1.
Conservation status
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The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Also included are species that have gone extinct since 500 AD, when discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term threatened is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category, Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES, in the European Union, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the legal instruments that evaluate the conservation status within the EU of species and habitats. NatureServe conservation status focuses on Latin America, United States, Canada, and it has been developed by scientists from NatureServe, The Nature Conservancy, and the network of natural heritage programs and data centers. It is increasingly integrated with the IUCN Red List system and its categories for species include, presumed extinct, possibly extinct, critically imperiled, imperiled, vulnerable, apparently secure, and secure. The system also allows ambiguous or uncertain ranks including inexact numeric ranks, NatureServe adds a qualifier for captive or cultivated only, which has a similar meaning to the IUCN Red List extinct in the wild status. The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is used within the Russian Federation, in Australia, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 describes lists of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes. The categories resemble those of the 1994 IUCN Red List Categories & Criteria, prior to the EPBC Act, a simpler classification system was used by the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. Some state and territory governments also have their own systems for conservation status, in Belgium, the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest publishes an online set of more than 150 nature indicators in Dutch. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is a group of experts that assesses and designates which wild species are in danger of disappearing from Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act, it is up to the federal government, in China, the State, provinces and some counties have determined their key protected wildlife species. There is the China red data book, in Finland, a large number of species are protected under the Nature Conservation Act, and through the EU Habitats Directive and EU Birds Directive. In Germany, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation publishes red lists of endangered species, india has the Wild Life Protection Act,1972, Amended 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act,2002. In Japan, the Ministry of Environment publishes a Threatened Wildlife of Japan Red Data Book, in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality publishes a list of threatened species, and conservation is enforced by the Nature Conservation Act 1998. Species are also protected through the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation publishes the New Zealand Threat Classification System lists
2.
Least Concern
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A least concern species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as evaluated but not qualified for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, near threatened, species cannot be assigned the Least Concern category unless they have had their population status evaluated. That is, adequate information is needed to make a direct, or indirect, since 2001 the category has had the abbreviation LC, following the IUCN2001 Categories & Criteria. However, around 20% of least concern taxa in the IUCN database use the code LR/lc, prior to 2001 least concern was a subcategory of the Lower Risk category and assigned the code LR/lc or. While least concern is not considered a red listed category by the IUCN, the number of animal species listed in this category totals 14033. There are also 101 animal subspecies listed and 1500 plant taxa, there are also two animal subpopulations listed, the Australasian and Southern African subpopulations of spiny dogfish. No fungi or protista have the classification, though only four species in those kingdoms have been evaluated by the IUCN, humans qualify for this category, and in 2008 were formally assessed as such by the IUCN
3.
IUCN Red List
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The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the main authority on the conservation status of species. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, the IUCN Red List is set upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world, the aim is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, collectively, assessments by these organizations and groups account for nearly half the species on the Red List. The IUCN aims to have the category of every species re-evaluated every five years if possible, the 1964 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants used the older pre-criteria Red List assessment system. Plants listed may not, therefore, appear in the current Red List, IUCN advise that is best to check both the online Red List and the 1997 plants Red List publication. The 2006 Red List, released on 4 May 2006 evaluated 40,168 species as a whole, plus an additional 2,160 subspecies, varieties, aquatic stocks, on 12 September 2007, the World Conservation Union released the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Russ Mittermeier, chief of Swiss-based IUCNs Primate Specialist Group, stated that 16,306 species are endangered with extinction,188 more than in 2006, the Red List includes the Sumatran orangutan in the Critically Endangered category and the Bornean orangutan in the Endangered category. The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient. The Red List of 2012 was released 19 July 2012 at Rio+20 Earth Summit, nearly 2,000 species were added, the IUCN assessed a total of 63,837 species which revealed 19,817 are threatened with extinction. With 3,947 described as endangered and 5,766 as endangered. At threat are 41% of amphibian species, 33% of reef-building corals, 30% of conifers, 25% of mammals, the IUCN Red List has listed 132 species of plants and animals from India as Critically Endangered. Extinct – No known individuals remaining, extinct in the wild – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range. Critically endangered – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, Endangered – High risk of extinction in the wild. Vulnerable – High risk of endangerment in the wild, near threatened – Likely to become endangered in the near future. Does not qualify for a more at-risk category, widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category. Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction, Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria
4.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
5.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
6.
Pinophyta
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The Pinophyta, also known as Coniferophyta or Coniferae, or commonly as conifers, are a division of vascular land plants containing a single class, Pinopsida. They are gymnosperms, cone-bearing seed plants, all extant conifers are perennial woody plants with secondary growth. The great majority are trees, though a few are shrubs, examples include cedars, Douglas firs, cypresses, firs, junipers, kauri, larches, pines, hemlocks, redwoods, spruces, and yews. As of 1998, the division Pinophyta was estimated to contain eight families,68 genera, although the total number of species is relatively small, conifers are ecologically important. They are the dominant plants over large areas of land, most notably the taiga of the Northern Hemisphere, boreal conifers have many wintertime adaptations. The narrow conical shape of northern conifers, and their downward-drooping limbs, many of them seasonally alter their biochemistry to make them more resistant to freezing. While tropical rainforests have more biodiversity and turnover, the conifer forests of the world represent the largest terrestrial carbon sink. Conifers are of economic value for softwood lumber and paper production. The earliest conifers in the record date to the late Carboniferous period, possibly arising from Cordaites. Pinophytes, Cycadophytes, and Ginkgophytes all developed at this time, an important adaptation of these gymnosperms was allowing plants to live without being so dependent on water. Other adaptations are pollen and the seed, which allows the embryo to be transported and developed elsewhere, Conifers appear to be one of the taxa that benefited from the Permian–Triassic extinction event, and were the dominant land plants of the Mesozoic. They were overtaken by the plants, which first appeared in the Cretaceous. They were the food of herbivorous dinosaurs, and their resins and poisons would have given protection against herbivores. Reproductive features of modern conifers had evolved by the end of the Mesozoic era, Conifer is a Latin word, a compound of conus and ferre, meaning the one that bears cone. A descriptive name in use for the conifers is Coniferae. Alternatively, descriptive botanical names may also be used at any rank above family and this means that if conifers are considered a division, they may be called Pinophyta or Coniferae. As a class they may be called Pinopsida or Coniferae, as an order they may be called Pinales or Coniferae or Coniferales. Conifers are the largest and economically most important component group of the gymnosperms, the division Pinophyta consists of just one class, Pinopsida, which includes both living and fossil taxa
7.
Pinales
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The order Pinales in the division Pinophyta, class Pinopsida, comprises all the extant conifers. This order used to be known as the Coniferales, the distinguishing characteristic is the reproductive structure known as a cone produced by all Pinales. All of the extant conifers, such as cedar, celery-pine, cypress, fir, juniper, larch, pine, redwood, spruce, some fossil conifers, however, belong to other distinct orders within the division Pinophyta. The yews had been separated into an order of their own. The families included are the Araucariaceae, Cephalotaxaceae, Cupressaceae, Pinaceae, Podocarpaceae, Sciadopityaceae, and Taxaceae
8.
Pinaceae
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The Pinaceae are trees or shrubs, including many of the well-known conifers of commercial importance such as cedars, firs, hemlocks, larches, pines and spruces. The family is included in the order Pinales, formerly known as Coniferales, Pinaceae are supported as monophyletic by their protein-type sieve cell plastids, pattern of proembryogeny, and lack of bioflavonoids. The family often forms the dominant component of boreal, coastal, one species, Pinus merkusii, grows just south of the equator in Southeast Asia. Major centres of diversity are found in the mountains of southwest China, Mexico, central Japan, and California. Members of the family Pinaceae are trees growing from 2 to 100 m tall, mostly evergreen, resinous, monoecious, with subopposite or whorled branches, the embryos of Pinaceae have three to 24 cotyledons. The female cones are large and usually woody, 2–60 cm long, with spirally arranged scales. The male cones are small,0. 5–6.0 cm long, seed dispersal is mostly by wind, but some species have large seeds with reduced wings, and are dispersed by birds. Analysis of Pinaceae cones reveals how selective pressure has shaped the evolution of variable cone size, variation in cone size in the family has likely resulted from the variation of seed dispersal mechanisms available in their environments over time. All Pinaceae with seeds weighing less than 90 mg are seemingly adapted for wind dispersal, pines having seeds larger than 100 mg are more likely to have benefited from adaptations that promote animal dispersal, particularly by birds. Pinaceae that persist in areas where tree squirrels are abundant do not seem to have evolved adaptations for bird dispersal, boreal conifers have many adaptions for winter. Classification of the subfamilies and genera of Pinaceae has been subject to debate in the past, Pinaceae ecology, morphology, and history have all been used as the basis for methods of analyses of the family. An 1891 publication divided the family into two subfamiles, using the number and position of resin canals in the primary region of the young taproot as the primary consideration. In a 1910 publication, the family was divided into two based on the occurrence and type of long–short shoot dimorphism. A more recent classification divided the subfamilies and genera based on the consideration of features of ovulate cone anatomy among extant, below is an example of how the morphology has been used to classify Pinaceae. Sieve element plastids of Gymnospermae, their ultrastructure and relation to systematics, D. F. Greene & E. A. Johnson. The dispersal of winged fruits and seeds differing in autorotative behavior, a. Liston, D. S. Gernandt, T. F. Vining, C. S. Campbell & D. Piñero. Molecular phylogeny of Pinaceae and Pinus, proceedings of the Fourth International Conifer Conference. Brugge, International Society for Horticultural Science, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Zsolt Debreczy, Istvan Racz
9.
