California Natural History Guides Blog

Fat Innkeeper Worms and Flying Fish

While planning a trip to the Lost Coast, I've been depending heavily on the California Coastal Commission guides to the coast (more on that in a future post). Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times posted a very amusing and informative review of the Southern California guide. It's worth a read, especially for locals. My favorite quote: "Even if you hear reports of a fat innkeeper worm taking advantage of his coastal location, there's no point in calling the Better Business Bureau."

Ocean Energy

Peter Asmus, author of Introduction to Energy in California responds to Obama's "proposal to trim R&D funding for the emerging sector of 'marine renewables'...The ocean is a huge global resource that will ultimately have to be tapped to meet the energy needs of the world’s growing populations – without contributing to global climate change. If the U.S. wants to be part of the solution, and help economic development in regions decimated by the collapse of native fishing stocks, then strategic investments need to be made today."

Read the entire post.

(This is a cross-post from the UC Press weblog)

Event: Introduction to Energy in California

Don't miss Peter Asmus at the Point Reyes National Seashore Bookstore talking about his book: Introduction to Energy in California. He'll be speaking at 12:30 p.m.

Peter Asmus, President of Pathfinder Communications, is a journalist, consultant, and author of Reaping the Wind: How Mechanical Wizards and Profiteers Helped Shape Our Energy Future, among other books.

For a preview, read the excerpt.

Farallones Web Cam

It's a beautiful morning at the Farallones, where scientists are watching 300,000 nesting seabirds. We recommend the web cam at the California Acadamy of Scientists. We hope that future iterations of the cam will include a sharper image and a live chat so scientists can tell us more about what they are studying.

Plant Identification and Information Resources for Summer Hikers

Planning a hike this weekend? The following resources can help you identify and learn more about the flora you might see on the trail.

 For Beginning and Intermediate Naturalists

If you want to do some reading before your hike, we recommend  Introduction to California Plant Life by Robert Ornduff, Phyllis M. Faber, and Todd Keeler-Wolf and  and California Plant Families by Glenn Keator. These are also great guides to take out into the field.

One stop shopping for all the trees and shrubs of California is available in Trees and Shrubs of California by John D. Stuart and John O' Sawyer.

Regional guides make it easier to narrow your search, may offer information on other species, and give more background on why certain plants grow in one region over another. Try Introduction to the Plant Life of Southern California: Coast to Foothills by Philip W. Rundel and Robert Gustafson, Introduction to Trees of the San Francisco Bay Region by Glenn Keator, Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula by Jules G. Evens, Sierra Nevada Natural History by Tracy I. Storer, Robert L. Usinger, and David Lukas

Wildflower season is coming to a close, but four books by Phillip A. Munz (originally published in the 1950s!) still provide excellent, at-a-glance identification and information about wildflowers.  Introduction to California Mountain Wildflowers, Introduction to Shore Wildflowers of California, Oregon, and Washington, Introduction to California Spring Wildflowers of the Foothills, Valleys, and Coast, and Introduction to California Desert Wildflowers by Philip A. Munz.

For Advanced Amateurs and Professional Naturalists

The Jepson Manual - Available Online or in Print
The most comprehensive resource and identification guide to nearly eight thousand varieties of native and naturalized California plants. At over 1,400 pages, it's a load to carry out into the field--but the only comprehensive resource of its kind. (The California Native Plant Society used to sell a special carrier for it, but I was unable to find it in their store. If you have any information about carriers for the Jepson Manual, please feel free to add a comment to this blog entry.) If you are planning a visit to the desert, The Jepson Desert Manual lightens your load while also providing all the information available in the larger book.

Jepson Flora Project - Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics
After identifying the plant using your Jepson manual, learn more about it using the Interchange, which links together a variety of University of California sources for distribution maps, specimen data,  horticultural information, photos (Cal Photos) and more.

A Manual of California Vegetation (California Native Plant Society)
Put together by the California Native Plant Society, this guide is now completely available online. It aggregates information and photos of species, including information also available via the Jepson Flora Project mentioned above.

We welcome your thoughts and tips as well. Please post reviews of your favorite identification guides and online resources in our comments section.

