1.
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
2.
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
3.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
4.
Magnoliids
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Magnoliids are a group of flowering plants. Until recently, the group included about 9,000 species, including magnolias, nutmeg, bay laurel, cinnamon, avocado, black pepper, tulip tree and that group is characterized by trimerous flowers, pollen with one pore, and usually branching-veined leaves. Magnoliidae is the name of a subclass, and magnoliids is an informal name that does not conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi. The circumscription of a subclass will vary with the system being used. The only requirement is that it must include the family Magnoliaceae, the informal name magnoliids is used by some researchers to avoid the confusion that recently surrounds the name Magnoliidae. More recently, the group has been redefined under the PhyloCode as a clade comprising the Canellales, Laurales, Magnoliales. Chase & Reveal have proposed, Magnoliidae as the used for the entire group of flowering plants. The APG III and its predecessor systems did not originally use formal botanical names above the rank of order, under those systems, larger clades were usually referred to by informal names, such as magnoliids or magnoliid complex. The formal name in Linnean nomenclature was specified in a separate APG publication as the existing name Magnolianae Takht, the APG III recognizes a clade within the angiosperms for the magnoliids. The circumscription is, The clade includes most of the groups of the angiosperms. This clade was formally named Magnoliidae in 2007 under provisions of the PhyloCode, the Cronquist system used the name Magnoliidae for one of six subclasses. In their systems, the name Magnoliidae is used for a larger group including all dicotyledons. This is also the case in some of the derived from the Cronquist system. Dahlgren divided his Magnolianae into ten orders, more than other systems of the time and this revised system diverges from the Cronquist system, but agrees more closely with the circumscription later published under APG II. Comparison of classification systems is often difficult, two authors may also describe the same group with nearly identical composition, but each may then apply a different name to that group or place the group at a different taxonomic rank. For example, the composition of Cronquists subclass Magnoliidae is nearly the same as Thornes superorder Magnolianae, because of these difficulties and others, the synoptic table below imprecisely compares the definition of magnoliid groups in the systems of four authors. For each system, only orders are named in the table, all orders included by a particular author are listed and linked in that column. When a taxon is not included by that author, but was included by an author in another column, the sequence of each system has been altered from its publication in order to pair corresponding taxa between columns
5.
Ludwig Reichenbach
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Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach was a German botanist and ornithologist. Director of the history museum in Dresden, Professor Reichenbach was faced with an annoying yet seemingly unsolvable problem in regards to showing marine life. Invertebrates, however, and by their nature, posed a problem. In the 19th century the only practiced method of showcasing them was to take a live specimen and this of course killed it but, more importantly, time and their lack of hard parts eventually rendered them into little more than colorless floating blobs of jelly. Advice which would prove wise and fateful both economically and scientifically, for Leopold did as the Dresden natural history museum director suggested, a decision which swiftly sparked the Blaschkas highly lucrative mail-order business of selling this Glass sea creatures interested parties literally all across the globe. Sadly, however, the six glass sea anemones purchased by Ludwig Reichenbach in 1863 as well as the rest of that first collection was destroyed in the Bombing of Dresden in World War II. He was later the founder of the Dresden botanical gardens and joint founder of Dresden Zoo and this collection is the basis of that seen in the museum today. Reichenbach was an author and able botanical artist. His works included Iconographia Botanica seu Plantae criticae and Handbuch der speciellen Ornithologie and he was honored by having a plant named after him, Viola reichenbachiana Jord. Reichenbachs sunbird is also named after him and this botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Rchb. Finally, he was also the father of Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach, equally a botanist, Reichenbach died in 1879 and was on the Trinity Cemetery in Dresden Johannstadt interred. The tomb, however, was cleared after abandoning the right to use, lepidoptera Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung Reichenbach, Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig. Conspectus regni vegetabilis per gradus naturales evoluti
6.
Tree
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In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. Trees are not a group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk. In looser senses, the palms, the tree ferns, bananas. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old, the tallest known tree, a coast redwood named Hyperion, stands 115.6 m high. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years and it is estimated that there are just over 3 trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk and this trunk typically contains woody tissue for strength, and vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark which serves as a protective barrier, below the ground, the roots branch and spread out widely, they serve to anchor the tree and extract moisture and nutrients from the soil. Above ground, the divide into smaller branches and shoots. The shoots typically bear leaves, which light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the trees growth. Flowers and fruit may also be present, but some trees, such as conifers, instead have pollen cones and seed cones, others, such as tree ferns, trees play a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues, trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of animals and plants. Tropical rainforests are one of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, trees provide shade and shelter, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, and fruit for food as well as having many other uses. In parts of the world, forests are shrinking as trees are cleared to increase the amount of available for agriculture. Because of their longevity and usefulness, trees have always revered, with sacred groves in various cultures. Although tree is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition of what a tree is, either botanically or in common language. In its broadest sense, a tree is any plant with the form of an elongated stem, or trunk. Trees are also defined by height, with smaller plants from 0.5 to 10 m being called shrubs
7.
