California’s diversity of climates is matched by that of its plants and animals. From prehistoric times - when mammoths, mastodons, camels, and saber-toothed tigers roamed much of the area - to today, the environment has proved conducive to life in its many forms.
Redwood trees rank among the state’s most prominent plants. These stately giants grow almost exclusively along the coast from Big Sur to Humboldt County and in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. Only a small number grow outside California - in Oregon and China. Those growing in coastal California, Sequoia sempervirens, are the tallest living things in the world, ascending to heights of 370 feet or more. Sierra redwoods, Sequoia-dendron giganteum, have the largest mass of any life form on Earth. The General Sherman tree in Sequoia, for example, is 273 feet high and 36.5 feet thick at its base. Its lower branches alone have more bulk than any single tree growing east of the Mississippi River. Redwood trees are both insect - and fire-resistant, yet require the heat from blazes in order to reproduce. Such heat causes the cones, which remain on the trees about 20 years, to burst and drop their seeds on the scorched ground where competing vegetation no longer remains. Rain and sunlight will then bring about germination. The life cycle that will follow is a long one: scientists have dated many living California redwood trees at more than 2,000 years old, to the time of Jesus of Nazareth and the Roman Empire. Experts consider such specimens as “old growth;” unfortunately, only 5 percent of the original two million acres still exist. Because of their sheer majesty and other distinctive qualities, the California legislature has designated both the coastal and Sierra redwoods as the official state trees.
In addition to redwoods, other notable California trees exist. The bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, is among them. These are the oldest extant forms of life in the world; some having lived 4,600 years. Bristlecone pines are native to the White Mountains. Numerous varieties of other pines grow throughout the non-desert parts of the state. The sugar pine is the largest and tallest of these in the world. One living specimen located on the western slope of the Sierra in Tuolumne County is 216 feet high and 10 feet in diameter. The Australian eucalyptus offers a good example of a non-native tree found in parts of coastal and central California. More importantly, the Australian tree should be thought of as being part of a transpacific exchange of goods, people, and diseases that have influenced much of California’s history. Australian miners and sea captains brought eucalyptus seeds and seedlings to California aboard vessels crossing the Pacific during the gold rush years. In fact, many Australian ships sailing into San Francisco Bay were constructed of eucalyptus. By the 1860s and 1870s farmers used the trees for windbreaks and firewood, and developers for beautification of areas undergoing urbanization. Oil from the tree was thought to relieve pain and cure insomnia, malaria, dysentery, venereal disease, and much else. Nearly all of the above trees and others as well, like firs and oaks, have contributed to the profits of logging companies in the state. Three-fourths of the original acreage of conifer forests that existed 150 years ago has been cut down. Environmental organizations have mounted strong campaigns to save what is left of these old-growth stands of trees, especially the redwoods.
Palm trees, a southern California icon, were imported in the real-estate boom of the 1880s to give the area an exotic, biblical look. Only one species of palm - the fan palm - is native to the state and its habitat is found in the desert.
Since settlement by Europeans, California’s environment has provided habitats for a variety of animals. The largest and most legendary of these has been the now extinct California grizzly bear (Ursus californicus), a representation of which graces the state flag and seal. Sitting atop the food chain, these powerful beasts coexisted with the California Indians. An estimated 10,000 roamed the coastal valleys, mountains, and even seashores when Spaniards began settling in the province. The giant bears ate mainly salmon, beached whales, and acorns. The last known grizzly in the state was killed in 1922 by a Fresno County rancher.
California, including its 15 islands (seven in the Farallon archipelago and eight Channel Islands) and coastal waters, has been home to many other animals as well. Among the terrestrial creatures are mountain lions, black bears, deer, elk, mountain sheep, badgers, bobcats, rattlesnakes, and more. Beavers, which are semi-aquatic, live in streams and lakes. They were hunted for their fur by California mountain men in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Trout and other freshwater fish have long populated the state’s lakes and rivers, affording anglers an opportunity to test their skills. Salmon, which are fished commercially, spawn in many rivers flowing to the Pacific. Among marine mammals, the California sea otter, whose fur was prized in faraway Canton, China, was hunted to near-extinction in the first half of the nineteenth century. Migrating California gray whales provided a valuable resource for the San Francisco-based Pacific whaling industry in the latter half of that century. Located on the Pacific Flyway, a West Coast flight corridor for birds that extends from Alaska into South America, California is regularly visited by migratory waterfowl. Residentially based airborne animals include more than 500 species of birds. Of these the California condor, a vulture with a wing span of up to 9 feet, is the largest. Nearly extinct in the twentieth century, the state’s condor population is beginning to rebound. More than half of the state’s resident and migratory seabird nests are located on the Farallon Islands, situated about 30 miles west of San Francisco.
World History
