Introduction Flora of the Eastern High-Elevation Portion of the Blue Ridge, San Gabriel Mountains
Species Notes
The FloraIntroduction
This page gives the flora of the eastern high-elevation portion of the Blue Ridge. A Google Earth view of the area is shown in Fig. 1 (see also a larger-scale area-locator map).
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Fig. 1. A Google Earth view of the eastern Blue Ridge in the San Gabriel Mountains. The area outlined in white is roughly the area used for the flora presented on this page. Click on the photo for a significantly-larger, clearer version; see also a larger-scale area-locator map.
We define the eastern high-elevation portion of the Blue Ridge as the portion of the Blue Ridge east of Inspiration Point / Angeles Crest Highway above 7200 feet elevation.
The western boundary is at the junction of the Blue Ridge / Guffy Campground Road with the Angeles Crest Highway (SR2) at Inspiration Point / Lightning Ridge, at an elevation of 7350 feet.
The eastern boundary is at the east end of the Blue Ridge / Guffy Campground Road, where the PCT begins its drop to the east to Lone Pine Canyon, at an elevation of 8100 feet. Beyond this point, the flora changes significantly as the trail descends below the pine forest.
The elevation range for this area is roughly 7200 to 8505 feet. The highest elevation of this area is 8505 feet at Wright Mountain, and 8480 feet at the Blue Ridge Electronic Site at Frost Peak.
The lowest elevation of the PCT and the Blue Ridge / Guffy Road is 7350 feet at the junction with SR2, and the lowest elevation for the portion of the Blue Ridge Trail included here is 7200 feet.
We tried to include only species found above 7200 feet in this area, with the exception of some areas in Flume, Buford and Government Canyons just below 7200 feet. These were included in this flora since they can only be accessed via a public right-of-way from the Blue Ridge Road. However, locations and elevations of vouchers are often very uncertain, and some vouchered species may actually be only from elevations lower than our targeted minimum elevation of 7200 feet if the voucher elevation is inaccurate.
The flora of this area is nearly the last stand on this side of the San Gabriel Mountains of the montane flora to the west and south. Beyond the Blue Ridge, the montane flora begins to grade into the desert flora of the Mojave Desert to the north, and into the coastal flora of Cajon Pass to the east.
The flora is much richer west of Guffy Campground in this section than to the east. There are 118 taxa listed in the section of the PCT west of Guffy, and just 74 taxa in the section of the PCT east of Guffy. Of the 118 taxa in the section west of Guffy, only 60 of those taxa are also present in the section west of Guffy. Although the section west of Guffy is longer, 4.7 miles compared to 2.5 miles, one would expect it to have just 17% more taxa from the difference in lengths, whereas it has 59% more taxa.
The primary difference appears to be more-varied habitat in the section west of Guffy, with a number of open areas, whereas the section east of Guffy is mostly completely forested; see the densely-forested area of Wright Mountain in this view compared to the much-more-open south-facing areas to the west of Guffy. We don't know if environmental factors also play a role, such as differences in rainfall. from:
The flora of this area was compiled from the following sources:
- surveys along the PCT from Inspiration Point to the end of the Blue Ridge / Guffy Campground Road 2.5 miles east of Guffy Campground along the PCT;
- surveys along Guffy Road in that area for species not found on the adjacent section of the PCT;
- the upper half of the Blue Ridge Trail (the entire trail is in the separate flora of the Blue Ridge Trail / Big Pines area);
- surveys of Guffy Spring;
- surveys of Flume, Buford and Government Canyons; and
- vouchers from the high-elevation portion of the Blue Ridge.
Each of those surveyed areas is presented in a separate column in the checklist below.
Information about the vouchers will be added in the future.
Species Notes
The species notes are in alphabetical order by scientific name. It is curious that five of the species notes are for lupine species.
Delphinium glaucum. This disjunct from the Sierra Nevada is found only in two areas of SnGb: at Lily Spring, and in this area of the Blue Ridge, at Guffy Spring, Buford and Government Canyons. It is also found in a handful of locations at SnBr.
Ericameria nauseosa var. oreophila. The plants here, and the nearby plants along the Angeles Crest Highway and environs, appear to be a single population that is intermediate between var. oreophila and mohavensis. We've arbitrarily assigned the plants here to var. oreophila, but note that a Principal Components Analysis that we've done shows that they are distinct from the oreophila plants in San Antonio Canyon. Variety bernardina is quite distinct from this intermediate population, and is also present here.
Galium bifolium. This is one of only three locations of this species in SnGb. There are only a handful of other locations in the TR for this species that mostly lives in the Sierra Nevada and north.
Lupinus andersonii. It is doubtful that L. andersonii occurs at SnGb. L. andersonii is not given as occurring at SnGb in the Jepson Manual, and we have not seen plants similar to the L. andersonii at SnBr here. It is likely that the voucher with this determination is L. formosus. However, the difference between those species is subtle, and it isn't clear that the high-elevation plants corresponding to L. formosus are actually the same as the lower elevation plants of that species. More work needs to be done to understand the species delimitations here.
Lupinus arbustus. This area contains the only population of this species in southern California, disjunct from its main population in the Sierra Nevada and north.
Lupinus excubitus var. austromontanus. We include var. johnstonii within var. austromontanus, since it appears to us that var. johnstonii is not separate from var. austromontanus. The distinction is just on the length of the inflorescence, which appears to depend more on environmental conditions than on genetics. We've never seen any geographic coherence to plants with inflorescences shorter than 14 cm, which is the magic dividing line between the varieties. We have seen a number of places with a continuous variation across the magic dividing line of 14 cm. We've also seen plants that had inflorescences all longer than 14 cm in the current year, with inflorescences all shorter than 14 cm in the previous year.
