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A Bibliography of Floristics in Southern California
By Robert F. Thorne

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A BIBlIOGRAPHY OF FLORISTICS IN SOUTHERN CAlIFORNIA
PART 1. liTERATURE PERTINENT TO ENTIRE REGION


ROBERT F. THORNE

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden

1500 North College Avenue, Claremont, California 91711

ABSTRACT: The author has compiled an extensive bibliography containing literature pertinent to the floristics of southern California derived, from his personal library and that of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. Part 1 contains literature pertinent to the entire region of southern California. Part 2 containing literature pertinent to local, named areas of southern California, and Part 3 listing ongoing and floristic projects for vascular plants are published simultaneously in the succeeding issue. Southern California Botanists, Inc. have made the entire bibliography available as a word-searchable file for downloading on the internet, at their website address http://www.socalbot.org.

KEYWORDS: bibliography, floristics, southern California.

At the 22nd Annual Southern California Botanists Symposium at Fullerton on October 26, 1996, I lectured on southern California floristics, and presented a preliminary bibliography of the literature pertinent to the floristics of the southern part of the state. Since then, I have been adding literature that I consider important to the development of our knowledge of the floristics of southern California. Southern California is delimited much as in A flora of southern California (Munz 1974): from Point Conception, Santa Barbara County, eastward along the crests of such mountain ranges as the Santa Ynez, Mt. Pinos, Tehachapi, and Piute, thence northward to little Lake and along the eastern slopes of the Inyo and White mountains to the Deep Springs region. In some instances, local floras north or west of these limits in Santa Barbara, Kern, and Inyo counties are included as useful, as well as those of adjacent areas of Nevada and Arizona.

I first examined the floristic literature in my personal library, and that of the library of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, while reviewing the references cited in the various papers and books listed. Then, I systematically examined the library holdings of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden's largely California journals as Aliso, Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, Crossosoma, El Aliso, Environment Southwest, Environment West, Erythea, The Four Seasons, Fremontia, Leaflets of Western Botany, Madro–o, Muhlenbergia, Pacific Discovery, Pittonia, and Zoe.

The published bibliographies of Samuel Parish (1909e-1910a, 1920a) were most fruitful for early floristic literature. Unpublished theses and floristic lists, government, and gray literature are included where these were available to me, or where cited in published works. Jon KeeleyÕs Bibliography on fire ecology and general biology of Mediterranean-type ecosystems, Vol. I: California (1995) has been most helpful with theses and gray literature. Also most productive of references were J.P. Smith, Jr.Õs California Vascular Plants: literature on their identification and uses (1985), and M.S. TaylorÕs California floristics: a preliminary bibliography of unpublished checklists and reports (1982).

The present bibliography has been divided into two parts. Part 1 contains literature bearing upon the entire region. Included are: regional floras; general floras of California and southern California, and adjacent states; monographs and revisions; ecological and phytogeographical papers that may include floristic lists; some pertinent paleobotanical and ethnobotanical studies; obituaries and biographies of floristicians working in southern California, and; works on trees and shrubs, wild flowers, grasses, weeds, escaped exotics, aquatic plants, poisonous plants, and other economically or horticulturally significant plants.

Part 2 (in subsequent Volume 24 Number 2) includes the literature with a specific or implied reference to counties, mountain ranges, offshore islands, state or national parks and monuments, national forests, ecological reserves, deserts, desert dunes and basins, or other smaller areas. A list of ongoing floristic studies for the southern California region is provided as Part 3 of this bibliography.

My list has grown from about 10 pages at the time of the symposium, to more than 100 single-spaced pages herein, and the list is by no means exhaustive. I hope that botanists examining the list will inform me of critical omissions (especially their own papers), or errors. Such omissions and future floristic literature will continue to be compiled. Future supplements are envisioned. In order to increase the utility of this bibliography, Southern California Botanists, Inc. have made it available for downloading on the internet as a word-searchable file at their website address http://www.socalbot.org.