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Native Plants in the California Sierra Mountain Redwoods

The California Sierra mountain redwood forests provide a habitat for a wide variety of plants. Some are common and found in many other places. Others are rare, and a few are almost unique to the forests, yet quite easily found there. These plants include tiny mosses clinging to the earth, orchids and ferns perched among the branches and the giant trees themselves.

Mosses and Ferns
- Fern fiddleheads in the spring
  
  Native plants include non-vascular plants like mosses, liverworts and hornworts. The lack of specialized vascular tissue keeps them small and limited to moist places. Vascular plants like horsetales and ferns are also native to these Sierra forests. The ferns include the sword fern (Polystichum spp.) that grows up to four feet tall. The curled leaves, harvested in the spring, are sometimes served eaten as a vegetable. The bracken fern's (Pteridium aquilinum) young leaves can only be eaten in small quantities. The maiden hair fern's (Adiantum jordanii) leaves produced fine black threads used for weaving baskets. The five-fingered fern (Adiantum pedatum) is also used in basketry.
Flowering Plants
- Sorrel (Oxalis)
  
  Flowering plants include the wood rose (Rosa gymnocarpa), redwood sorrel (Oxalis oregana), the spring blooming wake robin or western trillium (Trillium spp.), blue elderberry (Sambucus Mexicanna), California blackberry (Rubus urcinus), miners lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata), which can be eaten in salads, and California huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum) whose berries resemble, and can be served like, blueberries. Redwood violet, also called the evergreen violet (Viola sempervirens), blooms in the early spring. The trail plant (Adenocaulon bicolor) has leaves that are dark on top and light underneath. When a person or animal passes, they tend to flip over and point the way it passed.
  
  Toxic plants of the Sierra redwood forests include poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum), stinging nettle (Urtica spp.) and red elderberry (Sambucus callicarpa). In the case of some plants like Solomon's seal (Polygonatum spp.), experts disagree as to whether the berries can be eaten or not. The early shoots of the skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanum) can be eaten, but they soon develop into large, spreading leaves that smell, not surprisingly, like skunk and are not appetizing at all.
Trees
- Caifornia bay laurel leaves are more pointed than the Mediterranean varities.
  
  In addition to the redwood trees, Sierra redwood forests are home to many other trees. The arbutus, sometimes called madrone or Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii) is common in the California redwood forests. It produces orange berries that can be eaten. The leaves of the California bay laurel, sometimes called pepperwood (Umbellularia californica), can be used as a seasoning in the same way Greek or Turkish bay laurel would be used. White alder (Alnus oregona) and red alder (Alnus rhombifolia) both grow in the redwood forests. However, the white alder, with its finely toothed leaves, is the more common of the two in the Sierra region. Several kinds of oaks grow in these forests including the coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) and the California black oak (Quercus kelloggii). Another variety of tree, the tanbark oak or tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflourus), is not a true oak. The big leaved maple (Acer macrophyllum) grows in the Sierra redwood forests. California hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta) ripen in mid to late summer.

Nature