Winter 2025
Photos and captions by Jordan Collins, Julie Evens, Michael Kauffmann, and Aaron E. Sims
Straddling Northern California and Southern Oregon, the Klamath Mountains nurture a botanical wonderland of unique vegetation. This biodiversity is largely due to their ancient geology, varied microclimates, complex fire regimes, plant-animal interactions, and big-shouldered river systems. This staggering diversity is conveyed by the fact that the Klamath Mountains compose 15% of the state’s landmass yet nurture 65% of the state’s native plant species.
Local Tribes, conservation groups, and federal agencies work to protect this area’s biodiversity. They plan and implement prescribed burns, invasive species eradication, dam removal, and habitat restoration. Community-based stewardship programs emphasize restoring ecological balance, promoting fire-resistant vegetation communities, and preserving cultural resources. These efforts mitigate threats and impacts from climate change, droughts, land development, and habitat fragmentation.
The California Native Plant Society contributes to these efforts through a Vegetation Mapping Project funded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and in collaboration with California Polytechnic University, Humboldt. In this issue, we’re pleased to showcase the Klamath Mountains’ beauty and some of the extraordinary flora we’ve evaluated in more than 1,500 surveys since starting the project in 2023. From serpentine chaparral and rock outcrops to forests, meadows, and streamside vegetation. We look forward to further exploration and collaboration in 2025, the third and final year of the mapping project. — Julie Evens and Michael Kauffmann
Left and top right: The dazzling alpine shooting star (Primula tetrandra) loves to keep its roots wet growing in meadows and near margins of streams and lakes throughout the Klamath Mountains. (Photo credit: Aaron E. Sims)
Bottom right: The high elevation five-needle pines of the West are threatened by climate change, white pine blister rust, and bark beetle infestations. Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) are uncommon, surviving only on the highest elevation sky islands of the Klamath Mountains and are a target vegetation community for the CNPS mapping project. This whitebark pine is in a study plot in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. (Photo credit: Michael Kauffmann)
Above: A truly resilient plant, the Trinity buckwheat (Eriogonum alpinum, CRPR 1B.2) one of the region’s many buckwheats that occupy harsh habitats made up of loose rocks with minimal nutrients and ample sunshine. (Photo credit: Jordan Collins)
Above: Maeve Flynn, a botanist with Cal Poly Humboldt, conducts a “rapid assessment” of this Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi) vegetation community, where she documents the trees, shrubs, and herbs present along with the environmental features of this woodland. This area, in the upper South Fork Smith River country, holds the largest outcrops of ultramafic rock (serpentine) in North America. The harsh soils here nurture many rare and endemic plants. (Photo credit: Michael Kauffmann)
Above left: The Tolmie’s star-tulip (Calochortus tolmiei), recognizable by the soft carpet of hairs and nectaries on their petals, delightfully dapples dry wooded slopes and grasslands across northwestern California.
Above right: Juicy leaves of the wideleaf crumia moss (Crumia latifolia) can be found in abundance in flowing creeks throughout the Klamath region and the western U.S. (Photo credits: Jordan Collins)
Above: The California pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica, CRPR 4.2), is a captivating carnivorous species that thrives in nutrient-poor fens and seepage meadows throughout Northern California (like this one near Kangaroo Lake) and into Oregon. Their striking anatomy allows them to trap insects in their pitchers and digest them for nitrogen consumption. (Left photo credit: Aaron E. Sims / Right photo credit: Jordan Collins)
Clockwise from top left:
Ultramafic meadow systems, seen here at Picayune Lake (left) and Robbers Meadow (right), are truly special ecosystems found throughout the Klamath Mountains hosting complex plant communities. Water flows down from towering peaks above to create meandering rivulets and occasional ponds providing habitat for a bounty of serpentine-adapted wildflowers and plants. (Photo credit: Jordan Collins)
The showy raillardella (Raillardella pringlei, CRPR 1B.2), a Klamath region endemic in wet meadows and streams, lives up to its name with stunningly vibrant orange flower petals. (Photo credit: Aaron E. Sims)
An autumnal delight, the intricate flowers of Cascade grass-of-Parnassus (Parnassia cirrata var. intermedia, CRPR 2B.2) are some of the last blooms of the season. (Photo credit: Aaron E. Sims)
Above: An endemic of the Klamath region, the Scott Mountain bedstraw (Galium serpenticum ssp. scotticum, CRPR 1B.2) is a modest yet charismatic member of the flora. (Photo credit: Jordan Collins)
Above: Found in the Klamath and Cascade Mountains, the Canyon Creek stonecrop (Sedum paradisum ssp. paradisum, CRPR 1B.3) is entirely endemic to California with only 31 known occurrences. Contrary to most serpentine-loving plants in the region, this plant prefers xeric volcanic rock outcrops. (Photo credit: Jordan Collins)