Pine
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A pine is any conifer in the genus Pinus, /ˈpiːnuːs/, of the family Pinaceae. Pinus is the genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The Plant List compiled by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts 126 species names of pines as current, together with 35 unresolved species, the modern English name pine derives from Latin pinus, which some have traced to the Indo-European base *pīt- ‘resin’. Before the 19th century, pines were often referred to as firs, the genus is divided into three subgenera, which can be distinguished by cone, seed, and leaf characters, Pinus subg. Pinus, the yellow, or hard pine group, generally harder wood. Ducampopinus, the foxtail or pinyon group Pinus subg, strobus, the white, or soft pine group, generally with softer wood and five needles per fascicle Most regions of the Northern Hemisphere host some native species of pines. One species crosses the equator in Sumatra to 2°S, in North America, various species occur in regions at latitudes from as far north as 66°N to as far south as 12°N. Various species have been introduced to temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, where they are grown as timber or cultivated as ornamental plants in parks, a number of such introduced species have become invasive and threaten native ecosystems. Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous trees growing 3–80 m tall. The smallest are Siberian dwarf pine and Potosi pinyon, and the tallest is a 81.79 m tall ponderosa pine located in southern Oregons Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, the bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaky bark. The branches are produced in regular pseudo whorls, actually a very tight spiral, the spiral growth of branches, needles, and cone scales are arranged in Fibonacci number ratios. The new spring shoots are sometimes called candles, they are covered in brown or whitish bud scales and point upward at first, then turn green. These candles offer foresters a means to evaluate fertility of the soil, pines are long-lived, and typically reach ages of 100–1,000 years, some even more. The longest-lived is the Great Basin bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, one individual of this species, dubbed Methuselah, is one of the worlds oldest living organisms at around 4,600 years old. This tree can be found in the White Mountains of California, an older tree, now cut down, was dated at 4,900 years old. It was discovered in a grove beneath Wheeler Peak and it is now known as Prometheus after the Greek immortal, pines have four types of leaf, Seed leaves on seedlings, born in a whorl of 4–24. Juvenile leaves, which follow immediately on seedlings and young plants, 2–6 cm long, single, green or often blue-green and these are produced for six months to five years, rarely longer. Scale leaves, similar to bud scales, small, brown and non-photosynthetic, needles, the adult leaves, are green and bundled in clusters called fascicles
10.
Pinus classification
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Pinus, the Pines, is a genus of approximately 111 extant tree and shrub species. The genus is split into two subgenera, subgenus Pinus, and subgenus Strobus. Each of the subgenera have several sections based on chloroplast DNA sequencing. Older classifications split the genus into three subgenera – subgenus Pinus, subgenus Strobus, and subgenus Ducampopinus – based on cone, seed, DNA phylogeny has shown that species formerly in subgenus Ducampopinus are members of subgenus Strobus, so Ducampopinus is no longer used. The species of subgenus Ducampopinus were regarded as intermediate between the two subgenera. In the modern classification, they are placed into subgenus Strobus, in 1888 the Californian botanist John Gill Lemmon placed them in subgenus Pinus. In general, this classification emphasized cone, cone scale, seed, and leaf fascicle and sheath morphology, Pines with one fibrovascular bundle per leaf, were known as haploxylon pines, while pines with two fibrovascular bundles per leaf, were called diploxylon pines. Diploxylon pines tend to have harder timber and an amount of resin than the haploxylon pines. Subgenus Pinus includes the yellow and hard pines, section Pinus is mostly in Europe, Asia, except for P. resinosa in northeast North America and P. tropicalis in Cuba. Subsection Pinus P. densata - Sikang pine P. densiflora - Japanese red pine P. fragilissima P. henryi, P. hwangshanensis - Huangshan pine P. kesiya - Khasi pine P. latteri. †P. peregrinus - Pinus peregrinus - Middle Eocene, Golden Valley Formation, North Dakota, NCBI Taxonomy server files Ducampopinus species above as Strobus
11.
Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
12.
David Douglas (botanist)
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David Douglas was a Scottish botanist, best known as the namesake of the Douglas fir. He worked as a gardener, and explored the Scottish Highlands, North America, and Hawaii, Douglas was born in Scone, Perthshire, the second son of John Douglas, a stonemason, and Jean Drummond. He attended Kinnoull School and upon leaving found work as an apprentice to William Beattie, head gardener at Scone Palace, the seat of the Earl of Mansfield. He spent seven years in this position, completing his apprenticeship, after a further spell of working in Fife he moved to the Botanical Gardens of Glasgow University and attended botany lectures. Douglas made three trips from England to North America. His first trip, to eastern North America, began on 3 June 1823, the second was to the Pacific Northwest, from July 1824 returning October 1827. His third and final trip started in England in October 1829, on that last journey he went first to the Columbia River, then to San Francisco, then in August 1832, to Hawaii. October 1832, found him back in the Columbia River region, a year later, in October 1833, he returned to Hawaii arriving on 2 January 1834. The second expedition starting in 1824 was his most successful, the Royal Horticultural Society sent him back on a plant-hunting expedition in the Pacific Northwest that ranks among the great botanical explorations. In the Spring of 1826, David Douglas was compelled to climb a peak near Athabasca Pass to take in the view, in so doing, he became the first mountaineer in North America. He introduced the Douglas-fir into cultivation in 1827 and his success was well beyond expectations, in one of his letters to Hooker, he wrote you will begin to think I manufacture pines at my pleasure. Altogether he introduced about 240 species of plants to Britain and he first briefly visited Hawaii in 1830 on his way to the Pacific Northwest. He returned again in December 1833 intending to spend three months of winter there and he was only the second European to reach the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano. He died under mysterious circumstances while climbing Mauna Kea in Hawaiʻi at the age of 35 in 1834 and he apparently fell into a pit trap and was possibly crushed by a bull that fell into the same trap. He was last seen at the hut of Englishman Edward Ned Gurney, Gurney was also suspected in Douglass death, as Douglas was said to have been carrying more money than Gurney subsequently delivered with the body. However, most investigators have concluded that Gurneys account was true, Douglas was buried in an unmarked common grave near Mission House in Honolulu, Hawaii. Later, in 1856, a marker was erected on a wall at Kawaiahaʻo Church. A monument was built at the spot where Douglas died by members of the Hilo Burns Society including David McHattie Forbes and it is called Ka lua kauka, off Mānā Road on the Island of Hawaiʻi 19°53′17″N 155°20′17″W
13.
