CNDDB News Blog

California is a biodiversity hotpot. A large part of California’s biodiversity is a result of the exceptional number of native plant species in the state. California currently boasts over 6,500 native plant taxa with about 30% of those plants occurring nowhere else in the world. In conjunction with the large number of native plants in California comes a large number of rare plants as well. The CNDDB currently tracks nearly 2,400 rare plant taxa.

To celebrate this amazing array of botanical diversity, the California State Legislature designated the third week of April to be California Native Plant Week. See the California Native Plant Society website for activities in your area or simply venture outside for a hike to take in and appreciate all the native plant diversity California has to offer!

Number of Element Occurrences in Current Distribution: 92,720
Number of New Element Occurrences Added Since Last Distribution: 360
Number of Source Documents Added: 1,505

What we've been working on:

Botany

• Amsinckia lunaris (bent-flowered fiddleneck)
• Astragalus rattanii var. jepsonianus (Jepson’s milk-vetch)
• Balsamorhiza macrolepis (big-scale balsamroot)
• Calystegia collina ssp. tridactylosa (three-fingered morning-glory)
• Castilleja rubicundula var. rubicundula (pink creamsacs)
• Centromadia parryi ssp. congdonii (Congdon's tarplant)
• Ceanothus roderickii (Pine Hill ceanothus)
• Cuscuta jepsonii (Jepson’s dodder)
• Dithyrea maritima (beach spectaclepod)
• Extriplex joaquinana (San Joaquin spearscale)
• Fritillaria biflora var. ineziana (Hillsborough chocolate lily)
• Gilia capitata ssp. pacifica (Pacific gilia)
• Harmonia hallii (Hall's harmonia)
• Hesperolinon drymarioides (drymaria-like western flax)
• Lewisia cotyledon var. howellii (Howell’s lewisia)
• Monolopia gracilens (woodland woollythreads)
• Montia howellii (Howell's montia)
• Navarretia nigelliformis ssp. radians (shining navarretia)
• Sanicula saxatilis (rock sanicle)
• Sidalcea hickmanii ssp. parishii (Parish's checkerbloom)

Zoology

• Athene cunicularia (burrowing owl)
• Callophrys mossii marinensis (Marin elfin butterfly)
• Entosphenus lethophagus (Pit-Klamath brook lamprey)
• Entosphenus similis (Klamath River lamprey)
• Euphydryas editha quino (quino checkerspot butterfly)
• Rana boylii (foothill yellow-legged frog)
• Rana cascadae (Cascades frog)
• Spea hammondii (western spadefoot)
• Taxidea taxus (American badger)

The quarterly update of the Barred Owl Observations Database is available in the BIOS Viewer for CNDDB Subscribers. The barred owl database includes barred owl (Strix varia), Strix hybrid, and unknown Strix detections.

Many of the records represent incidental detections made during spotted owl surveys; therefore, this dataset may not accurately represent the current distribution of barred owls in California. Furthermore, this dataset is only available to CNDDB subscribers because it contains references to sensitive spotted owl locations. A public version will be available in the future.

For a copy of the geodatabase or for site-specific inquiries, contact the database manager at owlobs@wildlife.ca.gov.