Northern California coastal forests

The Northern California coastal forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of coastal Northern California, USA. The ecoregion lies close to the Pacific Ocean, and is kept moist by Pacific Ocean storms during the winter months, and by coastal fogs in the summer months. The ecoregion covers 13,300 km² (5,100 square miles), extending from Del Norte County on the California-Oregon border south to Santa Cruz County. A few parts of the Santa Lucia Range in Monterey County have trees associated with this ecoregion. The ecoregion rarely extends more than 65 km inland from the coast.

The ecoregion is characterized by the Coast Redwood "(Sequoia sempervirens)"; redwood forests are interspersed with several other plant communities, including northern coastal grasslands and northern coastal scrub in the immediate coastal zone and on hilltops, mixed evergreen forest of Coast Douglas-fir "(Pseudotsuga menziesii" var. "menziesii)", Tanoak "(Lithocarpus densiflorus)", Pacific Madrone "(Arbutus menziesii)", and California Bay Laurel "(Umbellularia californica)" on drier slopes, and enclaves of closed-cone pine forest which include Bishop Pine "(Pinus muricata)" and Knobcone Pine "(Pinus attenuata)".

Some of the rarest forests that occurs in this coastal region are the Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forests, an example of which occurs in the Carbonera Creek watershed of Santa Cruz County, California.

External links

* [http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial/na/na0519_full.html Northern California coastal forests (World Wildlife Fund)]
* [http://www.sempervirens.org/ Sempervirens Fund]
* [http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/ecoregions/50519frame.htm Northern California Coastal Forests images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu] ( [http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/ecoregions/50519.htm slow modem version] )