Mount San Antonio
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Mount San Antonio, colloquially referred to as Mount Baldy, is the highest peak of the San Gabriel Mountains, and the highest point in Los Angeles County, California. The peak is within the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and Angeles National Forest, Mount San Antonios sometimes snow-capped peaks are visible on clear days and dominate the view of the Los Angeles Basin skyline. The peak is pyramid shaped, with a steep south face, the summit is accessible via a number of connecting ridges along hiking trails from the north, east, south and southwest. The mountain is almost always referred to as Mount Baldy by locals, the mountain was named by a local rancher after Saint Anthony of Padua. Nonetheless, Mount San Antonio is the name according to the GNIS. The summit has two peaks, the peak, elevation 10,064 feet, and a sub-peak, West Baldy. The main peak marks the boundary between San Bernardino County and Los Angeles County, the mountain is in the Angeles National Forest. The mountains southern watershed drains into San Antonio Creek, the side into Lytle Creek. San Antonio and Lytle Creeks are part of the Santa Ana River watershed, San Antonio Creek descends through a deep canyon which has several waterfalls, the last about 75 feet high. East of the summit is Mount Harwood, which is in turn connected by a ridge, The Devils Backbone. At the Notch there is a ski resort, the closest one to Los Angeles, south of the resort, and connected to its ski lift by an asphalt road, lies Mt Baldy Village. Mount San Antonio lies in the front range of the San Gabriel Mountains, one of the Transverse Ranges of Southern California, the Transverse Ranges were formed because of a dog-leg bend in the San Andreas, which is a transform fault. The bend makes it difficult for the two plates to move smoothly past one another, and mountains were raised as a result, the prehistoric Hog Back landslide lies in the canyon of San Antonio Creek at 4000 elevation. In modern times, notable floods have occurred in 1938 and 1969, the dam succeeded in significantly reducing the damage done by the 1969 flood. Hydroelectric plants along San Antonio Creek are tied to the electric grid, the lower land area of the mountain consists of an ecological community known as yellow pine forest. Tree species include pine, Jeffrey pine, white fir. Limber pine occurs at the higher elevations and these forests are fairly sparse, and are intermixed with chaparral and oak savannah. Higher up, the pine forest community gives way to a pure lodgepole forest
14.
Conifer cone
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A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the reproductive structures The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cones, which produce pollen, are usually herbaceous, the name cone derives from the fact that the shape in some species resembles a geometric cone. The individual plates of a cone are known as scales, the male cone is structurally similar across all conifers, differing only in small ways from species to species. Extending out from an axis are microsporophylls. Under each microsporophyll is one or several microsporangia, the female cone contains ovules which, when fertilized by pollen, become seeds. The female cone structure varies more markedly between the different conifer families, and is crucial for the identification of many species of conifers. The members of the family have cones that are imbricate. The scales are arranged in fibonacci number ratios. The female cone has two types of scale, the scales, derived from a modified leaf, and the seed scales, one subtended by each bract scale. On the upper-side base of each seed scale are two ovules that develop into seeds after fertilization by pollen grains. The bract scales develop first, and are conspicuous at the time of pollination, the scales open temporarily to receive gametophytes, then close during fertilization and maturation, and then re-open again at maturity to allow the seed to escape. Maturation takes 6–8 months from pollination in most Pinaceae genera, but 12 months in cedars, the cones open either by the seed scales flexing back when they dry out, or by the cones disintegrating with the seed scales falling off. The cones are conic, cylindrical or ovoid, and small to large, from 2–60 cm long. After ripening, the opening of non-serotinous pine cones is associated with their moisture content—cones are open when dry and this assures that the small, wind disseminated seeds will be dispersed during relatively dry weather, and thus, the distance traveled from the parent tree will be enhanced. A pine cone will go through cycles of opening and closing during its life span. This process occurs with older cones while attached to branches and even after the cones have fallen to the forest floor. The condition of fallen pine cones is an indication of the forest floors moisture content. Closed cones indicate damp conditions while open cones indicate the forest floor is dry, members of the Araucariaceae have the bract and seed scales fully fused, and have only one ovule on each scale
15.
Conifer
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The Pinophyta, also known as Coniferophyta or Coniferae, or commonly as conifers, are a division of vascular land plants containing a single class, Pinopsida. They are gymnosperms, cone-bearing seed plants, all extant conifers are perennial woody plants with secondary growth. The great majority are trees, though a few are shrubs, examples include cedars, Douglas firs, cypresses, firs, junipers, kauri, larches, pines, hemlocks, redwoods, spruces, and yews. As of 1998, the division Pinophyta was estimated to contain eight families,68 genera, although the total number of species is relatively small, conifers are ecologically important. They are the dominant plants over large areas of land, most notably the taiga of the Northern Hemisphere, boreal conifers have many wintertime adaptations. The narrow conical shape of northern conifers, and their downward-drooping limbs, many of them seasonally alter their biochemistry to make them more resistant to freezing. While tropical rainforests have more biodiversity and turnover, the conifer forests of the world represent the largest terrestrial carbon sink. Conifers are of economic value for softwood lumber and paper production. The earliest conifers in the record date to the late Carboniferous period, possibly arising from Cordaites. Pinophytes, Cycadophytes, and Ginkgophytes all developed at this time, an important adaptation of these gymnosperms was allowing plants to live without being so dependent on water. Other adaptations are pollen and the seed, which allows the embryo to be transported and developed elsewhere, Conifers appear to be one of the taxa that benefited from the Permian–Triassic extinction event, and were the dominant land plants of the Mesozoic. They were overtaken by the plants, which first appeared in the Cretaceous. They were the food of herbivorous dinosaurs, and their resins and poisons would have given protection against herbivores. Reproductive features of modern conifers had evolved by the end of the Mesozoic era, Conifer is a Latin word, a compound of conus and ferre, meaning the one that bears cone. A descriptive name in use for the conifers is Coniferae. Alternatively, descriptive botanical names may also be used at any rank above family and this means that if conifers are considered a division, they may be called Pinophyta or Coniferae. As a class they may be called Pinopsida or Coniferae, as an order they may be called Pinales or Coniferae or Coniferales. Conifers are the largest and economically most important component group of the gymnosperms, the division Pinophyta consists of just one class, Pinopsida, which includes both living and fossil taxa
16.
Aylmer Bourke Lambert
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Aylmer Bourke Lambert was a British botanist, one of the first fellows of the Linnean Society. Aylmer Bourke Lambert was born at Bath, England on 2 February 1761, lamberts mother died in 1773, the same year that he started school and through her family he inherited estates in Jamaica and Ireland. Lambert went to Newcomes School for the sons of gentlemen at Hackney and he is best known for his work A description of the genus Pinus, issued in several parts 1803–1824, a sumptuously illustrated folio volume detailing all of the conifers then known. A second folio edition was produced between 1828 and 1837, and a third, smaller edition in 1832. Individual books even of the edition are often very different from one another. A full description of the history is given in, Renkema, H. W. & Ardagh, J. Aylmer Bourke Lambert. Journal of the Linnean Society of London - Botany 48, 439-466, Lambert acquired a number of significant herbarium collections including those of Johann Reinhold Forster, Archibald Menzies and Henry de Ponthieu. He also amassed a collection of specimens and drawings from Australia in the era immediately following the arrival of the First Fleet. Contributors included Governor Arthur Phillip, Surgeon-General John White, Colonel William Paterson, Major Robert Ross, Major Francis Grose and it was auctioned following his death in 317 lots and specimens can be found in botanical collections around the world. Lambert was one of the fellows of the Linnean Society in 1788. In 1796 Lambert was appointed by James Edward Smith as one of the four Vice-Presidents of the Linnean Society of London and he held this position until his death in 1842. In 1791, Lambert was elected to the The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, Lambert compiled the collection from Surgeon General John Whites specimens and drawings brought from Sydney to London in 1795. Lambert is honoured in the name of the Sugar Pine Pinus lambertiana. The standard botanical author abbreviation Lamb. is applied to species he described, London, Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 6–7. Elbert L. Little, Jr. “Lambert’s ‘Description of the Genus Pinus, H. W. Renkema and John Ardagh. “Aylmer Bourke Lambert and his ‘Description of the Genus Pinus’, the Journal of the Linnaean Society of London,48, 439-466. Aylmer Bourke Lambert FLS at www. barnelms. com The TAL & Dai-ichi Life Derby Collection at the State Library of New South Wales
17.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
18.
