The need for authoritative, up-to-date information about our flora is growing as decisions about the future of California's natural areas are being made at an ever increasing rate. At the same time, the rapid pace of new discoveries about the California flora demonstrates the need for an equally fast paced means of conveying the most current state of floristic knowledge to professional botanists and the general public. In the interests of plant conservation and public education, we at the Jepson Herbarium are committed to continual, rapid scientific evaluation and dissemination of the large amount of new data being generated on California vascular plant diversity.

Toward that end, the Editors of the Jepson Flora Project maintain this interchange for advances in California floristics, that will provide the latest information on identification, taxonomy, distribution, ecology, relationships, and diversity of California vascular plants. The necessary scientific data to understand the basis for new plant names and explicit corrections and updates to The Jepson Manual, Second Edition will also be made available. The professional resources of the Jepson Herbarium will assure high quality, with editorial review of all scientific content.

An extensive account of the Interchange, written by Tom Rosatti, was published in the April, 2003 issue of Fremontia [340K PDF]

The keys and descriptions in the Jepson eFlora will help you identify vascular plants of California that are native, naturalized, or waifs.

Interchange pages contain:
Entries for 17,000 names
Sample pages: Ceanothus cuneatus, Ericameria, Jamesia, Centaurea melitensis, Lessingia germanorum

Nomenclature and taxonomy

Floristic treatments and keys

Maps (point maps and distribution range maps)

Specimen records

Photographs

Links from species pages to pertinent sites


Go to the Interchange search page
Go to the Jepson Flora Project title page