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Sierra Nevada Guidebook

A new guidebook to the wildflowers and flowering shrubs of the Sierra Nevada in California, has been published by Heyday, of Berkeley, CA. The book has photos and descriptions of about 1,000 taxa. Text is by Joanna Clines, Forest Botanist for Sierra National Forest, with photos mostly by Stephen Sharnoff. Photos taken for this project are not currently being offered for other uses. The Heyday catalogue announcement is at: https://www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/flowering-plants-of-the-sierra-nevada/

This page gives access to 16 index pages with links to photos of named plants (some identified only to genus.) There are about 5,800 photos so far, of over 2,250 species (including subspecies and varieties). The plants are from all over the world. Most of the ones from North America and southern France were photographed in the wild; the rest are from botanical gardens. There is some overlap with the plants in the Horticultural Plants section, but if I have a scientific name for the plant I included it here, on the assumption that it probably grows wild somewhere. There are separate sections for trees, grasses and ferns, accessed through Nature Misc but they are also included here in Wild Plants.

Plants from the Sierra Nevada were mostly identified by trained botanists from voucher specimens, so the names are likely to be accurate. Names from botanical gardens are also likely to be mostly solid. Names of plants from southern France, and plants from elsewhere in North America, were determined by myself from guidebooks, with occasional help from experts, and almost certainly contain some errors. For the sake of simplicity I have not italicized the scientific names on the website.

Many plants have changed their scientific name in the last few years. A partial list of these changes for California plants on this website can be found at Recent Name Changes

I am adding photos and updating information on an ongoing basis. If you have corrections to suggest, or names for any of the mystery plants, I'd appreciate hearing from you. You can email me, Stephen Sharnoff, at stevesharnoff@gmail.com


Wild Plants Index 1: Abies-Aquilegia allium thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 2: Arachniodes-Bulbinella aquilegia thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 3: Calmintha-Cercocarpus
calceolarea tomentosa thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 4: Chaenactis-Cytisus colutea arborescens thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 5: Dactylis-Dudleya dryopteris arguta thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 6: Echinacea-Fumaria
erica glandulosa thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 7: Galanthus-Justicia hippeastrum thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 8: Kalanchoe-Lythrum leptosyne thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 9: Macrozamia-Nuphar nemophila thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 10: Odontonema-Phytolacca pelargonium thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 11: Picea-Quercus prosartes thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 12: Rafinesquia-Ruscus ribes uva crispa thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 13: Sabulina-Sericocarpus salvia thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants Index 14: Sibbaldia-Syringia silene thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants 15: Tagetes-Typha teucrium bicolor thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants 16: Umbellularia-Zinnia viola arvensis thumbnail graphic
Wild Plants 17: mysteries and mixtures
mixed flowers thumbnail graphic


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