Oregon
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Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Oregon is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Washington, on the south by California, on the east by Idaho, the Columbia River delineates much of Oregons northern boundary, and the Snake River delineates much of the eastern boundary. The parallel 42° north delineates the boundary with California and Nevada. Oregon was inhabited by indigenous tribes before Western traders, explorers. An autonomous government was formed in the Oregon Country in 1843 before the Oregon Territory was created in 1848, Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14,1859. Today, at 98,000 square miles, Oregon is the ninth largest and, with a population of 4 million, the capital of Oregon is Salem, the second most populous of its cities, with 164,549 residents. Portland is Oregons most populous city, with 632,309 residents, Portlands metro population of 2,389,228 ranks the 23rd largest metro in the nation. The Willamette Valley in western Oregon is the states most densely populated area, the tall conifers, mainly Douglas fir, along Oregons rainy west coast contrast with the lighter-timbered and fire-prone pine and juniper forests covering portions to the east. Abundant alders in the west fix nitrogen for the conifers, stretching east from central Oregon are semi-arid shrublands, prairies, deserts, steppes, and meadows. At 11,249 feet, Mount Hood is the states highest point, Oregons only national park, Crater Lake National Park, comprises the caldera surrounding Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. The state is home to the single largest organism in the world, Armillaria ostoyae. Because of its landscapes and waterways, Oregons economy is largely powered by various forms of agriculture, fishing. It is also the top timber-producer of the lower 48 states, Technology is another one of the states major economic forces, which began in the 1970s with the establishment of the Silicon Forest and the expansion of Tektronix and Intel. Sportswear company Nike, Inc. headquartered in Beaverton, is the states largest public corporation with a revenue of $30.6 billion. The earliest evidence of the name Oregon has Spanish origins and this chronicle is the first topographical and linguistic source with respect to the place name Oregon. There are also two other sources with Spanish origins such as the name Oregano which grows in the part of the region. Another early use of the name, spelled Ouragon, was in a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom of Great Britain, the term referred to the then-mythical River of the West. By 1778 the spelling had shifted to Oregon, in his 1765 petition, Rogers wrote, The rout. is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon
19.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
20.
Baja California
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Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California. It has an area of 70,113 km2, or 3. 57% of the mass of Mexico and comprises the northern half of the Baja California Peninsula, north of the 28th parallel. The mainland portion of the state is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by Sonora, the U. S. State of Arizona, and the Gulf of California and its northern limit is the U. S. state of California. The state has an population of 3,165,776 much more than the sparsely populated Baja California Sur to the south. Over 75% of the lives in the capital city, Mexicali, in Ensenada. Other important cities include San Felipe, Rosarito and Tecate, additionally, there is a large immigrant population from the United States due to its proximity to San Diego and the cheaper cost of living compared to San Diego. There is also a significant population from Central America, many immigrants moved to Baja California for a better quality of life and the number of higher paying jobs in comparison to the rest of Mexico and Latin America. Baja California is the twelfth largest state by area in Mexico and its geography ranges from beaches to forests and deserts. The backbone of the state is the Sierra de Baja California, where the Picacho del Diablo and this mountain range effectively divides the weather patterns in the state. In the northwest, the weather is semi-dry and mediterranean, in the narrow center, the weather changes to be more humid due to altitude. It is in area where a few valleys can be found, such as the Valle de Guadalupe. To the east of the range, the Sonoran Desert dominates the landscape. In the south, the weather becomes drier and gives way to the Vizcaino Desert, the state is also home to numerous islands off both of its shores. In fact, the westernmost point in Mexico, the Guadalupe Island, is part of Baja California, the Coronado, Todos Santos and Cedros Islands are also on the Pacific Shore. On the Gulf of California, the biggest island is the Angel de la Guarda, separated from the peninsula by the deep, the first people came to the peninsula at least 11,000 years ago. At that time two main groups are thought to have been present on the peninsula. In the south were the Cochimí, in the north were several groups belonging to the Yuman language family, including the Kiliwa, Paipai, Kumeyaay, Cocopa, and Quechan
21.
Yosemite National Park
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Yosemite National Park is a national park spanning portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in Northern California. The park, which is managed by the National Park Service, on average, about 4 million people visit Yosemite each year, and most spend the majority of their time in the seven square miles of Yosemite Valley. The park set a record in 2016, surpassing 5 million visitors for the first time in its history. Almost 95% of the park is designated wilderness, Yosemite was central to the development of the national park idea. First, Galen Clark and others lobbied to protect Yosemite Valley from development, Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The park has a range from 2,127 to 13,114 feet and contains five major vegetation zones, chaparral/oak woodland, lower montane forest, upper montane forest, subalpine zone. Of Californias 7,000 plant species, about 50% occur in the Sierra Nevada, there is suitable habitat for more than 160 rare plants in the park, with rare local geologic formations and unique soils characterizing the restricted ranges many of these plants occupy. The geology of the Yosemite area is characterized by granitic rocks, about 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and then tilted to form its relatively gentle western slopes and the more dramatic eastern slopes. The uplift increased the steepness of stream and river beds, resulting in formation of deep, about one million years ago, snow and ice accumulated, forming glaciers at the higher alpine meadows that moved down the river valleys. Ice thickness in Yosemite Valley may have reached 4,000 feet during the early glacial episode, the downslope movement of the ice masses cut and sculpted the U-shaped valley that attracts so many visitors to its scenic vistas today. The name Yosemite originally referred to the name of a tribe which was driven out of the area by the Mariposa Battalion. Before then the area was called Ahwahnee by indigenous people, as revealed by archeological finds, the Yosemite Valley has been inhabited for nearly 3,000 years, though humans may have first visited the area as long as 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. The indigenous natives called themselves the Ahwahneechee, meaning dwellers in Ahwahnee and they are related to the Northern Paiute and Mono tribes. Many tribes visited the area to trade, including nearby Central Sierra Miwoks, a major trading route went over Mono Pass and through Bloody Canyon to Mono Lake, just to the east of the Yosemite area. Vegetation and game in the region were similar to that present today, acorns were a staple to their diet, as well as seeds and plants, salmon. In 1851 as part of the Mariposa Wars intended to suppress Native American resistance and he was pursuing forces of around 200 Ahwahneechee led by Chief Tenaya. Accounts from this battalion were the first well-documented reports of ethnic Europeans entering Yosemite Valley, attached to Savages unit was Dr. Lafayette Bunnell, the company physician, who later wrote about his awestruck impressions of the valley in The Discovery of the Yosemite. Bunnell is credited with naming Yosemite Valley, based on his interviews with Chief Tenaya, Bunnell wrote that Chief Tenaya was the founder of the Pai-Ute Colony of Ah-wah-nee
22.
Leaf
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A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes, sizes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, hairiness, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are then further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape also maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
23.
Fascicle (botany)
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In botany, a fascicle is a bundle of leaves or flowers growing crowded together, alternatively the term might refer to the vascular tissues that supply such an organ with nutrients. However, vascular tissues may occur in even when the organs they supply are not fascicled. In zoology and animal anatomy the term refers to a small bundle, usually of fibres, nerves. The term fascicle and its derived terms such as fasciculation are from the Latin fasciculus, the diminutive of fascis, accordingly such words occur in many forms and contexts wherever they are convenient for descriptive purposes. A fascicle may be leaves or flowers on a shoot where the nodes of a shoot are crowded without clear internodes. However, bundled fibres, nerves or bristles as in tissues or the glochid fascicles of Opuntia may have little or nothing to do with branch morphology. Leaf fascicles are present in all pines, and the number of leaves per fascicle is an important character for identification of pine species. Most species have fascicles of 2 to 5 needles, only occasional species typically have as few as one or as many as six leaves to the fascicle, variation is high between species, low within them. For example, Pinus flexilis, has fascicles of 5 needles and this pine is a member of the white pine group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, section Strobus. In all members of the group the fascicles nearly all have five needles, the fascicle sheath is another character that is important for identification. Among North American pines the sheath is persistent in all so-called hard pines, thus, the fascicle sheath and number of needles can be used to identify valuable timber pines in all seasons and many years before they are mature enough to produce cones. These two characters readily distinguish the groups of pines. Pinus durangensis has fascicles of 6 needles, rarely 7, and is the species in Pinus with so many needles per fascicle. At the other extreme, Pinus monophylla has fascicles of one needle, fascicles do occur in some flowering plants, though not as frequently as in many conifers. Consequently, when fascicles are present the specific epithet refers to them. Examples include Prunus fasciculata and Adenostoma fasciculatum, species with flowers in fascicles include Aechmea biflora and Melicytus ramiflorus, several species of Malva, and the entire genus Flueggea. Some species of the family Alseuosmiaceae have flowers in fascicles, both leaf and flower fascicles occur among Angiospermae, often as adaptations facilitating pollination, such as in many Lamiaceae, of which some Lavandula are typical. Other plant fascicles are adaptations to achieve greater compactness for defensive reasons, for example, in Opuntia cacti, spines are produced in fascicles bearing a few long spines and many short spiny bristles
24.
