Rare Plant Treasure Hunt

Maps of Historic and Recent Rare Plant Occurrences

Northern CA Larger: 90k | 1.4M

Central-Northern CA Larger: 105k | 1.6M

Coastal Southern CA Larger: 86k | 1.3M

Interior Southern CA Larger: 72k | 1.1M

Each of the dots or polygons on the maps represents a rare plant element occurrence. An element occurrence is the specific location where a plant, animal, or natural community has been documented by the Department of Fish and Game's (DFG) California Natural Diversity Database (CNDDB). In California, plant element occurrences are separated by a minimum distance of ¼ mile.

These maps show *historic* (plants not seen at location in 20 or more years) and *recent* (plants seen at location in the past 20 years) rare plant (element) occurrences mapped by the CNDDB. Historic occurrences appear in red. Recent occurrences appear in green. Occurrences on these maps are depicted spatially using polygons of various shapes and sizes. Please note that large polygons do not necessarily represent large occurrences. The locations of many historic rare plant occurrences are not well known and cannot be mapped precisely and, consequently, these occurrences are often depicted by large circles (some with up to a 5-mile radius). Additionally, due to the scale of these maps, some precisely-mapped small occurrences may be barely visible (zoom in).

Detailed information on each of these occurrences is available in the CNDDB's RareFind 3 software application and the new, RareFind 4 online application. The mapped information is also available in CNDDB in BIOS as here: http://bios.dfg.ca.gov/ . Under an MOU with DFG, CNPS chapters are entitled to free copies of this application to support not-for-profit rare plant and conservation work. If you would like to participate in this project and need access to either RareFind 3 or 4 please contact Aaron Sims (asimscnps.org) for more information. Aaron can also help you to identify locations to search for rare plants and can provide detailed location information and maps in hard-copy form, if requested.