VIDEO

What Grows Here? is a Calflora web application which shows what plants have been observed growing within a particular location in California.

Basic Use Sources of Data Plant Filter Results Plant Names Period Area Points and Palettes Location Quality

Tools Map Layers Example Searches What Grows Here on Mobile Frequently Asked Questions Generating a Regional Flora County Level Floras Release Notes

There is also a Place Name Search application to help find a particular location.
If you have any questions about using this application, please contact Calflora support.

Move to the part of the state you are interested in, zoom in a few times, and press . A list of plants found in the area shown on the map will appear, divided up by lifeform. To see all of the annual herbs, press
To see exactly where a particular plant was observed, press the record count for that plant, choose an icon and press display points.

Open Criteria to constrain which plants are returned, and to control the output.

This application utilizes all sources of data available to Calflora including

• observation records contributed directly to Calflora by Calflora users;
• checklists and surveys contributed directly to Calflora by various institutions and individuals;
• iNaturalist records contributed to Calflora by iNaturalist users, or assimilated automatically from the iNaturalist API; and
• specimen records assimilated from the Consortium of California Herbaria (CCH).

Scientific Name
Typeahead enabled. Enter a full scientific name or just the genus.

Family
Full family name, case insensitive. For instance ERICACEAE.

Plant List
Choose an existing general purpose list, or define your own special purpose list.

Status
native, non-native, rare (according to CNPS), invasive (according to Cal-IPC)

Duration
Annual, Perennial, Biennial

Lifeform
Grasslike, Herb, Shrub, Tree, Vine, Fern, Lichen, Moss, Liverwort, Hornwort

Bloom month
e.g. February, for plants likely to be blooming in February

Low water tolerant

Shade tolerant

Commercially available (according to CNPLX)

Format
How the results are presented.

	simple	One plant on each line. Click on the scientific name to see a detail panel with photos and a link to the Calflora Taxon Report for this plant.
	photo	An expanded, illustrated plant list format, with plant attributes, three photos and the bloom time icon. Click on the scientific name to see the Calflora Taxon Report for this plant.
	text	The results in tab delimited format, suitable for copying into a spreadsheet. (To get this data into Excell, copy it from the What Grows Here? page, and then use 'Paste / Special' in Excell.)

Order by
How the results are sorted -- Scientific Name or Record count. If you sort by Record count, plants with the most occurrences are listed first.

Group by Lifeform
When this is checked, the results are separated into eight lists, one for each lifeform, so that you can choose which lifeforms you want to see. Press the button in front of the name of a lifeform to see all of the plants.

Grasslike Annual Herb Perennial Herb Shrub Tree Vine Fern Other

Location Quality
of records considered in the search, relative to the complete set of records in Calflora.

	any	includes checklists for huge areas.
	MEDIUM	includes checklists for small areas.
	HIGH	includes only precise points.

Minimum records / plant
The number of records of each plant that must be found for the plant to be included in search results. Asking for a count of greater than one is a technique for eliminating singleton or unconfirmed observations.

Scientific Name
Enter a genus name to limit the results to plants in a certain genus.

Family
Enter a family name to limit the results to plants in a certain family.

Plant List
Choose one of your lists to limit the results to plants on that list.

Start Date
Limit results to plants observed after this date.
The default start date is January 1, 1920.

End Date
Limit results to plants observed before this date.

in map area
If checked, the search is limited to the area shown on the map.

in selected background
This control appears when there is a background layer selected, such as Watershed or Protected Area (CPAD). If checked, the search is limited to the selected background polygon.

DRAW A POLYGON
Press this to open a panel where you can enter or edit a polygon on the map. Press , then click on the map to enter three or more vertices.

in polygon
This control appears if there is a polygon defined, either because you just drew a polygon, restored a previously saved polygon, or if a polygon came into the application from URL parameters. If checked, the search is limited to the area of the polygon.

SAVED SEARCH POLYGONS
(This option is only available if you are signed in to Calflora.)
Press this to open a panel where you can save the polygon you just drew by name, or restore a polygon you saved in a previous session.

To save a new polygon, enter a name, and press .