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
8.
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
9.
Laurus nobilis
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Laurus nobilis is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glabrous leaves, in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. It is native to the Mediterranean region and is used as bay leaf for seasoning in cooking and its common names include bay laurel, sweet bay, bay, true laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel tree or simply laurel. Laurus nobilis figures prominently in classical Greek, Roman, and Biblical culture, the laurel is an evergreen shrub or small tree, variable in size and sometimes reaching 7–18 metres tall. The genus Laurus includes four accepted species, whose diagnostic key characters often overlap, the bay laurel is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. Each flower is pale yellow-green, about 1 cm diameter, the leaves are glabrous, 6–12 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, with an entire margin. On some leaves the margin undulates, the fruit is a small, shiny black berry-like drupe about 1 cm long that contains one seed. A recent study found considerable genetic diversity within L. nobilis, Laurus nobilis is a widespread relic of the laurel forests that originally covered much of the Mediterranean Basin when the climate of the region was more humid. With the drying of the Mediterranean during the Pliocene era, the forests gradually retreated. The most abundant component found in essential oil is 1, 8-cineole. Both essential and fatty oils are present in the fruit, the fruit is pressed and water-extracted to obtain these products. The fruit contains up to 30% fatty oils and about 1% essential oils, the plant is the source of several popular herbs and one spice used in a wide variety of recipes, particularly among Mediterranean cuisines. Most commonly, the leaves are added whole to Italian pasta sauces. They are typically removed from dishes before serving, unless used as a simple garnish, whole bay leaves have a long shelf life of about one year, under normal temperature and humidity. Whole bay leaves are used almost exclusively as flavor agents during the preparation stage. Ground bay leaves, however, can be ingested safely and are used in soups and stocks. Dried laurel berries and pressed leaf oil can both be used as robust spices, and the wood can be burnt for strong smoke flavoring, aqueous extracts of bay laurel can also be used as astringents and even as a reasonable salve for open wounds. In massage therapy, the oil of bay laurel is reputed to alleviate arthritis and rheumatism, while in aromatherapy, it is used to treat earaches. A traditional folk remedy for rashes caused by poison ivy, poison oak, the chemical compound lauroside B isolated from Laurus nobilis is an inhibitor of human melanoma cell proliferation at high concentrations in-vitro
10.
Luthier
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A luthier is someone who builds or repairs string instruments generally consisting of a neck and a sound box. The word luthier comes from the French word luth, which means lute, a luthier was originally a maker of lutes, but the term now includes makers of stringed instruments such as the violin or classical guitar. A luthier does not make harps or pianos, as these require different skills, the craft of making string instruments, or lutherie, is commonly divided into two main categories, makers of stringed instruments that are plucked or strummed, and those that are bowed. Since bowed instruments require a bow, the category includes a subtype known as a bow maker or archetier. Luthiers may also teach string-instrument making, either through apprenticeship or formal classroom instruction, Antonio Torres Jurado is credited with developing the form of classical guitar still in use today. Christian Frederick Martin of Germany developed a form evolved into the modern steel-string acoustic guitar. The American luthier Orville Gibson specialized in mandolins, and is credited with creating the archtop guitar, the important 20th-century American luthiers John DAngelico and Jimmy DAquisto made archtop guitars. Lloyd Loar worked briefly for the Gibson Guitar Corporation making mandolins and his designs for a family of arch top instruments are held in high esteem by todays luthiers, who seek to reproduce their sound. Concurrent with Fenders work, guitarist Les Paul independently developed an electric guitar. A company founded by luthier Friedrich Gretsch and continued by his son and grandson, Fred and Fred, Jr. originally made banjos, vintage guitars are often sought by collectors. Bowed instruments include, cello, crwth, double bass, erhu, fiddle, hudok, mouthbow, nyckelharpa, hurdy-gurdy, rabab, rebec, sarangi, viol, viola, viola da braccio, viola damore, the purported inventor of the violin is Andrea Amati. Amati was originally a maker, but turned to the new instrument form of violin in the mid-16th century. He was the progenitor of the famous Amati family of luthiers active in Cremona and his eldest was Antonio Amati, and the younger, Girolamo Amati. It is even possible Bartolomeo Cristofori, later inventor of the piano, gasparo da Salò of Brescia was another important early luthier of the violin family. About 80 of his instruments survive, and around 100 documents that relate to his work and he was also a double bass player and son and nephew of two violin players, Francesco and Agosti, respectively. Gasparo Duiffopruggar of Füssen, Germany, was incorrectly credited as the inventor of the violin. He was likely an important maker, but no documentation survives, da Salò made many instruments and exported to France and Spain, and probably to England. He had at least five apprentices, his son Francesco, a helper named Battista, Alexander of Marsiglia, Maggini inherited da Salòs business in Brescia
11.
