The eighth edition of Dianne Lake's Rare, Unusal and Significant Plants of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties is now available. The database of over 19,000 records that is the basis for the eighth edition will soon be available on the web, through The Calflora Database. (The database for the earlier editions is already on line.) Each observation from the EB Unusual Plants database includes the taxon, observer, and date. For rare taxa, the East Bay region code (from the map in Dianne’s book) is listed. For taxa that are more common in the East Bay and elsewhere, a great deal of detail is included about each observation’s location–much more than could be included in the printed edition of the book.
The Calflora Map Viewer now includes the regions from the EB Rare and Unusual Plants database; if a plant occurs in on of these regions, it is drawn in color on a relief map, alongside observations at specific points (shown as dots) and “quads” from the state CNPS Inventory, and the many other Calflora sources of observations. For more information about the Map Viewer, visit the Calflora web site and click the Map Viewer link on the front page or in any sidebar.
The printed book of course remains the official source of the EB Rare and Unusual Plants data and continues to be available from Dianne Lake.
rwest@monocot.com