I have chosen to restrict the scope of the Shasta Wildflowers Project to flowering plants located within a 25 mile radius from the summit of Mount Shasta. This is as the crow flies, shown by the highlighted circle in the map below. The original reasoning for trying to cover this ambitiously large area of approximately 2000 square miles was not particularly scientific, but borne of a fondness for such locales as Castle Crags and Martin's Dairy Campground near the perimeter as well as the centerpiece, Mount Shasta. In my naivete, I had no idea what I was taking on by doing this.

However, this decision has proven to be of great benefit for the geographic area of this project is unique in that it sits at the junction of three major floristic provinces and includes ecosystems with underlying geology as diverse as the ultramafic and serpentine bearing Trinity section of the Klamath Range centered around Mount Eddy,

the recently formed igneous massif of Mount Shasta and the Great Basin high desert chaparral of the Shasta Valley. Also present are limestone formations along the McCloud River and the granitic formation centered primarily around Castle Crags.

The striking differences between both elevation and geology give rise to a tremendous diversity of plant life within the scope of this project. Consequently, I imagine I will be happy for many years to come locating species to add to this database and image archive. Perhaps William Bridge Cooke, author of the first Flora of Mount Shasta, was more judicious in his decision to limit his work to 4000 ft and above on the slopes of the mountain. In doing so, he avoided treating many of the introduced species and was able to adequately cover the area he had chosen. At my current rate of about 200 species a year I image it will take at least 15 years to catalog the approximately 3000? angiosperm species within my subject area. I hope my knees last that long.

... Penn Martin