Lupinus latifolius. There are vouchers of both var. latifolius and var. parishii at Guffy Spring; we have not yet worked on the determination of the variety. The key is just on the size of the flower: 10-14 mm for var. latifolius, and 14-18 mm for var. parishii. Variety parishii is mostly found to the east and south of the TR, and var. latifolius to the north of the TR. It might not be surprising if the plants at SnGb are mostly intermediate between these varieties.
Lupinus polyphyllus var. burkei. The voucher corresponding to this species is highly likely to be L. latifolius, but it should be checked to make sure.
Monardella australis ssp. australis. There is only one Monardella species here, which we call Monardella linoides ssp. stricta, which has been their name previous to the Second Edition of the Jepson Manual. The problem here is that the name Monardella linoides ssp. stricta was banished from the Second Edition of the Jepson Manual, with such plants being considered of hybrid origin from a cross of M. australis with M. linoides.
The taxonomy of this group is being worked on by Mark Elvin and Andy Sanders, so things might change in the future. But we would argue strongly for giving our plants in this part of SnGb an entry in the next update of the Jepson Manual, since even if it is true that our plants are of hybrid origin, it is an ancient hybrid origin and these plants almost surely have evolved their DNA since their ancient origin. The claim has been made that something like 20% of all species have an ancient hybrid origin; we see no reason to treat those species differently for how they are named.
Phacelia imbricata. The Phacelia plants that are like P. egena and P. imbricata in this area appear to be quite uniform, and are clearly P. imbricata, from the few lobes on the leaves and the cylindric corolla. However, they are not clearly a subspecies of P. imbricata, since they combine traits of ssp. imbricata and ssp. patula.
Heckard, in his marvelous 1960 monograph on this group of Phacelia species, calls them "intergrade group 1", which contains most of the plants at SnGb from 3000 to 7000 feet:
In all three groups the narrow calyx lobe is present and is important owing to the association of this character as a regular feature (and key character) of ssp. patula. The plants of group I are largely like those of ssp. imbricata in other characteristics. p. 43.Phlox diffusa. The plants here are Phlox diffusa, not P. austromontana, as we originally called them back in 2003. See Phlox austromontana and Phlox diffusa.
Pinus flexilis. This species was vouchered from, most likely, the summit of the Frost Peak, which is now the Blue Ridge Electronic Site, by Munz and separately by Peirson in 1923. The voucher localities are just Blue Ridge and ridge s of Swartout Valley (n edge of ridge), with an elevation if 8500 feet. That elevation is only found at Frost Peak, and it makes sense that this high-elevation species (at SnGb) would only occur at Frost Peak in the Blue Ridge.
We have looked hard for this species at and near the summit of Frost Peak, as well as in our other surveys here, and not found it. It seems likely there was just a small population, possibly even just one tree, that died, or was cut down as part of constructing the Electronic Site.
Ribes velutinum. The plants at SnGb corresponding to this species have sometimes been determined as R. lasianthum. See Ribes velutinum and R. lasianthum for a discussion of these two species.
Solanum xanti. There is much debate about whether to define S. xanti, S. parishii, and S. umbelliferum (in the strict sense) as separate species, or to lump them all under the oldest name of S. umbelliferum. We have chosen to split them, but some voucher determinations have used the lumped species, so don't be surprised if you see plants here called S. umbelliferum. There are not two species here; only the name is being changed.
The Flora
See:
- Notes on the Scientific Names Used At This Site and
- Information about the order in which the species are presented, and the links from the Scientific Name and Common Name.
An asterisk (*) before the common name indicates a non-native taxon.
We've divided the flora of the PCT into sections west and east of Guffy Campground.
The flora has six columns to give the flora of six different areas, with the following headers from left to right in the flora:
- The column PCT/L-G gives the # plants in the section of the PCT from Lightning Ridge to Guffy Campground, the western section of the PCT of the two sections given in this checklist.
- The column GRw gives the # plants along the western part of Blue Ridge / Guffy Road area from Inspiration Point to Guffy Campground, only for species not found in the section of the PCT from Inspiration Point to Guffy Campground. A gray box in this column indicates species found on that section of the PCT, which may or may not also be found on this section of Guffy Road.
- The column BG indicates whether a taxon was found in Flume, Buford and/or Government Canyons, mostly for species not found in other places in this area.
- The column GSp gives the # plants found at Guffy Spring, mostly for species that were not found in other places in this area. A V in this column indicates a species vouchered from Guffy Spring that we have not yet seen there.
- The column PCT/G-GR gives the # plants in the section of the PCT from Guffy Campground east to just beyond the end of the Blue Ridge / Guffy Road, the eastern section of the PCT of the two sections given in this checklist.
- The column GRe gives the # plants along the eastern part of Blue Ridge / Guffy Road from Guffy Campground to the end of the Road, again only for species not found in the section of the PCT from Guffy Campground east to just beyond the end of the Blue Ridge / Guffy Road. A gray box in this column indicates species found on that section of the PCT, which may or may not also be found on this section of Guffy Road.
Note that this arrangement of the columns gives the flora basically from west to east in this area, with the only riparian areas in the middle two columns.
An "x" in any column means that the number of plants was not estimated.
A species without an entry in any column was either:
- observed by RT and Shaun Hawke, on a through survey from the Lone Pine Canyon area to Lightning Ridge, and likely to have been observed above 7200 feet elevation, but which could not confidently be placed in a specific PCT section;
- observed by us in the 0.7 mile section of the PCT just east of the east end of Guffy Road, above 7800 feet elevation;
- observed by us in the upper half of the Blue Ridge Trail; or
- was vouchered in the area.
Version for printing, without lines and other text on this page: html (7 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/) on 17 July 2013, and on 3 July 2014.
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