Flora of Borrego Badlands

---

Introduction
Checklist

---

Flora of Borrego Badlands

This checklist is only a start at a true flora of the Borrego Badlands. It consists primarily of voucher records from many different people, augmented by two days of fieldwork in just three small areas of the Badlands in December, the worst possible time to do such surveys.

The vouchers come from a search on 16 December 2007 of the Consortium of California Herbaria, and a search of the San Diego Plant Atlas and Herbarium records.

The Consortium records were searched for San Diego County specimens that contained the word badland or font in the locality. Redundant vouchers were removed, and 73 vouchers from the Carrizo Badlands were eliminated, leaving 105 vouchers of 52 taxa. The dominant collectors in the Consortium records were Joe Barth, 26 vouchers; Jon P. Rebman, J. Gibson, A. Winner, & misc. botany vols., 47 vouchers (of 15 unique collection numbers); and Duffie Clemons, Erik Jonson, Mike Curto, 13 vouchers.

The San Diego records were retrieved for grid cells F26-F29 and G26-G29. One record of Clematis lasiantha was rejected, after an examination of the locality field revealed that the coordinates for this record were erroneous. This resulted in 150 vouchers of 80 taxa. Note that some of the San Diego vouchers also appear in the Consortium records. Only the Plant Atlas records are identified with collector. The dominant collector by far in the San Diego records was jb2 with 51 vouchers; the next largest collector had 7 vouchers.

There were 95 total unique taxa found by combining the two searches. Two of these taxa, Isocoma acradenia var. acradenia and Helianthus niveus ssp. tephrodes, did not appear in Floristic Area #16 in Duffie Clemons' 1985 Checklist of Vascular Plants of the Anza-Borrego Desert, but are present in the 2006 San Diego County Checklist.

I recorded all species seen in the parts of Inspiration Wash and Font's Point Wash near Highway S22 during targeted searches for Pilostyles thurberi and Psorothamnus emoryi on 28 December 2005, augmented by one species seen on 11 December 2007. A total of just 23 species were found in those searches.

Wayne Armstrong and I recorded all species seen on 15 December 2007 in a 2 mile loop containing Font's Point; just 24 species were found in that search.

A total of 35 taxa were found in those December searches; 11 of those 35 taxa, 31%, are not among the vouchered species.

The total number of taxa presented below is 105, 99 of which are native.

The unvouchered species do not come from any problem with my identifications, since those unvouchered species include such easy-to-recognize taxa as Opuntia ramosissima, Psorothamnus emoryi, Psorothamnus schottii, and Psorothamnus spinosus. This simply reflects the lack of botanical work for this area. I am certain that the vast majority of the area of the Borrego Badlands has not been botanically explored, and that many more taxa remain to be recorded.

That said, it is likely that this area may have the lowest native biodiversity of any part of San Diego County for the following reasons:

• there is little total elevation relief;

• the landscape is similar throughout the Badlands;

• much of the landscape is eroding rapidly, with very steep slopes, preventing plants from getting established; and

• much of the soil is highly alkaline, which is not tolerated by most species.

The size of this area is roughly eight Plant Atlas Grid Cells, a total of 72 square miles. An area of this size in most of the rest of San Diego County would have roughly 500 native species, whereas this area has roughly 100 so far recorded. Oddly, the next most depauperate area in my database is San Clemente Island, with 233 native taxa in 57 square miles.

Although the number of species may be small, any area that contains Southern California's Most Unusual Wildflower, along with rarely-seen southern California species such as Orcutt's woody-aster, Xylorhiza orcuttii and Algodones Dunes sunflower, Helianthus niveus ssp. tephrodes, is still of major botanic interest.

Checklist for Borrego Badlands

The Checklist is sorted first by category - dicots, monocots, and ferns - and then by family and scientific name. The Family and Scientific Name are from the Jepson Manual.

Taxa observed at Inspiration Wash and Font's Point Wash are given in two columns. The first column identifies whether it was observed in both washes (B) or just in one wash. The second column gives a rough estimate of the number of specimens of each taxon seen in both washes combined. The first number is the number of plants, maxing out at 99; the second number is the number of separate locations, maxing out at 9.

Taxa observed near Font's Point have the same abundance estimate for that area.

The last column is the number of vouchers for each taxon from the Consortium. If the Consortium had no vouchers, that column gives the number of vouchers from the San Diego Herbarium. I did not add the number of vouchers together since many of the San Diego Herbarium vouchers are also given at the Consortium website.

