Heracleum maximum, commonly known as cow parsnip, is the only member of the genus Heracleum native to North America. It is also known as American cow-parsnip, Satan celery, Indian celery, Indian rhubarb, poison turnip or pushki.
Chlorogalum pomeridianum, the wavy-leafed soap plant, California soaproot, or Amole, is the most common and most widely distributed of the soap plants, soaproots or amoles, which make up the genus Chlorogalum of flowering plants. It is occasionally known as the "wild potato", but given the plant's lack of either resemblance or relationship to the potato, this name is not recommended.
The ecology of the Sierra Nevada, located in the U.S. states of California and Nevada, is diverse and complex. The combination of climate, topography, moisture, and soils influences the distribution of ecological communities across an elevation gradient from 500 to 14,500 feet. Biotic zones range from scrub and chaparral communities at lower elevations, to subalpine forests and alpine meadows at the higher elevations. Particular ecoregions that follow elevation contours are often described as a series of belts that follow the length of the Sierra Nevada. There are many hiking trails, paved and unpaved roads, and vast public lands in the Sierra Nevada for exploring the many different biomes and ecosystems.
Olneya tesota is a perennial flowering tree of the family Fabaceae, legumes, which is commonly known as ironwood, desert ironwood, or palo fierro in Spanish. It is the only species in the monotypic genus Olneya. This tree is part of the western Sonoran Desert in Mexico and United States.
Amsinckia grandiflora is a species of fiddleneck known by the common name large-flowered fiddleneck. This is a wildflower endemic to California and considered a Critically endangered species on the state and national level. Amsinckia grandiflora is one of four 1248 rare heterostylous species within the genus Amsinckia that have highly restricted distributions from which the more weedy homostylous congeners are thought to have evolved.
Amsinckia douglasiana is an uncommon species of flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae, known by the common name Douglas' fiddleneck. It is endemic to the coastal Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Ynez Mountains of southern California.
Amsinckia eastwoodiae is a species of fiddleneck known by the common name Eastwood's fiddleneck. It is endemic to California, where it grows in the varied plant habitat of the hills, mountains, valleys, and coastlines.
Amsinckia lunaris is an uncommon species of fiddleneck known by the common name bent-flowered fiddleneck. It is endemic to California, where it grows in the San Francisco Bay Area, the woods of the coastal and inland mountains just north, and the Central Valley and its San Joaquin Valley.
Amsinckia lycopsoides is a species of fiddleneck known by the common name tarweed fiddleneck or bugloss fiddleneck. It is one of the more common species of fiddleneck. It is native to much of western North America from California to British Columbia. It can be found in a wide variety of areas.
Amsinckia spectabilis is a species of fiddleneck known by the common names seaside fiddleneck and woolly breeches. It is native to the west coast of North America from British Columbia to Baja California, where it grows in sandy habitat, including direct coastline.
Amsinckia tessellata is a species of fiddleneck known by the common names bristly fiddleneck, tessellate fiddleneck, checker fiddleneck, and devil's lettuce.
Amsinckia vernicosa is a species of fiddleneck known by the common name green fiddleneck.
Arctostaphylos myrtifolia is a rare species of manzanita known by the common name Ione manzanita. It is endemic to the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. It grows in the chaparral and woodland plant community on a distinctive acidic soil series, an oxisol of the Eocene-era Ione Formation, in western Amador and northern Calaveras counties. There are only eleven occurrences, of which three have not been recorded since 1976. This is a federally listed threatened species.
Lupinus formosus, the summer lupine or western lupine, is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is native to California and Oregon in the United States.
Orobanche californica, known by the common name California broomrape, is a species of broomrape. It is a parasitic plant growing attached to the roots of other plants, usually members of the Asteraceae.
Sidalcea oregana is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family known by the common name Oregon checkerbloom.
Sidalcea reptans is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family known by the common name Sierra checkerbloom and Sierra checker mallow.
Amsinckia carinata is a species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common name Malheur Valley fiddleneck. It is endemic to Oregon, where it is known only from Malheur County.
The Amsinck family is a Dutch-origined patrician family whose members were prominent merchants in multiple countries including the Netherlands, Hamburg, Portugal, England, France, Hanover, Holstein, Denmark, Suriname and India. From the 17th century the Hamburg branch of the family formed part of the city-state's ruling class, the Hanseaten or hereditary grand burghers, who enjoyed legal privileges in Hamburg until 1918. Amsinck has been one of Hamburg's great business families over many centuries, and its members reached the highest positions in Hamburg society, including as senators and head of state. A branch of the family were large plantation owners in Suriname. The Hamburg branch retained a Dutch identity for centuries, often intermarrying with other Dutch-origined patrician families.
Trillium kurabayashii is a species of flowering plant in the bunchflower family Melanthiaceae. The species is endemic to the western United States, occurring in extreme southwestern Oregon, northwestern California, and the Sierra Nevada of northern California. It was first described by John Daniel Freeman in 1975. The specific epithet kurabayashii honors Masataka Kurabayashi, a Japanese cytologist and population geneticist who first postulated the taxon’s existence. It is commonly known as the giant purple wakerobin, a reference to its conspicuously large, dark purple-red flower, one of the largest of any sessile-flowered trillium.
