Advanced Search Help

Advanced Search for Plants is a web application for viewing information about the plants that Calflora covers. The application offers many criteria for selecting plants.
Basic Use Search Criteria Plant Names County Qualities Acceptance Climate Soil	Choose Columns Tools Download Results Illustrated Plant List Example Searches Release Notes
Basic Use
Choose some criteria, and press . A list of matching plants will appear. Open Choose Columns to select exactly which attributes you want to see for each plant. Open TOOLS / DOWNLOAD RESULTS to download the results in various formats.
Search Criteria
PLANT NAMES Scientific Name Typeahead enabled. Enter a full scientific name or just the genus. Common Name Typeahead enabled. Enter part of a common name. Family Full family name. For instance Ericaceae. Plant List Choose an existing general purpose list, or define your own special purpose list.
COUNTY County Minimum records / plant in the selected county This criterion appears once you have selected a county. Use this criterion to eliminate, for instance, plants for which there is only one record in the selected county.
QUALITIES Native Status native, non-native, rare (according to CNDDB/CNPS), Cal-IPC listed (invasive) Duration Annual, Perennial, Biennial Lifeform Grass-like, Herb, Shrub, Tree, Vine, Fern, Lichen, Moss, Liverwort, Hornwort Category angiosperm, gymnosperm, fern, lycophyte, alga, bryophyte, lichen Choose only vascular plants to eliminate lichen, alga, and bryophyte. Bloom month e.g. February, for plants likely to be blooming in February Associated with any beneficial (insect or non-insect pollinator) any pest (insect or pathogen) any bee native bees honey bees butterflies Toxicity toxic (any toxicity rating) Do not eat Severe skin irritation Any other skin irritation Low water tolerant Shade tolerant Commercially available (according to CNPLX) Serpentine Affinity Find plants which have an affinity to serpentine soil (Safford et al. 2005). California Endemic Find plants which only grow in California.
ACCEPTANCE Active YES: Plant names which are active in the Calflora Database. exclude parent records If this box is checked, a parent record will be excluded from the results if a child of that parent is present in the results. For example, Acer glabrum is the parent record of Acer glabrum var. diffusum, Acer glabrum var. douglasii, and Acer glabrum var. glabrum. These three varieties are all child records of Acer glabrum. If this box is checked and both Acer glabrum var. diffusum and Acer glabrum are in the results, then Acer glabrum (the parent record) will be excluded. Jepson eFlora YES: Plant names which are accepted in the Jepson eFlora. USDA PLANTS YES: Plant names which are accepted by USDA PLANTS. CNPS YES: Plant names which are accepted by CNDDB and the CNPS Inventory of rare plants. Cal-IPC YES: Plants considered invasive by the California Invasive Plant Council. Observations Find plants for which there are observation records in Calflora. No observations Find plants for which there are not yet any observation records in Calflora.
CLIMATE Elevation Find plants that can grow at the stated elevation, in meters. Annual Precipitation Find plants that can tolerate the stated annual precipitation, in inches. Wet Season Find plants that can tolerate the stated wet season, in months. Temperature Range ≥ Find plants that can tolerate a temperature range greater than or equal to the stated range, in degrees Fahrenheit. December Low Find plants that can tolerate the stated December low temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit. July High Find plants that can tolerate the stated July high temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit. Hardiness Zone Find plants that can grow in the chosen USDA Hardiness Zone.
SOIL Soil Depth ≤ Find plants that can tolerate a soil depth less than or equal to the stated depth, in centimeters. pH Find plants that can tolerate the stated pH. Salinity ≥ Find plants that can tolerate a salinity greater than or equal to the stated salinity, in mmhos / centimeter. CaCO3 ≥ Find plants that can tolerate a calcium carbonate equivalent percentage greater than or equal to the stated percentage.
What Grows Here search This control will appear if your search came from the What Grows Here application. It will show exactly the same plants that the What Grows Here search found. You can also add additional search criteria to further restrict the results. To see the location on a map, click on the link to go back to What Grows Here. Plant Search This control will appear if your search came from the Plant Search application. It will show exactly the same plants that the plant search found. You can also add additional search criteria to further restrict the results.
CHOOSE COLUMNS
45 columns (AKA attributes) are available. Choose the columns you want to see. Most species attributes are described in Species Table Field Descriptions. Climate and soil attributes are described in Plant Characteristics and Associations Help.
TOOLS
DOWNLOAD RESULTS Choose an output format to download your results. Illustrated Plant List View your results as an illustrated (including photos) plant list.
Example Searches
Commercially available, low water tolerant native grasses Plant names accepted by CNDDB/CNPS but not accepted by the Jepson eFlora
RELEASE NOTES v. 0.93: September 2022 The exclude parent records criterion is now dynamic. A parent record will be excluded if any of its children are present in the results. v. 0.91: May 2022 The output appears in a table with chooseable columns. v. 0.81: January 2022 v. 0.73: August 2015 It is now possible to specify Duration separately from Lifeform. Lifeform: "Grass-like" is now treated as a separate lifeform from "Herb". "Grass-like" includes plants from these three families: Poaceae (except bamboo, which is a shrub), Juncaceae, and Cyperaceae. There are three new selection criteria in the QUALITIES section: Commercially available (based on information from CNPLX), shade tolerant, and low water tolerant.
Updated September 19, 2022