Customer Reviews

Flora of the Santa Ana River and Environs With References to World Botany

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This is, by far, the best book I've ever seen on botany with incredible pictures, phenominal keys, and a useful description of the plants that puts them in a perspective that helps the reader to understand how these plants fit into the rest of the planet's botany.

The authors' understanding of botany is exceptional.

The title of the book might limit its audience but botanical professionals and novices alike will find this book extremely useful and engaging.

Oscar Clarke's book on the Santa Ana River has a very special meaning for Southern California. It illustrates the surprising and beautiful results from imported water. The most dramatic demonstration is in the Santa Ana River. Superficially the Santa Ana doesn't appear to be such a great river. But that is because most of the flow is underground. And much of that water was imported. Users along the course pass the used water to the soil beneath them, and it joins the flow.

The result is a springtime display (and year-round too) of water-loving plants, and drier species on the slopes above. The magic of imported water brings back the floristic beauty that we might have supposed was lost with the "development" of Southern California. Of course we also get species that were considered alien, but many of them are beautiful too.

Oscar's easy and natural approach to evolution-based systematics is described on Page 5. He tells how to remember the series: kingdom, phylum, order, family, genus, species. For the huge Sunflower family, this series is not sufficient to bring order, and the family is divided into 14 tribes (as listed on Page 355) before dividing further into genus and species.

Oscar's description of tribes in the Sunflower family appears to be a traditional listing, similar to that in Munz, P.A. "A Manual of Southern California Botany" (1935), referenced by Oscar. But there has been some moving of particular genera to different tribes, some merging of tribes, some name updates, and the addition of two tribes from Africa, including that of the Freeway Daisy.

Getting technical for a moment, I can remark that the division into tribes is imperfect, with overlaps and uncertainties due to the contrary effects of speciation and evolutionary convergence. More recent floras such as the encyclopedic and authoritative 1993 Jepson Manual attempt to improve upon the tribes with newly constructed "groups", but I think the imperfection remains.

The book is an easy introduction to flower hunting for beginners. But those who have lists of flowers from past jaunts, and would like to recall pleasant memories, can also use it. There can be confidence that nearly every species along the Santa Ana River is included.

It's beautiful and well researched. The photos are fantastic. Personally, I prefer a dichotomous key, but this will be very helpful for academic and lay users both, equally. This book will likely be useful to anyone interested in plants in southern California, because it covers most of the species that are typical of the entire region. The Santa Ana runs through most all of the primary biozones of the region, so the book ends up covering most all of the typical plants of the area.

It's just a little too big for the pocket, but it's small enough for the daypack. Owning most all of the lay and academic texts on plants of the region, I think this is one of the most useful, appealing, and accessible. It is easy to use without sacrificing or fudging the botanical information. I highly recommend it for most users interested in Western Riverside and Orange counties, as well as Los Angeles and western San Diego county. It will be less useful for desert region identification.

If you are are looking for a portable dichotomous key, try the flora of San Diego county. Even if you are outside San Diego county, it will only be missing a few species. Then again, if you are a botanist seeking a technical manual, you probably know this already.

If you are just interested in plants, this one is excellent, and it has enough technical information in it that it will still be useful as your knowledge grows.

A most useful book for all of S. California. One of my favorite books. I use it a lot for detailed info and good pictures.