flora-file:

The California Floristic Province (byflora-file)

Being a California native myself I have a fascination with California’s native flora.  There are about 6300 native taxa of plants found in California, and a third are found nowhere else but the limited area that comprises the California floristic province. It has the highest diversity of plant species in North America, north of tropical Mexico.

The plants of California are specially adapted for the Mediterranean climate here. Mediterranean climates have long, dry summers and cool, moist winters. In Mediterranean climates the majority of the precipitation occurs during the moist winter months, and summer months receive almost no rainfall, which often means 6-8 months of no rains. For this reason many plants here have switched around the normal seasonal growing patterns.  Spring is triggered by the autumn rains, and during the dry summer months plants enter their dormancy. 

Mediterranean climate zones comprise only 3% of the Earth’s landmass, but account for 10% of the known plant species. In addition to California, Mediterranean climates are found in only four other areas of the world: the Mediterranean Basin, the Cape region of South Africa, central Chile, and southwestern Australia. Many of the plants used in ornamental gardens and propagated by the nursery industry have ancestral orgins in the Mediterranean climes of the world. This climate has truly created an amazing diversity of flora.

(California Floristic Province Map and statistics from California Native Plants for the Garden, Bornstein, Fross, & O’Brien, Cochuma Press, 2005.)

(Mediterranean Climate Map via wikipedia.)

Rum is most commonly made from molasses, which is made from sugarcane. Yeast and water are added to the molasses, allowing it to ferment. It must then be distilled, to pull out the alcohol, and then aged for at least a year. Sugarcane is in the Poaceae family, making it a grass. [x]  

Dandelions are in full swing where I live. They are in the Asteraceae  family, which is one of the largest plant families known, alongside the orchid family. Dandelions spread with their wind-carried seeds, and their yellow flowers close at night. They are all in the Taraxacum genus, and the weeds found globally are T. officinale and T. erythospermum. [x]

This is Brassica nigra, a member of the Brassicaceae family, the mustard family. Members of the Brassicaceae family have four petals, and it was once called the Cruciferae family, referring to the cross-shape of the flowers. [x]

Stachys byzantina, Lamb’s Ear, is originally from Turkey, Armenia and Iran, but has been introduced globally as an ornamental. It is in the Lamiaceae family, which also contains most of the herbs you are familiar with, such as rosemary, basil and mint. It is commonly known as the mint family. [x]

Wheat is in the grass family, Poaceae. It is the third-most produced grain, behind maize and rice. 

Nerium oleander is in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. It contains several toxic chemicals, including cardiac glycosides. Cardiac glycosides are medicinal in small amounts, but are poisonous in large amounts. [x]