California native plants are those that grew prior to European contact. When a non-native is planted and gets well established it can spread and become ‘naturalized’ in the wild. Most of these non-native plants take over California’s natural landscape and create great harm to our ecosystem by smothering our native plant life.

We must take in to consideration the ‘BIG PICTURE’. Our native plants have evolved here in California and are the best suited to perform macro-tasks such as manufacturing oxygen and filtering impurities from our waters. Our native plants have co-evolved with animals, fungi and microbes to form a very complex network of relationships. These native plants are the foundation to California’s ecosystem.

California sustains a plethora of various ecosystems; from our foggy coast to our high mountain ranges, warm inland valleys and hot deserts- this includes the highest and lowest elevations in the continental United States. This wide range has produced a very high number of native species, endemic plants and animals that grow only in California and no where else in the universe.