CASE STUDY: California

California is a land of extreme physical and topographic contrasts that together provide biodiversity rich in endemic species, second only to Hawaii among all states. In addition, the state has arguably the most diverse traditions of plant uses among the ethnic and cultural heritages of its people. Traditional Indian uses of native plants, mushrooms, and lichens, for example, differ greatly among the biotic regions of California—from Paiute and Shoshone people on the east side of the Sierra Nevada at the interface with the Great Basin, to the tribes along the Klamath River in the plant-rich Klamath-Siskiyou Bioregion, to the