How Calflora's "What Grows Here?" Tool Works
"What Grows Here?" is Calflora's location-based plant lookup: you point it at a place in California, and it returns the wild plants recorded there. It draws on Calflora's database of over 3.1 million plant observations covering more than 8,000 plants, so it works best as a way to check what has actually been documented in an area rather than to predict what could grow there.
What the tool answers
According to Calflora, "What Grows Here?" is built for questions like:
- What plants grow in a specific place, such as a state park you plan to visit?
- What is that plant you noticed on a hike?
Both cases come down to the same action: define a location, then read the plant list Calflora returns for it.
How to use it
- Open "What Grows Here?" from Calflora's Explore section.
- Specify your location. The tool is organized around places in California, so you need a defined area — a park, a trail vicinity, or another spot you can locate.
- Run the search. Calflora returns the plants recorded in that area from its observation database.
- Open a plant's page to see further details about that species.
The expected result is a plant list tied to your chosen place, not a general California species list.
What it is good for, and what it is not
| Use case | Does "What Grows Here?" fit? |
|---|---|
| Checking what has been observed in a park or hike area | Yes — this is its stated purpose |
| Identifying a plant you saw on a hike | Yes, as a starting point for matching against recorded species |
| Deciding what to plant in your own yard | Not the intended tool — Calflora's Planting Guide handles that, filtering by location and traits such as low water, shade, or riparian preference |
| Confirming a definitive identification | No — it shows what is recorded in an area, which supports but does not replace identification |
Practical notes
- Observations, not guarantees. The results reflect what has been recorded in Calflora's database. A species absent from a result may still occur there; it may simply not be documented yet.
- Location matters most. The quality of your answer depends on how precisely you define the area you are asking about.
- Pair it with the Planting Guide for garden decisions. If your real question is "what native plants will grow in my backyard," the Planting Guide is the matching tool: find your location on the map, optionally check filters like low water plants, shade plants, or riparian plants, and search.
Calflora is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Berkeley, CA, and relies on individual donations to fund its staff and programs.