Native plant identification key for the
Palos Verdes Peninsula, California

To use the key, identify the basic life-form or life-habit of the plant you're interested in and click that link below. Once you are on its web page, you will be provided choices describing very basic attributes of the plant, such as its size, the shape and arrangement of its leaves, leaf color, and perhaps scent or whether it retains flower clusters all year round (even dried-up). In some cases, you may be provided with half a dozen choices: Be sure to read all of them and choose the one that seems best to describe your specimen.

Hopefully, you should be able to identify your plant without too many decisions. Once you think you have a plausible choice, you can then click on that species' name to get a much more detailed description of the plant to help you affirm or reject your identification. The species' web page also contains links to its Calflora taxon report, photographs in the Calphotos archive, and to the detailed description of the species, genus, and family in the Jepson Manual.

If you cannot make a positive identification, go back and try another choice from the list. If you still cannot make an identification, it is possible that you are looking at an introduced exotic species, perhaps an escapee from someone's garden or an invasive species (such as black mustard, fennel, ice plant, red-eyed wattle acacia, Peruvian pepper tree, or Aleppo pine or many, many others). This key only contains species native to the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Happy sleuthing!

• Succulents: Plants with fleshy, often liquid-saturated leaves and/or stems. These features can be found in a variety of life forms, including annual herbaceous plants, vines, shrubs, and trees, as well as cacti.

• Trees: Woody plants usually with one (rarely two) main stems or trunks, with branching off from this. With strong and centralized wood support, trees can attain much larger size than any other terrestrial life-form, though some trees can be smaller than some shrubs.

• Shrubs: Woody plants with several stems branching off from their bases or very close to them. Without strong and centralized trunks, shrubs rarely can get taller than 5 or 6 m. Some smaller shrubs, called subshrubs, are woody only in the lower parts of their stems, the upper parts being herbaceous and soft.

• Vines: Plants with a climbing or trailing habit, often with twining tendrils to help them clasp other plants or objects. Vines can be woody: These are sometimes called lianas. They can also be herbaceous, even annual.

• Herbaceous plants: Plants that do not produce wood and, so, are relatively soft and tender. Lacking the mechanical support of wood, they can't grow too tall. Graminoids (grasses, sedges, and rushes) are mostly herbaceous plants with linear, parallel-veined leaves that form sheaths ("stems") and then diverge as blades. Flowering herbs with broad leaves (non-graminoid) are called forbs. Non-flowering herbs that reproduce with spores not seeds are ferns. This section of the key is not yet complete. Estimated time for completion: Summer 2012.

First placed on web: 07/29/11
Last revised: 08/10/11
Christine M. Rodrigue, Ph.D., Department of Geography, California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840-1101
rodrigue@csulb.edu

The development of this key was partially funded through the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Program (Award #0703798) and through a course of re-assigned time provided by the CSULB Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. Thanks also to the students in sections of biogeography, introductory physical geography, GDEP, and LSAMP for "test-driving" various editions of this key.