Chaparral
Chaparral is a general term that applies to various types of bushland found in certain climates throughout the world, including the scrublands of Southern California. Chaparral is usually characterized as having warm and dry summers and wet and mild winters. Many species are adapted to these climatic conditions and such processes a wildfire, which are common in this plant community.
Plants that compromise chaparral, such as manzanita, ceanothus, and toyon, have broad leaves, and yet are reduced in size and typically covered with a hard waxy surface or coating. These are adaptations to drought. They function to help reduce evapotranspiration during the dry season. It is these characteristics that make this plant community one of the most flammable types of vegetation found in the United States. Therefore, these species are well adapted to fire and some actually possess traits that encourage fire.
Whiteleaf manzanita overwhelmingly dominates the dense, impenetrable chaparral communities below 4,000 feet (1,219 m). Chamise, toyon, buck brush, yerba santa, Indian warrior, and poison oak are represented in these communities to varying degrees. Toyon, an evergreen shrub or small tree, is also known as Christmas berry or California holly because the creamy white flower clusters turn into abundant bright red fruit that ripen in December. Many birds relish the berries; you can eat them too, though the fresh fruit is very bitter. Oaks and pines are sparsely distributed through chaparral. In dense chaparral, the thick canopy and a deep thatch of leaf litter and downed woody debris prevents the establishment of other plant species.
Wildlife species associated with the chaparral plant communities include Bewick’s wrens, scrub jays, oak titmouse, and spotted towhees. Lizards include an abundance of western fence and western whiptail. Also inhabiting the chaparral are gopher snakes, rattlesnakes, whip snakes, and racers.
A montane chaparral plant community occupies the loose, sandy, granitic soils between the 3,000 feet (914 m) in elevation and the top of Shasta Bally. This montane chaparral is dominated by greenleaf manzanita, combined with pinemat manzanita, common manzanita, mountain whitethorn, huckleberry oak, and brush chinquapin. Bird species to look for include yellow-dumped warblers, hermit warblers, fox sparrow, dark-eyed junco, red crossbills, goldencrowned kinglets, and olive-sided flycatchers.
