Chaparral facts for kids

Chaparral plants in the Santa Ynez Mountains near Santa Barbara, California.

Chaparral is a type of plant community made up mostly of shrubs and small trees. It's like a natural garden of tough, woody plants. You'll find chaparral mainly in the U.S. state of California and also in the northern part of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico.

This unique plant community grows in places with a special kind of weather called a Mediterranean climate. This means they have mild, wet winters and hot, very dry summers. Chaparral plants are also shaped by wildfires, which are a natural part of their environment.

Chaparral plants are amazing because they can handle the long, dry summers. They have hard, leathery, evergreen leaves that help them save water. Chaparral covers about 5% of California, and other similar shrublands cover another 3.5%. The word "chaparral" comes from the Spanish word chaparro, which means "scrub oaks" – a common plant found there.

Where Else Can You Find Chaparral?

Besides California and Baja California, there are four other places in the world with similar chaparral-like regions:

• Parts of the Mediterranean Sea coast, where it's called maquis.
• Central Chile, known as matorral.
• The South African Cape, called fynbos.
• South Australia, known as kwongan.

Chaparral and Wildfires

Chaparral areas don't usually have fires very often. Fires typically happen every 10 to 15 years, or sometimes even more than a hundred years apart. When chaparral plants get older, they often grow into very thick, dense areas. These thickets can be quite flammable, meaning they can catch fire easily. Fires are a natural way for new plants to grow and for the chaparral ecosystem to stay healthy.

Related Plants

• Larrea divaricata, also known as chaparral, is a small evergreen bush. It belongs to the plant family called Zygophyllaceae.

Images for kids

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  Old-growth chaparral more than a century old

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  Coastal sage scrub in San Diego County

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  An old-growth manzanita, a classic member of the chaparral plant community

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  Wrentit, the most characteristic bird of the chaparral

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  Transmontane chaparral in the Laguna Mountains, Cleveland National Forest

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  Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) resprouting after a high-intensity chaparral fire

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  Wildflower display after the 2007 Witch Creek Fire, San Diego County, California

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  Impact of high fire frequency: chaparral/sage scrub type converted to non-native grassland

See also

In Spanish: Chaparral para niños