The name San Bernardino Mountains is applied to that part of the southern Sierra Nevada between the Cajon and the San Gorgonio Passes, a distance of some 50 miles in a nearly east and west direction. Their general ridge line is 4000-6000 feet above sea level, but at their eastern extremity they culminate in the twin peaks of San Bernardino and San Gorgonio (or Grayback), respectively 10650 and 11725 feet high. The distance north and south across the mountains is about 20 miles. The curving southern and western ridge rises from a base 1200-1500 feet in altitude and overlooks the San Bernardino Valley; from a like base the eastern acclivities of the terminal peaks face the Colorado Desert; on the north they have a higher base, 3500-4000 feet in altitude, and look out upon the Mojave Desert. On all sides the ascent is abrupt, and there is no proper foothill region.

Except for limited outcrops of limestones, sandstones and conglomerates at a few places along the southern base, the rocks are of the granite series, often exposed in naked masses. The resultant soils are stony, coarse and porous for the most part, but in the valley bottoms they are finer and contain more or less humus. All the streams have eroded deep channels, the larger profound and steep cañons. The general aspect of the mountains is extremely rugged.

The streams have their sources in numerous mountain valleys, most of them of small size. Bear Valley is the largest of them, and has a length of 10 miles and a width of of 1 or 2. The upper end of it is occupied by a "dry lake" of the same type as those of the Mojave Desert, which its rim looks out upon; but the climatic conditions cause this lake to be filled more frequently and deeply and to retain its water for longer periods, sometimes for several years. The flora of this end of the valley affected by the proximity of the desert. The lower part of the valley was formerly a green subalpine meadow, a sedgy pool in the center; now all is submerged beneath the deep waters of a great reservoir. This appears to have effected the extinction of some of the plants which formerly grew here. The flora of the mountains is being further modified by the inroads of the thousands who now resort to them for their summer vacations.

For the same topographical reasons the zonation of this flora is far less well defined than that of mountains more favorably situated and of greater extent. Yet nowhere else in America save on the adjacent San Jacinto Mountains, is there displayed in such close conjunction so wide a range of phytogeographic regions. The two deserts at the north and east are occupied by a Lower Sonoran flora, and members of it and cognate species abound on the sides of the mountains which face them; the flora of the opposite base is Upper Sonoran adn greatly, but not as greatly, modifies that of the southern ascent. The less tilted area between is covered by a Transition coniferous forest; above this, on the flanks of the culminating peaks, the Canadian and Hudsonian regions are represented; and the very summit of San Gorgonio, above the tree line, are to be found a few Arctic-Alpine plants. From various local conditions this zonation, especially above the Transition, is interpenetrating an often confused, but has a real and distinguishable existence.

In the following catalogue the term "zone" is used for convenience to denote areas of unequal phtogeographical value. But few common names are given, for the reason that but few are in popular use, and the functon of the botanist is not to provide such names, but to record those actually in general use.

Polypodium californicum Kaulf. Enum. Fil. 102.
Abundant in shaded rock crevices in the Lower Chaparral Zone.

Gymnogramma triangularis Kaulf. Enum. Fil. 75.
Abundant in shaded gravelly or stony soil in the Lower Chaparral Zone. Only the yellow-powdered form is found.

Notholaena tenera Gillies, Bot. Mag. t.305.
A few plants only, in rock crevices in Cushenberry Cañon and Water Cañon, both in the Lower Piñon Zone.

Adiantum capillus-veners Linn. Sp. Pl. 1096.
Occasional on the face of shaded dripping cliffs in the Lower Chaparral Zone.

Adiantum pedatum Linn. Sp. Pl. 1065.
Snow Cañon, an Hudsonian island in Mill Creek Cañon.

[to be compiled fully by Robert Roy van de Hoek as time and money allows].

I learn so much as I research early botanists and as I scribe and compile the reports of early naturalist-scientists such as those of Samuel Parish. In addition to the San Bernardino Mountains, he also made collecting trips to other places of southern California. He made at least two separate collecting trips to the Ballona wetlands. His interest in wetlands also took him in 1924 to visit Baldwin Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. In fact, the third paragraph of this report discusses Baldwin Lake, with the passage of "dry lake." And Big Bear Reservoir is now known to have drowned many unique native plants that once occurred in the San Bernardino Mountains. Samuel Parish lamented the loss of the "green subalpine meadow" and its "sedgy pool in the center; now all submerged beneath the deep waters of a great reservoir." Samuel Parish is also correct to have noted that by 1917, now some 85 years ago, that the San Bernardion Mountains has had its native flora "further modified by the inroads of the thousands who now resort to them for their summer vacation."

California State Park Needed
for the
San Bernardion Mountains

Flora of the San Gabriel Mountains, by Ivan Johnston

A Taxonomic and Ecologic Study of the Flora of San Gabriel River Canyon, by James Robinson

Samuel Parish, 1917 vernal pool article that discusses Ivan Johnston at Red Hill in Upland on May 4, 1917.