To see and edit all of the polygons you have saved, use the Shape Editor application.

ICON PALETTE
To view the locations of a plant in the result list on the map, you have a choice of various colored icons. The default icon is a blue point:
A palette is a set of plant - icon assignments. As you choose icons to display various plants, you are implicitly making a custom palette. Custom palettes can be saved and used again. You can also choose one of three predefined palletes:

NATIVE	A convenience palette for displaying observations differentiated by nativity. Press display next to native, and the application will read points for all native plants in the result list, and show them on the map using a blue point icon. Press display next to non-native, and the application will show points of non-native plants using a red point icon.
STATUS	A convenience palette for displaying observations differentiated by status: rare, native, non-native or invasive.
LIFEFORM	A convenience palette for displaying observations differentiated by lifeform.
custom	For any plant shown in the results, press the record count, select a colored icon to use for that plant and press display points. The application will read points for that plant in the selected area and show them on the map using the selected icon. The application keeps a list of all of the plant - icon assignments you make in this way. To see this list, press Plants with Icons: APPLY: By going through the process of assigning icons to plants, you are defining a custom palette, and can use it again. If you move to a different area on the map and press APPLY, the points for all plants with icons will be read for the new area and displayed on the map. Use the Palette Again: To save the current palette (your list of plant - icon assignments), press My Palettes. Enter a name into the Save the current palette as: text box, and press . During a subsequent session with this application, you can select it from the Use a previously saved palette drop down. Then press , and points for all the plants in the palette will be read and displayed on the map. When you save a palette in this way, you own it and are the only one who can change it. However, other people can use it if you give it to them in a URL as described above. See the EXAMPLES below.

INDICATIONS of LOCATION QUALITY
For records with a high location quality, the point on the the map indicates a specific location -- if the plant is still alive, you may be able to find it by going to that location. For other records, the point indicates just the general area in which the plant was found, and not a specific location.

If a record has a medium or low location quality, it is displayed on the map with a white halo around it. In the graphic, the blue point on left has a high location quality, and the point on the right has a medium location quality.


If a record is obscured, then the point appears at the center of the quarter quad in which the plant was found. The quarter quad itself is displayed as a blue rectangle.

Find a Location in California:
Enter the name of a place in California you are interested in. You will see a list of all matching place names statewide, along with the county for each one. When you choose one of the matching place names, the map will jump there and open an InfoWindow over the exact location.

LOCATION PROFILE
Check this box to see elevation, climate and soil factors of the current map cursor location .

Illustrated Plant List   (printable)
This application itself does not print very nicely -- the header and the map are fixed, which means that they repeat on each printed page.

Once you have some interesting results showing, press this link to go to a printable Illustrated Plant List of the plants in your results.

Advanced Search   (species attributes)
Once you have some interesting results showing, press this link to go to the Advanced Search application, where you can view and download any of 45 attributes of the plants in your results.

Observation Search at this location .
Once you have search results, press this link to run an equivalent search in the Observation Search application. Where What Grows Here? can show a summary of plants in an area, Observation Search can show all observation records in the same area. This works for a selected background area (eg. a park), or for a user defined search polygon.

Planting Guide at this location .
Once you have search results, press this link to see commercially available native plants compatible with the elevation, climate and soil factors of the current map cursor location

Place Names at this location .
Search for place names (mountains, creeks, historical towns, etc) near the current map cursor location.

When you choose a background layer such as Watersheds, the application will show the name of the watershed where the map cursor is located, under the map. Click on the various watersheds to see their names.

If the Precipitation background layer is showing, click on the map to see average annual precipitation at that point .

Click on Streams to see rivers and creeks on the map. If you are zoomed way out, you will only see the longest rivers. As you zoom in, the shorter streams appear.

When you check Stream names, a stream icon will appear at the end of each creek or river. When you click on the icon, you see the name of the creek or river, and the name of the stream that the creek or river flows into.

For instance, in Monterey County, the icon for the creek called Arroyo Seco appears at the end of the Arroyo Seco, where it flows into the Salinas River. When you click on the icon an info window pops up describing the junction: The course of the stream itself -- the Arroyo Seco -- is highlighted in blue. The course of the downstream creek or river -- the Salinas River -- is highlighted in green.