Permanente Creek
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Permanente Creek is a 13. 3-mile-long stream originating on Black Mountain in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is the namesake for the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization, the Ohlone Indians lived in the area for over 3,000 years prior to the arrival of the Europeans. A large village, known as Partacsi, was located in general area. An expedition led by Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza passed through this area in March 1776 as he forged the first overland route from Monterey to San Francisco Bay. Mission Santa Clara de Asis was founded in October of the same year, governor Alvarado granted Rancho San Antonio de Padua to Juan Prado Mesa in 1839. This 440-acre rancho was bounded by Adobe Creek to the north and Stevens Creek to the south, on a diseño of Rancho San Antonio in 1839 Permanente Creek is shown as Arroyo Permanente. Mesa had been a soldier at the Presidio of San Francisco since 1828, served as a corporal in the Santa Clara Guard, Permanente Creek is also the namesake for Kaiser Permanente. Bess Kaiser and her spouse, industrialist Henry J and that medical program became Kaiser Permanente. Permanente Creek consists of approximately 13.3 miles of channel draining an area of 17.5 square miles. It has two tributaries, the West Fork Permanente Creek and Hale Creek. West Fork Permanente Creek and its Wildcat Canyon tributary were formerly known as Ohlone Creek, the perennial reaches of these creeks share the same perennial nature as a similar reach on nearby Adobe Creek. Here the creek enters a concrete trapezoidal channel constructed by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, only during high floods can a portion of the creeks waters surmount the floodgate and return to the original channel. Therefore, the Diversion Channel effectively reconnects Permanente Creek to the Stevens Creek watershed and this recapitulates the 1862 Allardt Map of the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad which shows Permanente Creek as a tributary of Stevens Creek. This is significant ecologically, because Stevens Creek still hosts an anadromous steelhead trout run. The Diversion Channel essentially changes the length of Permanente Creek from 13.3 miles to San Francisco Bay to 9.3 miles ending at its junction with Stevens Creek just past Highway 85. However, Hale Creek still flows to the lower reaches of Permanente Creek. This lowest part of the creek historically disappeared into the marshland before reaching the Bay, the creek must have been hydrologically connected to the Bay at times of high winter flows since Steelhead trout were able to access Permanente Creek historically. Saltwater is pumped from Charleston Slough into Shoreline Lake and from there it flows to Permanente Creek, the Mountain View Slough carries flows to the Bay between former salt ponds A1 and A2W
12.
Santa Clara County, California
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Santa Clara County, California, officially the County of Santa Clara, is a county in the U. S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,781,642, the county seat is San Jose, the tenth-most populous city in the United States. Santa Clara County is part of the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay, the highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area region, Santa Clara County is named after Mission Santa Clara, which was established in 1777, and is also named for Saint Clare of Assisi. Santa Clara County was one of the counties of California. The original inhabitants included the Ohlone, residing on Coyote Creek, part of the countys territory was given to Alameda County in 1853. In 1882, Santa Clara County tried to levy taxes upon property of the Southern Pacific Railroad within county boundaries. The result was the U. S. Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad,118 U. S.394, in which the Court extended Due Process rights to artificial legal entities. In the early 20th Century, the area was promoted as the Valley of the Hearts Delight due to its natural beauty, the first major technology company to be based in the area was Hewlett-Packard, founded in a garage in Palo Alto in 1939. IBM selected San Jose as its West Coast headquarters in 1943, varian Associates, Fairchild Semiconductor, and other early innovators were located in the county by the late 1940s and 1950s. The U. S. Navy had a presence in the area. The term Silicon Valley was coined in 1971, the trend accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, and agriculture has since then been nearly eliminated from the northern part of the county. And Hewlett-Packard, and internet companies eBay, Facebook, Google, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,304 square miles, of which 1,290 square miles is land and 14 square miles is water. The San Andreas Fault runs along the Santa Cruz Mountains in the south, as of 2012, an estimated 400 tule elk roam 1,875 square kilometres in northeastern Santa Clara County and southeastern Alameda County. The vast majority of these Superfund sites were caused by associated with the high tech sector located in Silicon Valley. As of 2013, Santa Clara County has the highest median income of any county in California at $84,741. The 2010 United States Census reported that Santa Clara County had a population of 1,781,642. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 479,210 persons,22. 5% Mexican,0. 4% Puerto Rican,0. 1% Cuban,3. 8% Other Hispanic
