Atlas of the Biodiversity of California Atlas of the Biodiversity of California

Samples of Biodiversity: Habitats and Species From Throughout California

Mojave Desert Vegetation

By Todd Keeler-Wolf

Although considered the smallest North American desert coreopsis (Coreopsis desert, the Mojave Desert is the largest desert in bigelovii), goldfields California. It stretches over approximately one fifth of (Lasthenia californica), and the state and beyond to southwestern Utah and California poppy northwestern Arizona. It epitomizes much of what we (Eschscholzia californica). consider to be the true desert of the American These and many other southwest. Home to such desert icons as the Joshua species present Arrowweed (Pluchea sericea) alliance tree (Yucca brevifolia), Death Valley, and the lower spectacular wildflower Death Valley National Park, Mojave Region reaches of the Grand displays in good winter DFG photo: Todd Keeler-Wolf Canyon of the rainfall years. Colorado River, the Mojave Desert is rich Alluvial fans and basins comprise much of the and varied, known landscape of the Mojave Desert. Extensive alluvial fans for its stark beauty, form skirts around the mountains and fill much of the rugged topography, basins. They are typically vegetated with Creosote and high biological bush (Larrea tridentata)-burrobush (Ambrosia dumosa) diversity. There are scrub. The basins are vegetated with various salt- an estimated 1,500 tolerant species. In some cases the basins are so salty Joshua tree alliance plant taxa in the (Yucca brevifolia/Pleuraphis rigida association) that no vegetation occurs, and only remarkably flat Mojave, 210 of them Joshua Tree National Park, Mojave Region playas and blinding white salt deposits exist. DFG photo: Todd Keeler-Wolf endemic to the state. More than a dozen dune systems occur in the The Mojave is a transitional desert, lying midway Mojave. Many are occupied by unusual plant and between the hot Sonoran Desert to the south and the animal species such as the Eureka dune grass cool Great Basin Desert to the north. The pattern of (Swallenia alexandrae) and the Mojave fringe-toed lizard rain and snowfall transitions from a summer-dry (Uma scoparia). pattern reflecting California’s Mediterranean climate in the western Mojave to a pattern of winter and The higher desert mountains are topped with pinyon summer moisture in the eastern Mojave. Certain pine (Pinus monophylla) and, at the highest elevations, succulents such as Utah agave (Agave utahensis), limber pine (Pinus flexilis) and bristlecone pine (Pinus Spanish bayonet (Yucca baccata), Mojave yucca (Yucca longaeva). The mountains of the eastern Mojave contain schidigera), and grasses such as big and little galleta much limestone and marble, and hold many limestone (Pleuraphis rigida and endemic plants. P. jamesii) and side- oats gramma Because the Mojave is so close to major metropolitan (Bouteloua areas, such as the Los Angeles Basin, and includes curtipendula) are several rapidly growing cities, the once wild and common in the unpopulated Mojave is now compromised by the eastern portions with influences of civilization. In 1994, Congress enacted summer rain. Other the California Desert Protection Act, designating large species found in the areas of the Mojave Desert as wilderness. Currently, western Mojave, but the Bureau of Land Management and other not the eastern, cooperating agencies are working on management Blackbush (Coleogyne ramosissima) alliance include many winter plans in an attempt to sustain the fascinating and Death Valley National Park, Mojave Region DFG photo: Todd Keeler-Wolf annual herbs such as fragile ecosystems of the Mojave Desert.

66 Atlas of the Biodiversity of California Atlas of the Biodiversity of California

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California Department of Fish and Game 67