Product Description

The characteristic look of California Chaparral--a soft bluish-green blanket of vegetation gently covering the hills--is known to millions who have seen it as the backdrop in movies and television productions. This complex ecological community of plants and animals is not just a feature of the hills around Hollywood, but is a quintessential part of the entire California landscape. It is a highly resilient community adapted to life with recurring fires and droughts. Written for a wide audience, this concise, engaging, and beautifully illustrated book describes an ancient and exquisitely balanced environment home to wondrous organisms: Fire Beetles that mate only on burning branches, lizards that shoot blood from their eyes when threatened, Kangaroo Rats that never drink water, and seeds that germinate only after a fire, even if that means waiting in the soil for a 100 years or more. Useful both as a field guide and an introductory overview of the ecology of chaparral, it also provides a better understanding of how we might live in harmony, safety, and appreciation of this unique ecological community.

* Identifies chaparral's common plants, animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects
* Features 79 color illustrations, 56 black-and-white photographs, and 3 maps
* Examines the role of humans and fire in chaparral, covering the placement and design of homes, landscaping, and public policy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #495082 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

About the Author
Ronald D. Quinn is Professor of Biological Sciences at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He has written widely on effects of chaparral wildfires Sterling C. Keeley is Professor of Botany at the University of Hawaii and editor of The California Chaparral: Paradigms Re-examined (1989).

Customer Reviews

great field book for Southern California
This book has it all, color photos, great descriptions of California wild environments and a bit of history of some California wilderness areasas well. This was exactly what I was looking for in a field guide for the Southern California area!

What An Utterly Fascinating Read


Recently bought this for research and found it enormously fascinating.

We live in chaparral country [California], but I never realized how powerfully it shapes our lives.

The life cycle of chaparral depends upon fire so "where there is chaparral there will eventually be fire". An incredible variety of animal and plant life waxes and wanes with the changing life cycle of the chaparral, from fire, many years and phases of re-growth, and eventually again fire.

This results from the Pacific High off California's coast that blocks storms in summer and gives us our Mediterranian climate. Other areas of Mediterranian climate are of course the Med itself, part of Chili's coast, South Africa, and part of Australia. In all these regions different plant species have by the phenomenon of convergence (adaptation) come to resemble chaparral

Color photos abound. Space views of fires, beautiful but doomed homes built by idiots, animal and plant life of the various phases of the chaparral cycle...

The book has a large practical element, in teaching Californians how to understand and live with the chaparral that dominates our lives to an extent few realize.

Seems to me it can't hurt a California to know about chaparral. You can learn as much as interests you here, especially when you're maxed out on fiction and need an escape from the real world.

chaparral
mostly covers southern CA. of limited interest if you are in the north. pictures are mostly useless.