California Floristic Province

Mediterranean Climates

flora-file:

The California Floristic Province (byflora-file)

Being a California native myself I have a fascination with California’s native flora.  There are about 6300 native taxa of plants found in California, and a third are found nowhere else but the limited area that comprises the California floristic province. It has the highest diversity of plant species in North America, north of tropical Mexico.

The plants of California are specially adapted for the Mediterranean climate here. Mediterranean climates have long, dry summers and cool, moist winters. In Mediterranean climates the majority of the precipitation occurs during the moist winter months, and summer months receive almost no rainfall, which often means 6-8 months of no rains. For this reason many plants here have switched around the normal seasonal growing patterns.  Spring is triggered by the autumn rains, and during the dry summer months plants enter their dormancy. 

Mediterranean climate zones comprise only 3% of the Earth’s landmass, but account for 10% of the known plant species. In addition to California, Mediterranean climates are found in only four other areas of the world: the Mediterranean Basin, the Cape region of South Africa, central Chile, and southwestern Australia. Many of the plants used in ornamental gardens and propagated by the nursery industry have ancestral orgins in the Mediterranean climes of the world. This climate has truly created an amazing diversity of flora.

(California Floristic Province Map and statistics from California Native Plants for the Garden, Bornstein, Fross, & O’Brien, Cochuma Press, 2005.)

(Mediterranean Climate Map via wikipedia.)

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masterpiecedaily:

Claude Monet

Waterlilies

1903

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Make me an offer?

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odditiesoflife:

China’s Incredible Colored Rice Terraces

Incredible panoramic views of colored rice terraces in the mountainous Yuanyang region in China, one of the world’s largest rice-producing areas. The colors of the mirrored landscape are constantly changing due to the time of day and seasonal changes. These terraces were built by hand by the Hani people about 1,300 years ago.

The terraces are dug into the steep slopes of the mountains between 1,000 and 2,000 meters above sea level. Rice is planted once a year in April and harvested in September, when the terraces are flooded to prepare them for the next crop. When the terraces are flooded, the water reflects stunning colors from the sunlight.

Despite the breathtaking beauty of its landscape, the Yuanyang region remains untouched by mass tourism. Its remote, mountainous location, bad roads and lack of a nearby airport deter all but the most determined tourists and photographers.

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dendroica:

OUTDOOR SCENES – Portrait of an Eastern Screech Owl – Masters of disguise. The Eastern Screech Owl is seen here doing what they do best. You better have a sharp eye to spot these little birds of prey. Okeefenokee Swamp, Georgia, USA. (Photo and caption by Graham McGeorge/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest) (via National Geographic Traveler Magazine: 2013 Photo Contest – The Big Picture – Boston.com)

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colchrishadfield:

One straight human line drawn onto incredibly rough terrain.

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sully-s:

*SPOILERS!* IF YOU HAVE NOT READ LORD HORNBLOWER DO NOT CLICK

If you don’t care then by all means click away.

You guys don’t even know how many pictures I have drawn base off this one event. And this is not how it happens in the book.  Just how I wanted it too….well if I had to choose personally I rather it not happen at all. 

Anyways I struggled with the picutre for a long time I started with it in February and just finshed today if you want to see the WIP click here

Whoa. That is some over-the-top AU fanart.

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I really, really don’t know what to think of this.:

shickalenia:

reagan-was-a-horrible-president:

timekiller-s:

Upworthy: Fox News spends 6 minutes describing why Mister Rogers was an “evil, evil man.”

No. Really. There’s video at the link.

How low do you have to be to hate on Mr. Rogers?! Fox “News”.

And yet he would still love them and treat them with respect if he were still here.

Says a lot, really.

Haha. The interesting thing for me: I watched the first few minutes of that (until they were done showing the Mr. Rogers clips), and despite their best efforts to be provocatively trollish, the only thing I took away was to get misty-eyed at what a wonderful man he was, with the yapping voices in the background not even a distraction.

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boctopus:

jenniferandbradley:

That’s the most perfect thing I’ve seen all week. 

And his eyes in the 4th GIF.

I’ve been waiting for this like 123456789 years

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“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit – all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

– Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices (via volumexii)

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worldpaintings:

John Singer Sargent

Marionettes, 1903, oil on board, 55.88 x 72.39 cm, private collection.

Sotheby’s annual spring auction of American Art in New York will feature today an important painting by John Singer Sargent, which remained in the artist’s collection for more than 20 years before descending through his family to the present owner.

Marionettes (estimate $5-7 million) is a rare and dynamic example of the artist’s work outside of society portraiture, depicting a group of men from the large Italian American community of Philadelphia at the turn of the 20th century performing Sicilian puppet theater.

Stay tuned on twitter for the results of the sale!

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The biggest oversight in Obama’€™s climate plan is a doozy:

It’s coal! Obama plans to regulate carbon emissions from coal plants, but he’s doing nothing to stop coal leasing on public lands or coal exports through the Northwest to China.

For the last few years David Roberts has been one of my favorite sources on climate change policy. In an information landscape that often is polluted by spin (and not only on one side), I find his commentary clear-eyed and worth paying attention to.

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thegeek531:

This is a serious thing. Im curious how many people over the course of year(s) kept the same tumblr handle. A ton of the people I follow have changed their over time.

As far as I know Im one of the few who havent. Few being relative as there are millions of tumblr users. But yeah.

Social experiment.

If you HAVE changed your URL Click Here

I had a different one I created, but didn’t actually use to post anything. Later I got this one, and began posting with it, and haven’t switched since (leading to some gnashing of teeth and wailing on the part of the inexplicably covetous, but that’s another story).

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Kotonoha no Niwa + Rain

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aquariumdream:

Valley of the Storm

100*60*45 cm Tank

Plants:

• Moss varieties

Fish:

• Trigonostigma heteromorpha (Rasbora)

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bookishandnerdy:

My Eleanor & Park Review/Booktalk

The review has spoilers, so be aware of that, but otherwise I liked her explanation of what was compelling about E&P, especially the part about having to read it to appreciate how well Rainbow Rowell’s writing conveyed that sense of first love.

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f-l-e-u-r-d-e-l-y-s:

Quirky miniature porcelain sculptures made by Ukranian artists  website Anya Stasenko and Slava Leontyev

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_{It’s that time of the year again!!! #season4 (x)}

And then she stabs you.

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Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

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