The determinations for all San Diego Plant Atlas vouchers were all marked as verified by Jon Rebman except for the single voucher of Pectis papposa var. papposa which most likely had simply not yet been processed yet. There are many vouchers of this taxon nearby.

Family	Scientific Name	(*)Common Name	Inspiration Wash (IW) Font's Point Wash (FPW)		Font's Point # Plants	# V
			IW/FPW	# Plants
Amaranthaceae	Tidestromia oblongifolia	Arizona honeysweet	Both	2/1
Asclepiadaceae	Asclepias albicans	white-stemmed milkweed				1
Asclepiadaceae	Asclepias subulata	ajamete				2
Asclepiadaceae	Sarcostemma hirtellum	trailing townula				1
Asteraceae	Ambrosia dumosa	burroweed	Both	99/9	99/9	1
Asteraceae	Baileya pauciradiata	Colorado Desert marigold				4
Asteraceae	Chaenactis artemisiifolia	meally white pincushion				1
Asteraceae	Chaenactis carphoclinia var. peirsonii	Peirson's pincushion				1
Asteraceae	Dicoria canescens	desert dicoria	Both	10/1		5
Asteraceae	Encelia farinosa	brittlebush			1/1	4
Asteraceae	Encelia frutescens	button encelia			10/1	3
Asteraceae	Geraea canescens	hairy desert-sunflower				2
Asteraceae	Helianthus niveus ssp. canescens	gray desert sunflower				4
Asteraceae	Helianthus niveus ssp. tephrodes	Algodones Dunes sunflower				2
Asteraceae	Hymenoclea salsola var. salsola	cheesebush				3
Asteraceae	Isocoma acradenia var. acradenia	alkali goldenbush	Both	10/3		1
Asteraceae	Monoptilon bellioides	desert star				2
Asteraceae	Palafoxia arida var. arida	desert needle	Both	10/1		4
Asteraceae	Pectis papposa var. papposa	chinch-weed				1
Asteraceae	Perityle emoryi	Emory's rock-daisy				1
Asteraceae	Peucephyllum schottii	desert pine				3
Asteraceae	Rafinesquia neomexicana	desert chicory				1
Asteraceae	Stephanomeria pauciflora var. pauciflora	wire-lettuce	FPW	3/1	2/1
Asteraceae	Xylorhiza orcuttii	Orcutt's woody-aster				2
Bignoniaceae	Chilopsis linearis ssp. arcuata	desert-willow	FPW	10/1		1
Boraginaceae	Cryptantha angustifolia	narrow-leaved cryptantha				1
Boraginaceae	Cryptantha barbigera	bearded cryptantha				1
Boraginaceae	Cryptantha costata	ribbed cryptantha				1
Boraginaceae	Cryptantha ganderi	Gander's cryptantha				2
Boraginaceae	Cryptantha maritima	Guadalupe cryptantha				1
Boraginaceae	Pectocarya heterocarpa	chuckwalla pectocarya				1
Boraginaceae	Pectocarya platycarpa	broad-fruited combseed				1
Boraginaceae	Tiquilia palmeri	Palmer's coldenia			50/9	2
Boraginaceae	Tiquilia plicata	plicate coldenia	Both	10/1
Brassicaceae	Brassica tournefortii	*Asian mustard	Both	99/9	50/9	1
Brassicaceae	Dithyrea californica	spectacle-pod				2
Brassicaceae	Lepidium lasiocarpum var. lasiocarpum	hairy-podded pepper-grass				1
Brassicaceae	Lyrocarpa coulteri var. palmeri	Coulter's lyrepod				3
Brassicaceae	Sisymbrium irio	*London rocket				1
Cactaceae	Opuntia echinocarpa	silver cholla	Both	5/1	10/9
Cactaceae	Opuntia ramosissima	pencil cholla			2/1
Campanulaceae	Nemacladus glanduliferus	glandular nemacladus			2/1	1
Capparaceae	Cleomella obtusifolia	Mojave cleomella				2
Caryophyllaceae	Achyronychia cooperi	frost mat				1
Chenopodiaceae	Atriplex canescens ssp. canescens	four-wing saltbush	Both	10/2		1
Chenopodiaceae	Atriplex hymenelytra	desert holly	FPW	5/1	99/9	3
Chenopodiaceae	Chenopodium murale	*nettle-leaved goosefoot				2
Chenopodiaceae	Monolepis nuttalliana	Nuttall's poverty weed				1
Euphorbiaceae	Chamaesyce polycarpa	small-seeded spurge	FPW	10/1	5/1	1
