Richard Halsey

California Chaparral Institute

Allelopathy between plants, whereby one species influences another by chemical means, has been speculated upon since the Greeks. During the second half of the twentieth century, southern California was the focal point of allelopathic research by several influential investigators. Frits Went suggested Encelia farinosa, a common desert shrub, inhibit...

Edge places - places that cannot be identified as belonging to established stereotypes. They’re not neat. Unusual things live there. Unusual things happen there. Diversity is the norm. They make people nervous. They are also the best places to discover new things, to discover what evolution has wrought. Edges are the haunts of iconoclasts like Arth...

The Peninsular Range of San Diego County has been a refuge for divergent spirits, providing an opportunity to examine the potential impact time-in-nature can have on the human psyche. Three individuals who have been changed by the natural environment of the Peninsular Range are featured. It is the hypothesis of this paper that spending time in wild...

The role of fire in chaparral in the California Floristic Province (in general, southern Oregon south through California and portions of Arizona to northern Mexico) is fraught with misunderstandings. Contrary to the forest-centric fire suppression paradigm, research over the past two decades has shown that infrequent, large, high-intensity/high-sev...

California chaparral is one of four sclerophyllous shrublands in North America, each with their own unique climatic patterns, but sharing a common history and similar plant taxa. Traditionally, California chaparral has been viewed in context with other Mediterranean climate plant communities. This view has generally ignored the remarkable relations...

Chaparral is California’s most extensive, native ecosystem. We examined nature centers, publications, curricula, and volunteer naturalist programs in southern California to determine how the chaparral is being presented to the public. We found that a number of centers do an excellent job presenting accurate content. However, the majority need updat...

Throughout this book we present a compelling case for the ecological importance of mixed-severity wildfires in forests (though some chaparral systems currently experience too much fire), including, in many cases, megafires from western North America. Stand-replacing fire disturbances are under-appreciated natural events that have been shaping fire-...

The historical bias against chaparral has shaped current decisions on how to address fire risk in California. To correct this problem, chaparral needs to be recognized as a valuable natural resource, and fire risk and resource management need to be addressed together in land management plans.