Botany Photo of the Day

Today's images are of a rare snowfall in the mountains adjacent to Santa Barbara, California, taken last Sunday by Petra Cortright (petra cortright@Flickr | BPotD Flickr Group Pool) . Many thanks, Petra! As an aside, Petra was also kind enough to suggest a few locations around Santa Barbara for photography.

While taxonomists occasionally argue about the classification of plant species, analogous arguments can be heard from ecologists with regards to the classification of vegetation. What criteria should be used? Abundant species in the area? Climatic regime? Dominant plant habit (physiognomy)? Keystone species? In the system used by the World Wildlife Fund, the mountains near Santa Barbara, California are classified by a hodgepodge of location, physiogeographic features, biome and physiognomy: California Montane and Chapparal Woodlands (more info with regional map and photos). For conservation purposes, this seems like a suitable classification system. However, for current trends and suggestions for further improvement in vegetation classification, please read the Wikipedia entry on Vegetation.

Photography resource link: Lifting the Shroud: Creating an Interpretation, an essay by Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape, draws attention to the notions of capturing and interpreting reality in photography.