Illustration: Rosebay rhododendron. The rosebay rhododendron grows along the edge of moist coastal forests in the extreme North Bay, for example, in the Kruse Rhododendron Reserve on the northern Sonoma coast. Photo by Glenn Keator appears in Introduction to Trees of the San Francisco Bay Region.

Energy and the Environment

The Commonwealth Club will be hosting a provocative discussion between the CEO of Chevron and the Executive Direct of The Sierra Club tonight. In Chevron + Sierra Club Drilling for Common Ground, Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal will moderate a conversation between Dave O'Reilly of Chevron and Carl Pope of The Sierra Club.Their discussion will focus on how we might make a transition to renewable fuels—and who should bear the costs. 

The lecture takes place at 6:30 p.m. at Hotel Nikko. Tickets are $15 for members and $30 non-members. The program is also being videotaped and recorded. 

This event coincides with the release of Peter Asmus's Introduction to Energy in California, a useful guide to the energy challenges that California faces. Those interested in the subject have good reason to keep an eye on energy in California. Asmus writes, "In each major renewable energy category—solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass—California quickly jumped into the category of global pioneer. It was not always pretty, as anyone who drives to the wind farms near Palm Springs on Hwy. 10 can attest to. However, it was remarkable that a single state—albeit a giant one with a plethora of renewable energy in the northern, southern, eastern, and western parts of the state—could spawn an entire industry in less than a decade."

Illustration from Introduction to Energy in California shows the 240 MW Coso geothermal complex, located near the China Lake Weapons Reserve, just south of Owens Valley on Highway 395.

Exploring the Treetops with Nalini Nadkarni

"They are the common thread between chewing gum, turpentine, allspice, maple syrup, vitamin packets, charcoal, toothpaste, and Chanel No. 5, and they are present throughout our lives, from birth and childhood (cradles, building blocks, tree houses) to death and beyond (memorial trees, coffins, gallows), and everything in between."

Read more about forest canopy biologist Nalini Nadkarni.

(This is a cross-post from the UC Press weblog)

World Ocean Day

Today is World Ocean Day. Save 20% on Selected Titles published by University of California Press. Read more about it at World Ocean Day.

(This is a cross-post from the UC Press weblog.)

Drought-Inspired Farmers & Greywater Guerillas

We caught an interesting story this morning on the California Report about how farmers are adapting to drought conditions. Turns out water-stressed plants make delicious apples.

Another piece on NPR's Morning Edition mentioned a group in Oakland, the Greywater Guerillas. Due to years of drought there's a movement afoot in government to make it easier to use greywater; apparently it's a difficult process to do legally now, hence "guerrillas" in the name of the group.

Further Reading:
Managing Water: Avoiding Crisis in California, by Dorothy Green
Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West, by James Lawrence Powell
Introduction to Water in California, by David Carle
The Great Thirst: Californians and Water—A History, Revised Edition, by Norris Hundley, jr.
A River No More: The Colorado River and the West, Expanded and Updated edition, by Philip Fradkin

Photo courtesy flickr/RichardMasoner

Curious about Undersea Robots? Sharks?

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California San Diego launches its summer evening lecture series TONIGHT  with a lecture on undersea robots. Jules Jaffe, Scripps research oceanographer will speak on his "latest scheme" to use "inexpensive, miniaturized robotic floats that travel with currents, sense the environment, and report their findings back to us." His lecture is called "Swarms of Small Autonomous Robots: A Future Vision for Ocean Observation."

At a second lecture on July 13, Jeffrey Graham, marine biologist, will talk about sharks. "Learn how shark biologists study shark physiology, life history and behavior for insight into what allows these fishes to rank among the world's most efficient predators."

The lectures, which are intended for and open to the general public, take place at Birch Aquarium,  Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego campus. See the Scripps website for more information.

The lectures are also broadcast on UCSD-TV

For further reading:
Oceans: Exploring the Hidden Depths of the Underwater World by Paul Rose and Anne Laking
Experience the California Coast book series
California Coastal Access Guide, Sixth Edition, by the California Coastal Commission
Sharks, Rays, and Chimaeras of California by David A. Ebert

Illustration of Cookiecutter Sharks ambushing a school of Dolphinfishes by Matthew D. Squillante appears in Sharks, Rays, and Chimaeras of California by David A. Ebert.