Uncheck Stream names to clear the map of all stream icons and all stream course highlighting.

If you move to a different location on the map or change zoom level, and would like to see stream name icons at the new location, press the refresh button .

When you use What Grows Here? on a mobile device with a narrow screen, all of the controls at the top of the page collapse to the left. The map appears on top of the other controls. Use the map to choose your location and zoom level, and then touch MAP to get it out of the way so that you can see the plants.

Because of the screen width, only one photo per plant is shown.

If you want to see the plants in one long list (instead of grouped by lifeform), open RESULTS and uncheck Group by Lifeform.

Viewing your search in the field:

Once you have done a search, and set up the screen just the way you want it (eg. with the map not showing, and the plants appearing in one long list), press again so that your choices wil be included in the URL. Now you need to arrange for your search to be easily findable later when you are in the field.

Using Chrome on an Android device, there are three ways to save your search. Touch the Chrome options menu icon in the upper right.

1. Touch the star to bookmark the current URL.
2. Or, touch Share... and then Gmail to email the URL to yourself.
3. Or, touch Add to Home screen and then give your search a name, such as Plants in Van Damme SP. A new icon will appear on your home screen. When you touch the icon, you will go right back to your search in Chrome.

Chrome will cache the plant photos. At some point when you have good connectivity, scroll through all the photos to give the browser a chance to cache them -- then they will be available when you go back to this search later.

Commercially available, low water tolerant native grasses in the Paso Robles area. A plant is included in the results only if there are at least two records of the plant in the search area. (To find commercially available low water native grasses appropriate for your area, start with this search, and move the location.)

All plants in Andrew Molera State Park, Monterey County. A plant is included in the results only if there are at least two records of the plant in the search area.

Native plants in the McKay Cove Waterfall Watershed (immediately south of Big Sur, including Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and Slate Hot Springs). This search looks for records with MEDIUM or better location quality, and includes plants in the results if there are at least three records in the search area. The format is set to photo, so that the results appear as an illustrated plant list.

Arctostaphylos species in an arbitrary area of the northern Sierra foothills east of Chico. The search area is a user defined polygon.

Common Oaks of Calfornia, starting in an arbitrary area of the northern Sierra foothills east of Chico. This example illustrates the use of a custom palette (Common Oaks) as a search technique. If you start with this view, then move to a different location and press , the application will load points in the new location for the twelve species of oak included in this custom palette.

Seven widespread Southern California invasive plants, starting in the Santa Monica Mountains. This example shows the use of a custom palette to show the proximity of these plants to one another.

Native Asclepias species (milkweeds), starting near Redding.

1. Click on LAYERS (above the map on the right) to see the menu of background layers.

2. Inside the LAYERS menu, click on Region to see all of the region background layers. Click on County to select the county background layer. When County is selected, county boundaries appear on the map, and when you click on the map, the name of the county appears below the map. (Note that this only works inside of California.)

3. Select your county by clicking on the map. The name of your county will appear below the map. For instance, if you clicked on the town of Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo County will appear below the map.

4. Open AREA and check in selected background . This will restrict the search to plants found within the selected county.

5. Open RESULTS and set   Minimum records / plant   to   3 records. This will eliminate any plants for which there are fewer than 3 observations in the county.

6. Press SEARCH. The total number of plants found appears below, as well as the number of plants in each lifeform.

You can also add additional criteria to reduce the number of plants found. For instance, to find only native plants, open PLANT FILTER and set Status to native.

7. To see the results as an Illustrated Plant List, open TOOLS and click Illustrated Plant List (printable). On the Illustrated Plant List page, you may choose to group the plants by family, show the bloom period for each plant, or show three photos for each plant.

8. What Grows Here? searches can be shared. For instance, here is a list of native plants observed in San Francisco County created by following the steps above:

Native Plants in San Francisco County.

(Hint: to get a similar flora for a different county, open the San Francisco search above, click on the map in a different county, and press SEARCH.)