What Is Calflora?
Calflora is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit database of wild California plants, based in Berkeley, CA. It holds over 3.1 million plant observations covering more than 8,000 plants, and it offers public tools for exploring what grows where and for planning native plantings. It is useful if you want to identify or research California wild plants, check what grows in a specific place, or choose native species for a garden. Calflora states it is not affiliated with other organizations and relies on individual donations to fund its staff, projects, and programs.
What Calflora covers
The core of the site is an observation database. According to Calflora, the collection includes:
- Over 3.1 million plant observations
- More than 8,000 plants
Observations are tied to contributors, and the site credits photographers and recorders by name alongside species entries — for example, Arctostaphylos manzanita ssp. laevigata (Dick Rawson), Salix breweri (R.A. Chasey), and Viburnum ellipticum (Hunter Breck). This matters if you want to see who documented a plant and where the record came from, rather than treating the database as anonymous.
The main tools
What Grows Here?
This tool answers location-based questions: what plants grow in a particular state park, or what a plant you noticed on a hike might be. You supply a place, and Calflora returns the plants associated with it. It is the entry point for curiosity-driven searches — a park you plan to visit, a trail where you saw something unfamiliar, or a spot you want to compare against other areas.
The Planting Guide
The Planting Guide is for garden planning. The workflow described by Calflora is:
- Find your location on the map.
- Select any filters you care about — for example, low water plants, plants that grow in shade, or riparian plants.
- Click "Search."
The result is a list of plants matching your criteria, and from there you can open further details on each plant. The filters are optional; you can search on location alone if you have no other constraints.
Great Places to view native plants
Calflora also includes detailed information on over 150 places (and growing) for viewing native plants in the wild. This is a browsing resource rather than a search tool — useful when you want a destination rather than a species.
How to decide whether to use it
| If you want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Know what grows in a specific park or area | What Grows Here? |
| Pick native plants for a yard, with water/shade/riparian constraints | The Planting Guide |
| Find places to see native plants in person | Great Places to view native plants |
| Look up a species record and its observers/photographers | The observation database |
Calflora is a fit when your question is about California wild plants specifically and you want location-linked records rather than general horticultural advice. If your interest is outside California, or you need cultivation instructions beyond what a species entry provides, the database is not the right starting point.
Practical notes
- The database is donation-funded. Calflora describes itself as relying on individual donations to fund staff, projects, and programs, and links to a tax-deductible contribution page. Nothing in the available material indicates a paid tier or a login requirement, so treat access terms as unconfirmed rather than assuming either free-and-open or restricted.
- Coverage is California-only by design, so out-of-state observations will not appear.
- Records are contributed, which means quality and completeness vary by species and region; a sparse result for a location may reflect recording activity as much as actual plant distribution.