Martin D. Purdy, California Botanic Garden, ClaremontFollow

A Flora of Coyote Ridge and Flat, Inyo County, California

DOI

10.5642/aliso.PYHO9622

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Abstract

California’s Sierra Nevada contains a disproportionate share of the state’s plant diversity and is one of the most floristically diverse regions of its size in the United States. The high Sierra Nevada, in particular, has been identified as an important center of species richness and endemism within the State. Anthropogenic climate warming is expected to disproportionately affect mountain ecosystems, and models have predicted habitat contraction and extirpation for many alpine plant taxa. A specimen-based inventory of the vascular plants and bryophytes of Coyote Ridge and Flat was conducted to establish baseline data for one such sensitive alpine and subalpine area. Located in the northwest corner of Inyo County, the study site encompasses 127 km² (49 mi²) and ranges from 2601 to 4122 m (8535–13,525 ft) in elevation. Coyote Ridge and Flat mark a topographically and geologically unique region of the Sierra Nevada’s eastern slope above the northern Owens Valley and has long been known to botanists for harboring populations of rare and disjunct plant taxa. Fieldwork and herbarium searches conducted between July 2019 and August 2022 documented a total of 542 minimum-rank taxa, 275 of which were not previously known to the area. New collections and examination of historical specimens have yielded occurrences of 13 rare plants new for the area. These include new records for the Sierra Nevada and Inyo County, and one new record for the State of California. Background information for the area, results of this inventory and an annotated checklist of the flora are presented here.

Recommended Citation

Purdy, Martin D. (2025) "A Flora of Coyote Ridge and Flat, Inyo County, California," Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany: Vol. 43: Iss. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso/vol43/iss1/2