Coulter pine
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The Coulter pine or big-cone pine, Pinus coulteri, is a native of the coastal mountains of Southern California and northern Baja California. Isolated groves are found as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area in Mt. Diablo State Park, the species is named after Thomas Coulter, an Irish botanist and physician. The Coulter pine produces the heaviest cone of any pine tree, although it has a limited range in the wild, it is a popular ornamental tree. Pinus coulteri is a coniferous evergreen tree in the genus Pinus. The size ranges from 10–24 m tall, and a diameter up to 1 m. The trunk is vertical and branches horizontal to upcurved, the leaves are needle-like, in bundles of three, glaucous gray-green, 15–30 cm long and stout,2 mm thick. The outstanding characteristic of this tree is the large, spiny cones which are 20–40 cm long, Coulter pines produce the largest cones of any pine tree species, although the slender cones of the sugar pine are longer. The large size of the cones has earned them the nickname widowmakers among locals, the Coulter pine is closely related to the Jeffrey pine, with which it shares habitats, and the ponderosa pine. Coulter pines tend to grow in drier environments than ponderosa and Jeffery pines and this erect, medium-sized pine prefers south-facing slopes between 200–2,300 m elevation, and tolerates dry rocky soil. Pinus coulteri most often appears in mixed forests, the Coulter pine occurs in a number of forest plant associations, for example, At higher elevations forestation of the San Jacinto Mountains Coulter Pine is co-dominant with the California black oak. Woodpeckers often forage on the species, and peel the bark to access insects underneath, the wood is weak and soft, so that the species is little used other than for firewood. Pinus coulteri is cultivated as a tree, planted in parks and large gardens. The Coulter pine has gained the Royal Horticultural Societys Award of Garden Merit, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. International Union for Conservation of Nature, gymnosperm Database Pinus coulteri Flora of North America, Pinus coulteri C. Michael Hogan Pinus coulteri, pub, Globaltwitcher. com, ed, Nicklas Stromberg Chase, J. Smeaton. Cone-bearing Trees of the California Mountains, LCC QK495. C75 C4, with illustrations by Carl Eytel - Kurut, Gary F. Carl Eytel, Southern California Desert Artist, California State Library Foundation, Bulletin No. 95, pp. 17-20 retrieved November 13,2011 CalFlora — Pinus coulteri Jepson Manual treatment USDA Plants Profile for Pinus coulteri Pinus coulteri — U. C
25.
Seed
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A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering. The formation of the seed is part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, Seeds are the product of the ripened ovule, after fertilization by pollen and some growth within the mother plant. The embryo is developed from the zygote and the coat from the integuments of the ovule. Seed plants now dominate biological niches on land, from forests to both in hot and cold climates. The term seed also has a meaning that antedates the above—anything that can be sown, e. g. seed potatoes. In the case of sunflower and corn seeds, what is sown is the seed enclosed in a shell or husk, many structures commonly referred to as seeds are actually dry fruits. Plants producing berries are called baccate, sunflower seeds are sometimes sold commercially while still enclosed within the hard wall of the fruit, which must be split open to reach the seed. Different groups of plants have other modifications, the stone fruits have a hardened fruit layer fused to. Nuts are the one-seeded, hard-shelled fruit of plants with an indehiscent seed. Seeds are produced in several related groups of plants, and their manner of production distinguishes the angiosperms from the gymnosperms, angiosperm seeds are produced in a hard or fleshy structure called a fruit that encloses the seeds, hence the name. Some fruits have layers of hard and fleshy material. In gymnosperms, no special structure develops to enclose the seeds, however, the seeds do become covered by the cone scales as they develop in some species of conifer. Seed production in natural plant populations varies widely from year-to-year in response to weather variables, insects and diseases, over a 20-year period, for example, forests composed of loblolly pine and shortleaf pine produced from 0 to nearly 5 million sound pine seeds per hectare. Over this period, there were six bumper, five poor, and nine good seed crops, right after fertilization, the zygote is mostly inactive, but the primary endosperm divides rapidly to form the endosperm tissue. This tissue becomes the food the young plant will consume until the roots have developed after germination, after fertilization the ovules develop into the seeds. The ovule consists of a number of components, The funicle or seed stalk which attaches the ovule to the placenta and hence ovary or fruit wall, the nucellus, the remnant of the megasporangium and main region of the ovule where the megagametophyte develops. The micropyle, a pore or opening in the apex of the integument of the ovule where the pollen tube usually enters during the process of fertilization. The chalaza, the base of the ovule opposite the micropyle, the shape of the ovules as they develop often affects the final shape of the seeds
26.
Pine nut
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Pine nuts are the edible seeds of pines. About 20 species of pine produce seeds large enough to be worth harvesting, in other pines the seeds are also edible, in Asia two species are widely harvested, Korean pine in northeast Asia, and chilgoza pine in the western Himalaya. Four other species, Siberian pine, Siberian dwarf pine, Chinese white pine, afghanistan is an important source of pine nuts, behind China and Korea. Pine nuts produced in Europe mostly come from the pine, which has been cultivated for its nuts for over 5,000 years. The Swiss pine is used to a very small extent. In North America, the species are three of the pinyon pines, Colorado pinyon, single-leaf pinyon, and Mexican pinyon. The other eight pinyon species are used to an extent, as are gray pine, Coulter pine, Torrey pine, sugar pine. Here, the nuts themselves are known by the Spanish name for the pinyon pine, in the United States, pine nuts are mainly harvested by Native Americans, particularly the Uto-Aztecan, Shoshone, Paiute Navajo, and Hopi, and Washoe tribes. Certain treaties negotiated by tribes and laws in Nevada guarantee Native Americans right to harvest pine nuts, the Pinus monophylla seeds, commonly known as the Nevada Soft Shell Pine Nut, are harvested by commercial harvesters in Nevada, and sold throughout the western US. For those seeking to grow edible landscapes, these are the commonly used species. For some American species development begins in spring with pollination. A tiny cone, about the size of a marble, will form from mid-spring to the end of summer. The cone will then commence growth until it reaches maturity near the end of summer, the mature piñon pine cone is ready to harvest ten days before the green cone begins to open. A cone is harvested by placing it in a burlap bag and it takes about 20 days until the cone fully opens. Once it is open and dry, the seed can be easily extracted in various ways. Another option for harvesting is to wait until the cone opens on the tree and harvest the cone from the piñon pine, fallen seed can also be gathered beneath the trees. The elevation of the pine is an important determinant of the quantity of pine cone production. American Pinyon pine cone production is most commonly found at an elevation between 6,000 feet and 8,500 feet, and ideally at 7,000 feet
27.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
28.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
29.
Cascade Range
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The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades, the small part of the range in British Columbia is referred to as the Canadian Cascades or, locally, as the Cascade Mountains. The highest peak in the range is Mount Rainier in Washington at 14,411 feet, the Cascades are part of the Pacific Oceans Ring of Fire, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean. All of the eruptions in the contiguous United States over the last 200 years have been from Cascade volcanoes, the two most recent were Lassen Peak from 1914 to 1921 and a major eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Minor eruptions of Mount St. Helens have also occurred since, the Cascade Range is a part of the American Cordillera, a nearly continuous chain of mountain ranges that form the western backbone of North America, Central America, and South America. The Cascades extend northward from Lassen Peak in northern California to the confluence of the Nicola, the Fraser River separates the Cascades from the Coast Mountains. The highest volcanoes of the Cascades, known as the High Cascades, dominate their surroundings and they often have a visual height of one mile or more. The highest peaks, such as the 14, 411-foot Mount Rainier, Mount Baker in Washington recorded a world-record single-season snowfall in the winter of 1998–99 with 1,140 inches. Prior to that year, Mount Rainier held the record for snow accumulation at Paradise in 1978. It is not uncommon for some places in the Cascades to have over 500 inches of snow accumulation, such as at Lake Helen. Most of the High Cascades are therefore white with snow and ice year-round, annual rainfall is as low as 9 inches on the eastern foothills due to a rain shadow effect. Beyond the eastern foothills is a plateau that was largely created 17 to 14 million years ago by the many flows of the Columbia River Basalt Group. Together, these sequences of fluid volcanic rock form the 200, 000-square-mile Columbia Plateau in eastern Washington, Oregon, the Columbia River Gorge is the only major break of the range in the United States. When the Cascades began to rise 7 million years ago in the Pliocene, as the range grew, erosion from the Columbia River was able to keep pace, creating the gorge and major pass seen today. The gorge also exposes uplifted and warped layers of basalt from the plateau, in early 1792, British navigator George Vancouver explored Puget Sound and gave English names to the high mountains he saw. Mount Baker was named for Vancouvers third lieutenant, Joseph Baker, although the first European to see it was Manuel Quimper, Mount Rainier was named after Admiral Peter Rainier. Later in 1792, Vancouver had his lieutenant William Robert Broughton explore the lower Columbia River and he named Mount Hood after Lord Samuel Hood, an admiral of the Royal Navy. Mount St. Helens was sighted by Vancouver in May 1792 and it was named for Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens, a British diplomat
30.
Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
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The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Basin and Range Province. The vast majority of the lies in the state of California. The Sierra runs 400 miles north-to-south, and is approximately 70 miles across east-to-west, the Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, the character of the range is shaped by its geology and ecology. More than one hundred years ago during the Nevadan orogeny. The range started to uplift four M. A. ago, the uplift caused a wide range of elevations and climates in the Sierra Nevada, which are reflected by the presence of five life zones. Uplift continues due to faulting caused by forces, creating spectacular fault block escarpments along the eastern edge of the southern Sierra. The Sierra Nevada has a significant history, the California Gold Rush occurred in the western foothills from 1848 through 1855. Due to inaccessibility, the range was not fully explored until 1912, the Sierra Nevada lies in Central and Eastern California, with a very small but historically important spur extending into Nevada. West-to-east, the Sierra Nevadas elevation increases gradually from 1,000 feet in the Central Valley to an height of about 10,500 feet at its crest only 50–75 miles to the east. The east slope forms the steep Sierra Escarpment, unlike its surroundings, the range receives a substantial amount of snowfall and precipitation due to orographic lift. The Sierra Nevada stretches from the Susan River and Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south and it is bounded on the west by Californias Central Valley and on the east by the Basin and Range Province. The geographical boundary between the Sierra and the Cascades is virtually indistinguishable, with the Fredonyer Pass designation being traditional, physiographically, the Sierra is a section of the Cascade-Sierra Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. The range is drained on its western slope by the Central Valley watershed, the northern third of the western Sierra is part of the Sacramento River watershed, and the middle third is drained by the San Joaquin River. The eastern slope watershed of the Sierra is much narrower, its rivers flow out into the endorheic Great Basin of eastern California and western Nevada. Although none of the eastern rivers reach the sea, many of the streams from Mono Lake southwards are diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct which provides water to Southern California, the height of the mountains in the Sierra Nevada increases gradually from north to south. Between Fredonyer Pass and Lake Tahoe, the range from 5,000 feet to more than 9,000 feet. The crest near Lake Tahoe is roughly 9,000 feet high, farther south, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park is Mount Lyell
31.
Pacific Coast Ranges
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The Pacific Coast Ranges, are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico. The same term is used informally in Canada to refer to the Coast Mountains and adjoining inland ranges such as the Hazelton Mountains, the coastline is often dropping steeply into the sea with photogenic views. Along the British Columbia and Alaska coast, the mountains intermix with the sea in a maze of fjords. Off the Southern California coast the Channel Islands archipelago of the Santa Monica Mountains extends for 160 miles, on the West coast of North America, the coast ranges and the coastal plain form the margin. Most of the land is made of terranes that have accreted onto the margin. In the north, the belt is an accreted terrane. This belt extends from the Wrangellia Terrane in Alaska to the Chilliwack group of Canada, a rupture in Rodinia 750 million years ago formed a passive margin in the eastern Pacific Northwest. The breakup of Pangea 200 million years ago began the movement of the North American plate. As the continent drifted West, terranes were accreted onto the west coast, the timing of the accretion of the insular belt is uncertain, although the closure did not occur until at least 115 million years ago. Other Mesozoic terranes that accreted onto the continent include the Klamath Mountains, the Sierra Nevada,80 to 90 million years ago the subducting Farallon plate split and formed the Kula Plate to the North. This formed an area in what is now Northern California, where the plates converged forming a Mélange, North of this was the Columbia Embayment, where the continental margin was east of the surrounding areas. Many of the major batholiths date from the late Cretaceous, as the Laramide Orogeny ended around 48 million years ago, the accretion of the Siletzia terrane began in the Pacific Northwest. This began the activity in the Cascadia subduction zone, forming the modern Cascade Range. Events here may relate to the ignimbrite flare-up of the southern Basin, as extension in the Basin and Range Province slowed by a change in North American Plate movement circa 7 to 8 Million years ago, rifting began on the Gulf of California. Although many of the ranges do share a common history, the Pacific Coast Ranges province is not defined by geology. However, both are considered part of the Pacific Coast Ranges due to their proximity and similar economic, the Pacific Coast Ranges are home to the largest temperate-latitude icefields in the world. Formally unnamed icefields are not listed List of Pacific Coast Ranges topics Coast Range California Coast Ranges Coast Ranges United States physiographic regions
32.
Cronartium ribicola
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Cronartium ribicola is a species of rust fungus in the family Cronartiaceae that causes the disease white pine blister rust. C. ribicola is native to China, and was introduced to North America. Some European and Asian white pines are mostly resistant to the disease and it was accidentally introduced into North America about 1900, where it is an invasive species causing serious damage to the American white pines, which have little genetic resistance. Mortality is particularly heavy in Western White Pine, Sugar Pine, Limber Pine, some limited silvicultural control of the disease is possible. If bark blisters are found on branches over 10–15 cm from the bole, those branches may be pruned off, if the main trunk is affected then no control is possible, and the tree will die once the infection encircles the tree. Infected trees are identified by flagging, when all the needles on a branch turn brown. Another form of control practiced in areas is to diligently remove Ribes plants from any area near white pines. Because the infection moves from currant plants, to pines, and back again, according to the Southwest Oregon Forest Insect and Disease Service Center, white pine blister rust attacks all five needle pines. Damage includes mortality, top kill, branch dieback, and predisposition to attack by other agents, as is common among rusts, the life cycle of Cronartium ribicola includes two host species and goes through five spore stages, this is termed heteroecious. In the specific case of Cronartium ribicola, the aecial host of this pathogen is the white pine, species of both telial and aecial hosts have varying levels of resistance or immunity to infection. On the aecial host the first signs of C, looking at the infected plant as a whole, the Pinus will appear chlorotic, and stunted with dead branches or tops that turn a bright red color. On the other hand, the telial host, Ribes, can contract yellowish chlorotic leaf spots, the signs of Cronartium ribicola on Ribes, come in the form of the pathogen itself as orange pustules on the underside of the leaf. Environmentally, Cronartium ribicola prefers cooler temperatures coupled with moist conditions in low-lying areas, especially during the late summer, the low temperatures and humidity are an essential part of the pathogens spore germination and dispersal requirements. The combination of temperatures and a high humidity create an environment at which dew can easily form. The free water helps loose spores adhere to a leaf’s surface and this collection of environmental characteristics are common in the Northern Hemisphere, causing many areas in the United States to be labeled at hazard zones for the Pinus genus. Historically, tactics such as alternate host removal and planting restrictions in hazard zones, since then researchers have come up with multiple new methods to curb the spread of the infection. For example, careful selection of plot sites for the white pine would greatly reduce the germination of spores. These plots would include land with such as well-drained soil such as that on a high-sloped area, spots that are well aerated
33.
Rust (fungus)
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Rusts are plant diseases caused by pathogenic fungi of the order Pucciniales. An estimated 168 rust genera and approximately 7000 species, more than half of which belong to the genus Puccinia, are currently accepted, rust fungi are highly specialized parasites with several unique features. Unlike other plant pathogens, rust usually affects healthy and vigorously growing plants, so the infection is limited to plant parts such as leaves, petioles, tender shoots, stem, fruits, etc. Perennial systemic infection may cause such as growth retardation, witchs broom, stem canker. Plants with severe rust infection may appear stunted, chlorotic, or otherwise discoloured, rust sporulates on affected plant parts. Rust is most commonly seen as coloured powder, composed of tiny aeciospores which land on vegetation producing pustules, or uredia, that form on the lower surfaces. During late spring or early summer, yellow orange or brown and these telia produce teliospores which will germinate into aerial basidiospores, spreading and causing further infection. The taxonomy of Pucciniales is complex and the darker coloured smuts can be mistaken for rust, rusts are so named after the reddish rusty looking sori and the disease is usually noticed after rain. The group is considered one of the most harmful pathogens to agriculture, horticulture and these fungi are major concerns and limiting factors for successful cultivation of agricultural and forestry crops. White pine blister rust, wheatstem rust, and coffee rust are examples of notoriously damaging, rusts can produce up to five spores types during their life cycle 0-Pycniospores -Haploid gametes in heterothallic rusts. I-Aeciospores-non-repeating dikaryotic vegetative spores II-Urediniospores-repeating dikaryotic vegetative spores and these spores are referred to as the repeating stage because they can cause auto-infection. These spores are red/orange and are a sign of rust fungus infection. III-Teliospores-Diploid spores that produce basidia and are the stage of life cycle IV-Basidiospores-stem from basidia. Haploid spores which infect the alternate host, although these are rarely observed outside of the laboratory. Rust fungi can be categorized by how many types of spores are produced during the life cycle, fungi that produce all five spores are termed macrocyclic. Fungi that lack pycniospores and aeciospores in their cycle are termed microcyclic. Demicyclic fungi delete the uredial stage from the life cycle, understanding the life cycles of rust fungi allows for proper disease management. All rusts are obligate parasites, meaning that they require a living host to complete their life cycle and they generally do not kill the host plant but can severely reduce growth and yield
34.
