaceae	~Lupinus concinnus	~bajada lupine	1	1
46	Fabaceae	Marina parryi	Parry's marina			X
47	Fabaceae	Psorothamnus schottii	indigo bush	10	3	X
48	Fabaceae	Psorothamnus spinosus	smoke tree	10	3	X
49	Fabaceae	Senna covesii	Coves's cassia			X
50	Fouquieriaceae	Fouquieria splendens ssp. splendens	ocotillo	10	5	X
51	Hydrophyllaceae	Emmenanthe penduliflora	whispering bells			X
52	Hydrophyllaceae	Eucrypta micrantha	desert eucrypta			X
53	Hydrophyllaceae	Phacelia crenulata var. ambigua	heliotrope phacelia			X
54	Hydrophyllaceae	Phacelia distans	common phacelia	99	9	X
55	Krameriaceae	Krameria erecta	Pima rhatany			X
56	Krameriaceae	Krameria grayi	white rhatany	5	5
57	Lamiaceae	Hyptis emoryi	desert lavender	30	9	X
58	Lamiaceae	~Salvia columbariae	~chia	1	1
59	Lamiaceae	Salvia vaseyi	Vasey's sage			X
60	Loasaceae	Mentzelia desertorum	desert blazing star			X
61	Loasaceae	Mentzelia involucrata	bracted blazing star			X
62	Malvaceae	Eremalche rotundifolia	desert five-spot	1	1	X
63	Malvaceae	Hibiscus denudatus	rock hibiscus	5	5	X
64	Malvaceae	Horsfordia newberryi	Newberry's velvet mallow	1	1	X
65	Malvaceae	Sphaeralcea ambigua var. rosacea	rosy apricot mallow			X
66	Nyctaginaceae	Allionia incarnata	trailing four o'clock			X
67	Nyctaginaceae	Mirabilis bigelovii var. retrorsa	wishbone plant	5	5
68	Nyctaginaceae	Mirabilis californica	California four o'clock			X
69	Onagraceae	Camissonia boothii ssp. condensata	Booth's desert primrose	50	9	X
70	Onagraceae	Camissonia californica	California suncup	20	3	X
71	Onagraceae	Camissonia chamaenerioides	long-fruit suncup			X
72	Onagraceae	Camissonia claviformis	brown-eyed primrose	99	9	X
73	Orobanchaceae	Orobanche cooperi	Cooper's broom-rape			X
74	Papaveraceae	Eschscholzia minutiflora	small-flowered poppy			X
75	Papaveraceae	Eschscholzia parishii	Parish's poppy			X
76	Plantaginaceae	Plantago ovata	desert plantain			X
77	Polemoniaceae	Gilia latifolia	broad-leaf gilia			X
78	Polemoniaceae	Gilia stellata	star gilia			X
79	Polemoniaceae	Linanthus jonesii	Jones' linanthus			X
80	Polygonaceae	Chorizanthe brevicornu var. brevicornu	brittle spineflower			X
81	Polygonaceae	Chorizanthe rigida	devil's spineflower	3	3	X
82	Polygonaceae	Eriogonum inflatum	desert trumpet	10	5	X
83	Polygonaceae	Eriogonum thomasii	Thomas' buckwheat			X
84	Resedaceae	Oligomeris linifolia	narrowleaf oligomeris			X
85	Scrophulariaceae	Antirrhinum filipes	desert twining snapdragon			X
86	Scrophulariaceae	Mohavea confertiflora	ghost flower			X
87	Solanaceae	Lycium parishii	Parish's desert-thorn	1	1
88	Solanaceae	Physalis crassifolia	thick-leaved ground cherry	2	2	X
89	Sterculiaceae	Ayenia compacta	ayenia			X
90	Viscaceae	Phoradendron californicum	desert mistletoe	5	5	X
91	Zygophyllaceae	Fagonia laevis	California fagonia	1	1
92	Zygophyllaceae	Fagonia pachyacantha	sticky fagonia	40	9	X
93	Zygophyllaceae	Larrea tridentata	creosote bush	99	9	X
94	Poaceae	Aristida adscensionis	six-weeks three-awn			X
95	Poaceae	Erioneuron pulchellum	fluff grass			X
96	Poaceae	Pleuraphis rigida	big galleta	2	2	X
97	Poaceae	~Schismus sp.	*~Mediterranean schismus	99	9
98	Poaceae	Vulpia octoflora var. hirtella	hairy six-weeks fescue			X
99	Pteridaceae	Cheilanthes parryi	woolly lipfern			X

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• Plants of Southern California: Regional Floras