Oakmead Herbarium and Collections

Hennediella stanfordiensis (moss) found
Curation and fieldwork & Herbarium affiliates
Calflora Great Places

Vascular Plants | Bryophytes | Lichens (.xlsx)
Plant photo favorites   | Virtual tour with our photo archive
Fading wildflowers? Dissapearances and declines

The earliest known plant collections from the Jasper Ridge area are from the 1860s. Originally part of Volney Rattan's herbarium, the specimen sheets are conserved in the Preserve's Oakmead Herbarium and have the location Searsville. Over the intervening 150 years numerous workers have cumulatively reported more than 900 different vascular plants and 77 bryophytes, and since 2000, the herbarium group has added to the herbarium nearly 1,000 specimens of plants and lichens. There are, however, other and perhaps more significant measures of the richness of the Preserve's flora . . . read more about locally rare plants.

Today the Oakmead Herbarium and Collections of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (JROH) has 6,000+ vouchers of most bryophytes, lichens, and 800+ vascular plants representing 10% of the 7,600+ terminal taxa (species, subspecies, varieties) native or naturalized in California.* Specimen records are in the Consortium of California Herbaria. 

Learn more about the Oakmead Herbarium Group 

•  Vascular Plant List 
  •  Introduction, abbreviations, symbols
  • Additions to the flora 2000- | Disappearances and declines
  •  Hybrids not given taxonomic status in TJM2
  •  Waifs, garden escapes, agricultural weeds, eradicated exotics
  •  Under-documented reports and erroneous inclusions
• Phylogentic guide to Jasper Ridge Vascular Plant Families | Jepson eFlora Phylogenetic Index
• Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve Serpentine Flora
• JRBP Poales E-Flora
• C4 species at JRBP
• Plants of Searsville Lake and Wetlands South of Searsville Lake
• Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment Plant List 2012
• Plants in the local flora with nitrogen-fixing symbionts
• Bryophyte Checklist
• Field characters of some bryophytes
• The Mosses of Stanford University and Vicinity

Lichens

• Renshaw, D. 2019. Common Lichens of Jasper Ridge (Note: 36 MB file, may download slowly).
• Preliminary Lichen Checklist (Excel)
• Doel, J. 1996. Key to the commoner lichens on Jasper Ridge.
• Tucker, S. 2014. Catalog of Lichens, Lichenicoles and Allied Fungi in California. Includes links to photographs
• Photos of some Jasper Ridge lichens

News

• Floral Postcards
• Calflora Great Places
• Herbarium Group 
• Floristic Statistics (2012). N.B. 11/2020 revision of the vascular flora is 820 native and naturalized taxa in 109 families
• Additions to the vascular flora 2000-
• Dissapearances and declines & Intervention ecology now?
• Weeds, including Herbarium weeding projects, Arrival dates of some naturalized grasses 
• Jasper Ridge place names

Maps & Vegetation Surveys

• Vegetation Map rev. 2016 (Affiliates)
• Geology Map (Affiliates)
• Sector Map Book (Affiliates)
• Herb Dengler Place Names + Google Earth version (Affiliates)
• Insolation Map
• Herb Dengler Vegetation Transect 1953 (Affiliates)
• CNPS Vegetation Rapid Assessments 
• Map Archive Index (Affiliates)

Rare Plants and CNPS Rank 

• Allium peninsulare Greene var. franciscanum McNeal & Ownbey [Rank 1B.2]    (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere)
• Amsinckia lunaris J. F. Macbr. [Rank 1B.2]  (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere)
• Arabis blepharophylla Hook. & Arn. [Rank  4.3]   (limited distribution)
• Dirca occidentalis A. Gray [Rank 1B.2]   (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere)
• Eryngium jepsonii J.M. Coult. & Rose [Rank 1B.2]   (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere) (only San Mateo Co. loc)
• Lessingia hololeuca Greene [Rank  3]  (review list)
• Malacothamnus fasciculatus (Torr. & A. Gray) Greene [Rank 1B.2]  (syn. M. arcuatus -- rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere)
• Monolopia gracilens A. Gray [Rank 1B.2]   (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere) 
• Piperia michaelii (Greene) Rydb. [Rank  4.2]  (limited distribution)
• Plagiobothrys chorisianus (Cham.) I.M. Johnst. var. hickmanii (Greene) I.M. Johnst. [Rank  4.2]  (limited distribution)
• Trifolium amoenum Greene [Rank 1B.1]  (rare, threatened, or endangered in CA and elsewhere)

Locally Rare plants in San Mateo Co. and Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion

Notes

* While scientific names follow TJM2 and supplements, we also include plants and/or names not treated therein. Following the Marin Flora, 2nd ed, 2007: “We include here as naturalized species those that are established and have a true competitive status without cultivation whether the plant is aggressively spreading or seems only passively and locally established. . . . Experience has shown that the waifs of today may become the weeds of tomorrow". We also include named hybrids not given taxonomic status in TJM2, e.g., Elymus x hansenii, Quercus x jolonensis.

Photographs  for most plants are linked to the Vascular Plant List entries. In addition to specimen labels and maps on many JROH specimen sheets, location, flowering time, and abundance records may also be found in Calflora, the historical Field Observations Database and the JRBP Poales E-Flora.

References relevant to the floristics of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. The history of the herbarium is described by Jewett (2005) Documenting Plant Diversity: Jasper Ridge's Herbarium. For Stanford's rich botany heritage see Timby (1998) The Dudley Herbarium: its origin, fate, and legacy at Stanford. Jasper Ridge grassland-related research is surveyed in Stromberg, M. et al. (2007) California Grasslands Ecology and Management and Lunch (2009) Primary production at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve.