The Fabulous Flora of California’s Desert Region
January 19, 2022
7:00 – 8:00 PM (Via Zoom)
Russell Huddleston
Ecologist - Wetlands Section at US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
View the presentation here
California’s Desert Region lies in the southeastern part of the state, bounded to the west by the California Floristic Province the Great Basin to the north. California deserts encompasses around 48,000 square miles, nearly the size of the State of New York. The Mojave Desert is the largest desert in North America with about 80 percent occurring in California, with parts extending east into Arizona and Nevada. The Sonoran Desert is much more extensive in Arizona and Mexico with only the Lower Colorado River Valley Subdivision extending into California. The desert region is rich in floristic diversity with over 2,600 species of plants in the Mojave and over 5,000 plants throughout the entire Sonoran. This talk will briefly discuss the ecology and natural history of the California Deserts, explore the adaptations of plants not only growing, but thriving in these environments, and take a virtual floristic tour of some of the beautiful desert wildflowers found in this region.
Bio: Russell Huddleston is a professional botanist who has been working throughout California for over 20 years. For most of his career he worked as a consulting biologist where many of his projects brought him down to the drier regions of the state where he became enamored with the desert flora of the state. He resides in Oakland and currently serves of the board for Northern California Botanists.
