The Chaparral, The Tangled Assortment of low-growing, drought-resistant native shrubs covering most of San Diego County’s lower mountain slopes, has managed to remain somewhat green this summer.

If local gardeners rightly consider the Bay Area a slice of Eden, then the manzanita deserves special attention: its name is Spanish for "little apple." Knowledge and sin may not necessarily derive ...

Toyon, or “Christmas-berry,” one of the more distinctive shrubs of Southern California’s native chaparral plant community, is ...

Quantitative phenology and pre-dawn xylem pressure potentials (XPP) of an evergreen shrub, Ceanothus megacarpus, and a deciduous shrub, Salvia mellifera, were compared on pairs of plants in shared ...

The hills above Los Angeles are covered with dense, dark green brush, a unique plant community known as chaparral. In the wake of the extreme wildfires that destroyed more than 12,000 homes and ...

Each autumn in Southern California, a hot wind pushes out of the desert and over the mountains, racing down canyons before spreading out into the urban wilderness that surrounds the cities of Los ...

Kumeyaay natives lived in the San Diego region long before Juan Cabrillo sailed his Spanish galleon into San Diego Bay. By 1542, the Kumeyaay were settled throughout San Diego County, as well as ...

Three significant fires in 16 months. If anything, the Gap, the Zaca, and the Tea Fires have retaught us a lesson already learned: Wildfire is a reality for Santa Barbara. The serious injuries and ...

Many common herbal plants, when grown in the garden, are drought tolerant. They are native to Mediterranean countries where summers are dry like our own. The biome or ecosystem of Mediterranean ...