The Occurrence and Distribution of Umbellularia Californica in the Big Basin Area, Santa Cruz Mountains, CA

The coastal redwood forest of Central California is\ud composed principally of four kinds of trees: coast redwood\ud (Sequoia sempervirens), Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii),\ud tan oak (Lithocarpus densiflora) and California bay\ud (Umbellularia californica). All of these are found in Big\ud Basin Redwoods State Park and adjacent areas in the Santa\ud Cruz Mountains.\ud Big Basin, unlike most other areas of the Santa Cruz\ud Mountains, has relatively few bay trees. In fact there are\ud only ten areas where Umbellularia is found in the 16,000\ud plus acres of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. That the\ud California bay has been conspicuous by its scarcity has been\ud noted by several authors (Orr, 1936; Meadows, 1950; Cooney-Lazaneo\ud and Lyons, 1981), but there has been no attempt to\ud document the location of all occurrences of Umbellularia in\ud Big Basin nor any attempt to account for the relative\ud absence of this tree.\ud The purpose of this thesis is to document the\ud location of Umbellularia in Big Basin Redwoods State Park,\ud compare these locational occurrences with other areas\ud outside Big Basin and attempt to determine why the\ud California bay is so rare in Big Basin