News Plants

Move it or lose it

Predicted climate change could rob territory from California’s plants

By Rachel Ehrenberg

- More than 2 years ago

California boasts many diverse and unique inhabitants — and that includes its plants, 40 percent of which are found nowhere else in the world.

MOVE NORTH? The fire poppy bursts into bloom after fires sweep through the chaparral. Climate change models predict that this central western and southwestern California native could disappear from the Los Angeles region, perhaps moving north to coastal mountains in the Bay Area.