Flora of The Potrero, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Introduction Diana Lindsay, in Anza-Borrego A to Z, says that the Potrero Wash "begins at the top of Mt. Laguna and drains into Vallecito Valley and then into Vallecito Creek. Potrero is Spanish for a pasture or meadow and may have referred to the drainage into Vallecito Valley" (pp. 276-277).
A map of the Potrero area, showing points where species were recorded by us, iNat observations with good accuracy, and vouchers with good accuracy, is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Map showing the Potrero area, along with locations where species were recorded by us, iNat observations with good accuracy, and vouchers with good accuracy. See also a map showing the source of each point (some of the Tom Chester (TJC) points were originally found by Walt Fidler (WF).See Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen's The Potrero Loop, and The Potrero West Loop, for information about this area, including many pictures and a plant list. For Google Earth images of this area, see also Abutilon palmeri, a species only found here in San Diego County.
This is a checklist for the lower section of the Potrero, that part reached from S2, below approximately 3000 feet elevation, made from field surveys and vouchers. iNaturalist was searched, but contributed no additional taxa. The iNat observations are almost entirely from Carla Hoegen and Fred Melgert from their field surveys here, and were already included in their plant list for the area.
The field surveys done for this flora are:
- A 13 mile fast-paced hike, in which most of the species were later noted from memory, on 2 April 2012, by Tom Chester, Mike Crouse, and James Dillane. We covered 6.2 miles south of S2, and then an additional 2.0 unique miles on the way back.
- An 8.6 mile survey by Carla Hoegen and Fred Melgert on 18 April 2016 and repeated on 12 April 2017.
- A 7 mile survey by Tom Chester and Don Rideout on 9 November 2018, beginning our survey 2.0 miles south of S2, surveying a loop of 4.0 unique miles.
- An 8.2 mile survey by Carla Hoegen and Fred Melgert on 30 March 2019.
- A 10.5 mile survey by Tom Chester, Walt Fidler, Nancy Accola and Don Rideout on 1 April 2019, surveying a loop of ~9 unique miles.
- Surveys by Walt Fidler on 8 November 2018; 19, 26 and 30 March 2019; and 1 April 2019.
As of 3 April 2019, the field surveys found 270 taxa.
Vouchers were searched at the Consortium of California Herbaria on 8 November 2018 for vouchers with a locality of "Potrero", and separately for georeferenced vouchers in the area of 32.87 to 32.98° N. latitude and -116.40 to -116.32° E. Longitude. The locality was examined, and vouchers not clearly in the lower Potrero were tossed. No vouchers from Vallecito Valley or the hills south of the Vallecito State Station were kept, since those are in Vallecito Hills flora.
The retained vouchers were of 118 taxa.
As of 3 April 2019, the combined list has 284 taxa.
Checklist for The Potrero See:
- Notes on the Scientific Names Used At This Site and
- Information about the links from the Scientific Name and Common Name.
An asterisk before the common name indicates a non-native species.
The column with label BW links to the photo gallery page for each species at Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen's BorregoWildflowers site.
The column labeled #Pls gives a minimum estimate of the number of plants from our surveys, up to a maximum of 99 plants. If the column contains FC, it was a species observed by Carla Hoegen and Fred Melgert with no abundance estimate. A V in the column indicates a vouchered species not yet seen by any of the authors.
Version for printing, without other text on this page: html (8 pages) or pdf Clickbook booklet (2 double-sided pages). (See printing instructions for an explanation of these options)
Voucher data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria (ucjeps.berkeley.edu/consortium/)
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Copyright © 2018-2019 by Tom Chester, Walt Fidler, Carla Hoegen, Fred Melgert, Don Rideout, Mike Crouse, James Dillane, and Nancy Accola.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce any or all of this page as long as credit is given to us at this source:
http://tchester.org/sd/plants/floras/potrero.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Last update: 4 April 2019