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California mixed evergreen forest is a plant community found in the mountain ranges of California and southwestern Oregon.
The Mixed evergreen forest plant community is native to the Northern and Southern California Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada of central and northern California; the Transverse Ranges and Peninsular Ranges of southern California; and the southwestern Oregon Coast Ranges.
California mixed evergreen forests occur in ecoregions of the California Floristic Province, including in areas of the California chaparral and woodlands and its sub-ecoregions, Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains forests, Northern California coastal forests, and Sierra Nevada lower montane forest. The mixed evergreen forests of each ecoregion have slightly different species composition.
The mixed evergreen forests of the Klamath Mountains-Siskiyou Mountains occur above 300 meters (1000 ft) elevation, and are of four main types. Douglas-fir forests are found on gentle slopes, north-facing slopes, ridges with deep soil, and river terraces with deep sediments, usually underlain with sedimentary rocks. Coast Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii ssp. menziesii) is the predominant tree, occupying up to 70% of the forest cover. Broadleaf evergreen trees are relatively few. Tree species of secondary importance are:
On granite soils, a similar species composition predominates, but with more broadleaf evergreens, chiefly:
On steep, well drained slopes, canyon live oak is the dominant species, with coast Douglas-fir in a minor role.
On serpentine soils, mixed evergreen forests are made up of:
Mixed evergreen forests in the California Coast Ranges vary in species related to coastal (Outer Ranges) or inland (Inner Ranges) climate influences. It usually happens in the elevation from 0 meter to 500 meters high. Mountains in the San Francisco Bay Area frequently support mixed evergreen forests. Generally the moister the forest habitat the greater the understory density. Coast mixed evergreen is drier than coast redwood and it is a four-layer forest structure. The conifers are usually emergent as canopy layer and broad-leaf evergreen trees emerge as sub-canopy layer. The shrubs occur as the understory species.
Common wildlife include Steller's jay, chestnut-backed chickadee, western gray squirrel, raccoon and many others. These forests are more diverse in animal life than those having only conifers. The predominance of broadleaf trees provide a greater abundance of food sources.
Also called southern mixed evergreen forests, the mixed evergreen forests of the southern California Coast Ranges, the Transverse Ranges, and the northern Peninsular Ranges, are restricted to cooler north-facing slopes at higher elevations.
Pseudotsuga macrocarpa, commonly called the bigcone spruce or bigcone Douglas-fir, is an evergreen conifer native to the mountains of southern California. It is notable for having the largest cones in the genus Pseudotsuga, hence the name.
The Douglas fir is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three varieties: coast Douglas-fir, Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir and Mexican Douglas-fir.
The Peninsular Ranges are a group of mountain ranges that stretch 930 mi (1,500 km) from Southern California to the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula; they are part of the North American Pacific Coast Ranges, which run along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico. Elevations range from 500 to 10,834 ft.
The Northern California coastal forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of coastal Northern California and southwestern Oregon.
The Sierra Juárez and San Pedro Mártir pine–oak forests is a Nearctic temperate coniferous forests ecoregion that covers the higher elevations of the Sierra Juárez and Sierra San Pedro Mártir ranges of the Peninsular Ranges, of the northern Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The pine–oak forests extend throughout the central portion of the Mexican state of Baja California and terminate near the border with the U.S. state of California.
The Sierra Madre Occidental pine–oak forests are a Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion of the Sierra Madre Occidental range from the southwest USA region to the western part of Mexico. They are home to a large number of endemic plants and important habitat for wildlife.
The Northern Anatolian conifer and deciduous forests is a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion located in northern Anatolia, Turkey.
California oak woodland is a plant community found throughout the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of California in the United States and northwestern Baja California in Mexico. Oak woodland is widespread at lower elevations in coastal California; in interior valleys of the Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges and Peninsular Ranges; and in a ring around the California Central Valley grasslands. The dominant trees are oaks, interspersed with other broadleaf and coniferous trees, with an understory of grasses, herbs, geophytes, and California native plants.
Quercus chrysolepis, commonly termed canyon live oak, canyon oak, golden cup oak or maul oak, is a North American species of evergreen oak. Its leaves are a glossy dark green on the upper surface with prominent spines; a further identification arises from the leaves of canyon live oak being geometrically flat.
Mediterranean conifer and mixed forests is an ecoregion, in the temperate coniferous forest biome, which occupies the high mountain ranges of North Africa. The term is also a botanically recognized plant association in the African and Mediterranean literature.
The Coast Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and California. It stretches along the Pacific Coast from the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in the north to the San Francisco Bay in the south, including Grays Harbor, Willapa Bay, and the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington, the entire length of the Oregon Coast, and the Northern California Coast. Named for the Coast Range mountains, it encompasses the lower elevations of the Olympic Mountains, the Oregon Coast Range, the Californian North Coast Ranges, and surrounding lowlands.
The Klamath Mountains ecoregion of Oregon and California lies inland and north of the Coast Range ecoregion, extending from the Umpqua River in the north to the Sacramento Valley in the south. It encompasses the highly dissected ridges, foothills, and valleys of the Klamath and Siskiyou Mountains. It corresponds to the Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency and to the Klamath-Siskiyou forests ecoregion designated by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
The Mediterranean California lower montane black oak–conifer forest is a major forest association and ecosystem of the California mixed evergreen forest bioregion in certain mountain ranges in California and southern Oregon in the Western United States; and Baja California in northwest Mexico.
The California montane chaparral and woodlands is an ecoregion defined by the World Wildlife Fund, spanning 7,900 square miles (20,000 km2) of mountains in the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Coast Ranges of southern and central California. The ecoregion is part of the larger California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, and belongs to the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome.
Quercus parvula, the Santa Cruz Island oak, is an evergreen red oak found on north-facing Santa Cruz Island slopes and in the California Coast Ranges from Santa Barbara County north to Mendocino County. It was taxonomically combined with Quercus wislizeni until resurrected as a separate species by Kevin Nixon in 1980. The type locality of Q. parvula var. shrevei is Palo Colorado Canyon in Monterey County. It is placed in Quercus section Lobatae.
The Galbreath Wildlands Preserve is a 3,670-acre (14.9 km2) nature reserve in Mendocino County, California, United States, established in 2004 in honor of Fred Burckhalter Galbreath (1901-2000). The preserve, a former sheep ranch, is located in the Outer Coast Range 17 miles (27 km) from the coast, near Yorkville. The Preserve features woodland, forest and grassland communities that lie at the edge of coastal fog influence. Lands are in the upper Rancheria sub-basin of the Navarro Watershed and contain 1st - 5th order streams. The Preserve's forests are primarily second-growth coniferous forest and hardwood.
Mixed conifer forest is a vegetation type dominated by a mixture of broadleaf trees and conifers. It is generally located in mountains, below the upper montane vegetation type.