Meeting:

February 8, 2007

Guest Presenter:

Allan Schoenherr

Topic:

Desert Wildflowers and their Strategies

Allan Schoenherr talked about “strategies” for desert wildflowers: the adaptations and mechanisms that enable them to survive in the desert. For example, in coarse soils plants are either succulent or drought deciduous. In contrast, long-lived perennials such as Creosote Bush simply have an incredible ability to tolerate desiccation. Short-lived plants such as ephemerals or annuals have to receive enough precipitation early in the winter so that they can go through a complete life cycle from germination to seed production in one season. Other plants such as California Fan Palm simply avoids the true desert by living only where there is permanent water. Allan showed slides of these different plants and their habitats, and also talked of pollinators and how plants attract them.

Dr. Allan Schoenherr is Professor of Ecology at Fullerton College. His academic interests are in ecology, biogeography, and endangered species. A recognized authority on California, he is the author of two major books on the state. A Natural History of California (University of California Press, 1992) is a 772-page compendium on the plants, animals, and geology of California. His more recent publication, Natural History of The Islands Of California (University of California Press, 1999), is a 491-page discussion of all the islands of California including those in San Francisco Bay. An accomplished nature photographer, he has provided the photographs to illustrate his books and he has received two awards for his images of California Gray Whales.

Book of the Month

A Natural History of California

In this comprehensive and abundantly illustrated book, Allan Schoenherr describes a state with a greater range of landforms, a greater variety of habitats, and more kinds of plants and animals than any area of equivalent size in all of North America. A Natural History of California will familiarize the reader with the climate, rocks, soil, plants and animals in each distinctive region of the state.

772 pages
Published December 1992

Cover price: $34.95.