Authors

• Nina M. House, California Botanic Garden, ClaremontFollow

A Vascular Flora of the Manter and Salmon Creek Watersheds, Tulare County, California

DOI

10.5642/aliso.JPLE8038

First Page

15

Last Page

58

Abstract

The Manter and Salmon Creek watersheds of California’s southern Sierra Nevada were studied to document their vascular plant diversity. The study area encompasses 132 km² (51 mi²) of Tulare County on the Kern Plateau. Several aspects of this region make it worthy of botanical study, including the presence of numerous southern Sierran endemic (e.g., Pinus balfouriana subsp. austrina, Eriogonum polypodum) and rare taxa (e.g., Eriogonum breedlovei var. shevockii, Carlquistia muirii). In addition, the Domeland Wilderness, which comprises 65 km² (25 mi²) or approximately 50% of the study area, has had little formal documentation of plant diversity. Documenting this diversity in the present time is vital because of several impacts to the flora from land use and climate change. Cattle grazing, off-highway vehicle use, logging, long-term drought and the impacts from a changing fire regime were all documented in the area. As a part of this study, I completed a total of 24 field trips, totaling 86 field days, that resulted in the collection of 1411 plant specimens. A total of 582 minimum-rank taxa were documented in the study area, representing 78 families and 271 genera. Of the minimum-rank taxa, 27 have conservation status and 33 are non-native. Angelica callii, a California endemic with a California Rare Plant Ranking of 4.3, was newly documented in the study area, representing an eastward range extension of 19 km (12 mi). The results include a complete description of vegetation and habitats, as well as an annotated checklist with descriptions of local abundance, habitat types and a voucher citation for each taxon documented.

Recommended Citation

House, Nina M. (2026) "A Vascular Flora of the Manter and Salmon Creek Watersheds, Tulare County, California," Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany: Vol. 44: Iss. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso/vol44/iss1/3

Rights Information

© 2026 Nina House

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.