Western white pine
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The tree extends down to sea level in many areas, particularly in Oregon and Washington. It is the tree of Idaho, and is sometimes known as the Idaho pine. Western white pine is a tree, regularly growing to 30–50 metres. It is a member of the white group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, and like all members of that group. The needles are finely serrated, and 5–13 centimetres long, the cones are long and slender, 12–32 centimetres long and 3–4 centimetres broad, opening to 5–8 centimetres broad, the scales are thin and flexible. The seeds are small, 4–7 mm long, and have a long slender wing 15–22 mm long. It is related to the Eastern white pine, differing from it in having larger cones, slightly longer-lasting leaves with more prominent stomatal bands, and it is widely grown as an ornamental tree, but has been heavily logged throughout much of its range in the past. Western white pine has been affected by the white pine blister rust. The United States Forest Service estimates that 90% of the Western white pines have been killed by the blister rust west of the Cascades, large stands have been succeeded by other pines or non-pine species. The rust has also killed much of the Whitebark pine outside of California, blister rust is less severe in California, and Western white and whitebark pines have survived there in great numbers. Resistance to the blister rust is genetic, and due to Western white pines genetic variability some individuals are relatively unaffected by the rust, the Forest Service has a program for locating and breeding rust-resistant Western white pine and sugar pine. Seedlings of these trees have been introduced into the wild, US Forest Service Dorena Tree Improvement Center Chase, J. Smeaton. Cone-bearing Trees of the California Mountains, LCC QK495. C75 C4, with illustrations by Carl Eytel - Kurut, Gary F. Carl Eytel, Southern California Desert Artist, California State Library Foundation, Bulletin No. 95, pp. 17-20 retrieved Nov.13,2011 USDA, Pinus monticola Jepson Manual treatment - Pinus monticola Pinus monticola - U. C
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Pinus albicaulis
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It shares the common name creeping pine with several other creeping pine plants. The whitebark pine is typically the highest-elevation pine tree of these mountains, thus, it is often found as krummholz, trees dwarfed by exposure and growing close to the ground. In more favourable conditions, trees may grow to up to 29 meters in height. Whitebark pine is a member of the white group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, section Strobus and like all members of that group. Distinguishing whitebark pine, from the limber pine, also a white pine, is much more difficult. In Pinus flexilis, the cones are 6–12 centimeters long, green when immature, and open to release the seeds, usually there are intact old cones under them. Whitebark pine can also be hard to distinguish from western white pine in the absence of cones, however, whitebark pine needles are entire, whereas western white pine needles are finely serrated. Whitebark pine needles are usually shorter, 4–7 centimeters long, overlapping in size with the larger 5–10 centimeters needles of the western white pine. The whitebark pine is an important source of food for many birds and small mammals, including most importantly the Clarks nutcracker. Clarks nutcrackers each cache about 30,000 to 100,000 each year in small, nutcrackers retrieve these seed caches during times of food scarcity and to feed their young. Cache sites selected by nutcrackers are often favorable for germination of seeds and those caches not retrieved by the time the snow melts contribute to forest regeneration. Consequently, whitebark pine often grows in clumps of several trees, douglas squirrels cut down and store whitebark pine cones in their middens. Grizzly bears and American black bears often raid squirrel middens for whitebark pine seeds, squirrels, northern flickers, and mountain bluebirds often nest in whitebark pines, and elk and blue grouse use whitebark pine communities as summer habitat. A study in the mid-2000s showed that whitebark pine had declined by 41 percent in the Western Cascades due to two threats, white pine blister rust and mountain pine beetles, Whitebark deaths in North Cascades National Park doubled from 2006 to 2011. Many stands of Pinus albicaulis nearly range-wide are infected with white pine blister rust, in the northern Rocky Mountains of the U. S. whitebark pine mortality in some areas exceeds 90 percent, where the disease infests 143,000 acres. Cronartium ribicola occurs in pine to the northern limits of the species in the coastal ranges of British Columbia. The blister rust has also devastated the commercially valuable western white pine in these areas, nearly 80 percent of whitebark pines in Mount Rainier National Park are infected with blister rust. There is currently no way to stop the spread and effects of blister rust, however, a small number of trees in most populations harbor genetic resistance to blister rust
36.
U.S. Forest Service
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The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U. S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nations 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the major national land agency that is outside the U. S. Department of the Interior. The concept of the National Forests was born from Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation group, Boone and Crockett Club, in 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. Hough was appointed the head of the office, in 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formed Division of Forestry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the domain as forest reserves. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry, gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. As of 2009, the Forest Service has a budget authority of $5.5 billion. The Forest Service employs 34,250 employees in 750 locations, including 10,050 firefighters,737 law enforcement personnel, and 500 scientists. The mission of the Forest Service is To sustain the health, diversity and its motto is Caring for the land and serving people. As the lead agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the nations forest, rangeland. The agencys ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current, the everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation.5 billion trees per year. Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres of land in 2007, the Forest Service organization includes ranger districts, national forests, regions, research stations and research work units and the Northeastern Area Office for State and Private Forestry. Each level has responsibility for a variety of functions, the Chief of the Forest Service is a career federal employee who oversees the entire agency. The Chief reports to the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, there are five deputy chiefs for the following areas, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Research and Development, Business Operations, and Finance. The Forest Service Research and Development deputy area includes five stations, the Forest Products Laboratory. Station directors, like regional foresters, report to the Chief, Research stations include Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern. There are 92 research work units located at 67 sites throughout the United States, there are 80 Experimental Forests and Ranges that have been established progressively since 1908, many sites are more than 50 years old
37.
Lake Tahoe
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Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at 6,225 ft, it straddles the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America, and its depth is 1,645 ft, making it the second deepest in the United States after Crater Lake in Oregon. The lake was formed about 2 million years ago as part of the Lake Tahoe Basin and it is known for the clarity of its water and the panorama of surrounding mountains on all sides. The area surrounding the lake is referred to as Lake Tahoe. More than 75% of the watershed is national forest land. Lake Tahoe is a major tourist attraction in both Nevada and California and it is home to winter sports, summer outdoor recreation, and scenery enjoyed throughout the year. Snow and ski resorts are a significant part of the areas economy, the Nevada side also offers large casinos, with highways providing year-round access to the entire area. It is about 22 mi long and 12 mi wide and has 72 mi of shoreline, approximately two-thirds of the shoreline is in California. Although highways run within sight of the shore for much of Tahoes perimeter. The Lake Tahoe Watershed of 505 sq mi includes the area that drains to the lake. Lake Tahoe is fed by 63 tributaries and these drain an area about the same size as the lake and produce half its water, with the balance entering as rain or snow falling directly on it. The Truckee River is the only outlet, flowing northeast through Reno, Nevada. It accounts for one third of the water leaves the lake. The flow of the Truckee River and the height of the lake are controlled by the Lake Tahoe Dam at the outlet, the natural rim is at 6,223 ft above sea level, with a spillway at the dam controlling overflow. The maximum legal limit, to which the lake can be allowed to rise in order to water, is at 6,229.1 ft. Around New Year 1996/1997 a Pineapple Express atmospheric river melted snow and caused the lake and river to overflow, inundating Reno, the Lake Tahoe Basin was formed by vertical motion faulting. Uplifted blocks created the Carson Range on the east and the main Sierra Nevada crest on the west, down-dropped blocks created the Lake Tahoe Basin in between
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Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
39.