Euphorbiaceae	Croton californicus	California croton	Both	10/1	40/9	8
Euphorbiaceae	Ditaxis lanceolata	narrowleaf ditaxis				1
Euphorbiaceae	Stillingia spinulosa	annual stillingia				3
Fabaceae	Astragalus crotalariae	Salton milk-vetch				2
Fabaceae	Astragalus lentiginosus var. borreganus	Borrego milk-vetch				2
Fabaceae	Cercidium floridum ssp. floridum	blue palo verde				2
Fabaceae	Dalea mollis	silky dalea				3
Fabaceae	Lupinus arizonicus	Arizona lupine				2
Fabaceae	Prosopis glandulosa var. torreyana	honey mesquite				1
Fabaceae	Psorothamnus emoryi	Emory's indigo-bush	Both	30/3	5/1
Fabaceae	Psorothamnus schottii	indigo bush	Both	10/2	5/1
Fabaceae	Psorothamnus spinosus	smoke tree	FPW	2/2
Fouquieriaceae	Fouquieria splendens ssp. splendens	ocotillo			20/9	2
Hydrophyllaceae	Eucrypta micrantha	desert eucrypta				1
Hydrophyllaceae	Phacelia crenulata var. ambigua	heliotrope phacelia				1
Hydrophyllaceae	Phacelia crenulata var. minutiflora	little-flowered heliotrope phacelia				1
Hydrophyllaceae	Phacelia neglecta	alkali phacelia				1
Krameriaceae	Krameria erecta	Pima rhatany				1
Krameriaceae	Krameria grayi	white rhatany			50/9
Lamiaceae	Hyptis emoryi	desert lavender				1
Loasaceae	Mentzelia involucrata	bracted blazing star				1
Loasaceae	Petalonyx thurberi ssp. thurberi	Thurber's sandpaper-plant	FPW	10/1
Malvaceae	Eremalche rotundifolia	desert five-spot				1
Nyctaginaceae	Abronia villosa var. villosa	hairy sand-verbena				9
Nyctaginaceae	Allionia incarnata	trailing four o'clock				1
Nyctaginaceae	Boerhavia wrightii	Wright's spiderling				1
Nyctaginaceae	Mirabilis bigelovii var. bigelovii	Bigelow's desert four-o'clock				1
Onagraceae	Camissonia boothii ssp. condensata	Booth's desert primrose			20/9	2
Onagraceae	Camissonia californica	California suncup				2
Onagraceae	Camissonia cardiophylla	heartleaf sun-cup				1
Onagraceae	Camissonia claviformis ssp. peirsonii	brown-eyed primrose				2
Onagraceae	Oenothera deltoides ssp. deltoides	dune primrose	IW	1/1		1
Papaveraceae	Eschscholzia parishii	Parish's poppy				1
Plantaginaceae	Plantago ovata	desert plantain	Both	5/1		1
Polemoniaceae	Gilia latifolia	broad-leaf gilia				1
Polemoniaceae	Gilia stellata	star gilia				1
Polemoniaceae	Langloisia setosissima ssp. setosissima	bristly langloisia				1
Polygonaceae	Chorizanthe brevicornu var. brevicornu	brittle spineflower				1
Polygonaceae	Chorizanthe corrugata	wrinkled spineflower				1
Polygonaceae	Chorizanthe rigida	devil's spineflower			20/9	1
Polygonaceae	Eriogonum deflexum var. deflexum	flat-topped buckwheat			20/9	1
Polygonaceae	Eriogonum inflatum	desert trumpet			99/9	1
Portulacaceae	Calandrinia ambigua	desert red maids				1
Rafflesiaceae	Pilostyles thurberi	Thurber's pilostyles	Both	10/3	3/1	1
Resedaceae	Oligomeris linifolia	narrowleaf oligomeris				1
Solanaceae	Nicotiana obtusifolia	desert tobacco				2
Solanaceae	Physalis crassifolia	thick-leaved ground cherry				1
Zygophyllaceae	Larrea tridentata	creosote bush	Both	50/9	99/9	1
Zygophyllaceae	Tribulus terrestris	*puncture-vine				1
Liliaceae	Hesperocallis undulata	desert lily				4
Poaceae	Achnatherum hymenoides	Indian ricegrass				4
Poaceae	Bromus madritensis ssp. rubens	*red brome				1
Poaceae	Erioneuron pulchellum	fluff grass			50/9
Poaceae	Pleuraphis rigida	big galleta	Both	5/3	99/9	1
Poaceae	Schismus barbatus	*Mediterranean schismus				1
Pteridaceae	Cheilanthes parryi	woolly lipfern				1

Go to:

• Plants of Southern California: Regional Floras