How To Identify Plants At The SRP: Plant Distribution

• After you continue to double the area enough times, there will be very few species that are found in each area A. Most species will be found in only a few of the areas of size A!

• Thus common plants (ones found in each of the areas A) are rare; rare plants (ones found in only a few areas of size A) are common.

• Note that there may be thousands of individuals of a rare species where it grows. It is only that it is found in only a single area A that makes it a rare species.

  Example: our two most common tarweeds, San Diego tarweed (Hemizonia paniculata) and sticky tarweed (Holocarpha virgata ssp. elongata), are only found on the SRP trails out of the 68 trails I've covered in Southern California.

http://tchester.org/srp/plants/how_to_id/22.html Comments and feedback: Tom Chester Last update: 16 October 2003.

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