John Muir
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His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism has helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park, the Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile John Muir Trail, a trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor. Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, in Scotland, the John Muir Way, a 130-mile-long route, was named in honor of him. In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests and he petitioned the U. S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, today Muir is referred to as the Father of the National Parks and the National Park Service has produced a short documentary about his life. John Muir has been considered an inspiration to both Scots and Americans, Muirs biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity, both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are discussed in books and journals. Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world, on April 21,2013, the first ever John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist. John Muirs Birthplace is a stone house in Dunbar, East Lothian. His parents were Daniel Muir and Ann Gilrye and he was the third of eight children, Margaret, Sarah, David, Daniel, Ann and Mary, and the American-born Joanna. His earliest recollections were of taking short walks with his grandfather when he was three, author Amy Marquis notes that he began his love affair with nature while young, and implies that it may have been in reaction to his strict religious upbringing. His father believed that anything that distracted from Bible studies was frivolous, but the young Muir was a restless spirit and especially prone to lashings. As a young boy, Muir became fascinated with the East Lothian landscape and it was during this time that he became interested in natural history and the works of Scottish naturalist Alexander Wilson. Although he spent the majority of his life in America, Muir never forgot his roots in Scotland and he held a strong connection with his birthplace and Scottish identity throughout his life and was frequently heard talking about his childhood spent amid the East Lothian countryside. He greatly admired the works of Thomas Carlyle and poetry of Robert Burns and he returned to Scotland on a trip in 1893, where he met one of his Dunbar schoolmates and visited the places of his youth that were etched in his memory. He also never lost his strong Scottish accent after many years living in America, in 1849, Muirs family immigrated to the United States, starting a farm near Portage, Wisconsin, called Fountain Lake Farm. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark, by age 11, young Muir had learned to recite by heart and by sore flesh all of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament
40.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
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The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas and their descendants. The term Amerindian is used in Quebec, the Guianas, Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives. Application of the term Indian originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, eventually, the Americas came to be known as the West Indies, a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the blanket term Indies and Indians for the indigenous inhabitants, although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time, although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by peoples, some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico. At least a different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single population, one that developed in isolation. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years, around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets. Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to the south, archeological evidence of the latter would have been covered by the sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age
41.
Maple sugar
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Maple sugar is a traditional sweetener in Canada and the northeastern United States, prepared from the sap of the maple tree. Three species of trees are predominantly used to produce maple sugar, the sugar maple, the black maple. The black maple is included as a subspecies or variety in a more broadly viewed concept of A. saccharum, of these, the red maple has a shorter season because it buds earlier than sugar and black maples, which alters the flavour of the sap. A few other species of maple are also used as sources of sap for producing maple sugar, including the box elder or Manitoba maple, the silver maple. Similar sugars may also be produced from birch or palm trees, maple sugar is what remains after the sap of the sugar maple is boiled for longer than is needed to create maple syrup or maple taffy. Once almost all the water has been boiled off, all that is left is a solid sugar, by composition, this sugar is about 90% sucrose, the remainder consisting of variable amounts of glucose and fructose. This is usually sold in pressed blocks or as a translucent candy and it is difficult to create as the sugar easily burns and thus requires considerable skill. Maple sugar was the form of maple by First Nations/Native American peoples as the sugar could easily be transported and lasted a long time. It is called ziinzibaakwad by the Anishinaabeg, blessing of the Bay, the second ocean-going merchant ship built in the English colonies, carried maple sugar from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to New Amsterdam as early as 1631. French awareness of the process is indicated in at least one works, those of the mid-18th-century artist Jean-Francois Turpin. Maple sugar is used to flavor maple products and as an alternative to cane sugar, maple syrup List of foods made from maple
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Achomawi
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In anthropology, Achomawi are the northerly nine bands of the Pit River tribe of Native Americans who lived in what is now northeastern California in the United States. These nine autonomous bands of the Pit River Indians spoke various dialects of one language. The name Achomawi means river dwelling and the band historically inhabited the Fall River Valley, the other eight bands that shared the Achomawi language had a historic homeland located along other parts of the Pit River. Their territory extended from Big Bend to Goose Lake, estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the combined 1770 population of the Achomawi and Atsugewi as 3,000, a more detailed analysis by Fred B. Kniffen arrived at the same figure, T. R. Garth estimated the Atsugewi population at a maximum of 850, which would leave at least 2,150 for the Achomawi. Kroeber estimated population of the Achomawi 1910 as 1,000, edward S. Curtis, a photographer and author in the 1920s, gave a 1910 population of Achomawi at 984. The Achomawi population was estimated at 1,500 in 2000, each of the nine bands in the Achomawi language group had defined separate territories up and down the banks of the Pit River. Within their respective territories, each band had several villages, which were composed of extended family members. The bands were organized by having one village with smaller satellite villages. The lower Pit River bands existed in a densely forested mountain zone, while the upper Pit River bands had a drier sage brush. Their housing, food sources, and seasonal movements therefore also varied, in the summer, the Achomawi band, and other upper Pit River bands usually lived in cone-shaped homes covered in tule-mat and spent time under shade or behind windbreaks of brush or mats. In the winter, larger houses were built, partially underground, these winter homes had wooden frames which supported a covering made of a mix of bark, grass and tule. In marriage, the bridegroom lived in the home briefly. Eventually she would move him to his family. A patrilineal society, chiefdom was handed down to the eldest son, when children were born, the parents would were put into seclusion and had food restrictions while waiting for their babies umbilical cord to fall off. If twins were born, one of them was killed at birth, Achomawi buried their dead in a flexed position, on the side, facing east and at times in baskets. They also cremated those who died outside of the community, bringing the back for burial back home
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Creation myth
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A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term often refers to false or fanciful stories, formally. Cultures generally regard their creation myths as true, in the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths, metaphorically, symbolically and sometimes in a historical or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals and they are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions, found throughout human culture, Creation myth definitions from modern references, A symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe. Creation myths tell us how things began, all cultures have creation myths, they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a deal about who we are. A philosophical and theological elaboration of the myth of creation within a religious community. Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation, Myth narrates a history, it relates an event that took place in primordial Time. All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world was formed, in the past historians of religion and other students of myth thought of them as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. However they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes, The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, the myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity. While creation myths are not literal explications they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They are the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the world, to any assumed spiritual world
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Chipmunk
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Chipmunks are small, striped rodents of the family Sciuridae. Chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk which is primarily in Asia. These classifications are arbitrary, and most taxonomies over the century have placed the chipmunks in a single genus. However, studies of mitochondrial DNA show that the divergence between each of the three groups is comparable to the genetic dissimilarity between Marmota and Spermophilus. The genus name Tamias is Greek for treasurer, steward, or housekeeper, the common name originally may have been spelled chitmunk, from the native Odawa word jidmoonh, meaning red squirrel. The earliest form cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is chipmonk, however, other early forms include chipmuck and chipminck, and in the 1830s they were also referred to as chip squirrels, probably in reference to the sound they make. In the mid-1800s, John James Audubon and his sons included a lithograph of the chipmunk in their Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Chipmunks have also been referred to as striped squirrels, chippers, munks, timber tigers, and ground squirrels. Chipmunks have a diet primarily consisting of seeds, nuts and other fruits. They also commonly eat grass, shoots, and many forms of plant matter, as well as fungi, insects and other arthropods, small frogs, worms. Around humans, chipmunks can eat cultivated grains and vegetables, and other plants from farms and gardens, Chipmunks mostly forage on the ground, but they climb trees to obtain nuts such as hazelnuts and acorns. At the beginning of autumn, many species of chipmunk begin to stockpile nonperishable foods for winter and they mostly cache their foods in a larder in their burrows and remain in their nests until spring, unlike some other species which make many small caches of food. Cheek pouches allow chipmunks to carry items to their burrows for either storage or consumption. Eastern chipmunks mate in spring and again in early summer. Western chipmunks breed only once a year, the young emerge from the burrow after about six weeks and strike out on their own within the next two weeks. These small mammals fulfill several important functions in forest ecosystems and their activities harvesting and hoarding tree seeds play a crucial role in seedling establishment. Chipmunks construct expansive burrows which can be more than 3.5 m in length with several well-concealed entrances, the sleeping quarters are kept clean as shells and feces are stored in refuse tunnels. The eastern chipmunk hibernates in the winter, while western chipmunks do not, Chipmunks typically live about three years although some have been observed living to nine years in captivity. Chipmunks in captivity are said to sleep for an average of about 15 hours a day and it is thought that mammals which can sleep in hiding, such as rodents and bats, tend to sleep longer than those that must remain on alert. and Paul V. Switzer
