Батыс Солтүстік Американың бұталы өсімдік қауымдастығы

Shrubland plant community in western North America
the plant community

Chaparral (,/ʃ//æ//p//ə/'/r//æ//l//, /,/tʃ//æ//p// / SHAPəRAL, CHAP ) is a shrubland plant community found primarily in California, in southern Oregon and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high intensity crown fires. Many chaparral shrubs have hard sclerophyllous evergreen leaves, as contrasted with the associated soft leaved, drought deciduous, scrub community of coastal sage scrub, found often on drier, southern facing slopes. Three other closely related chaparral shrubland systems occur in central Arizona, western Texas, and along the eastern side of central Mexico's mountain chains, all having summer rains in contrast to the Mediterranean climate of other chaparral formations. Chaparral comprises 9% of California's wildland vegetation and contains 20% of its plant species.

The name comes from the Spanish word [[Quercus coccifera, which translates to "place of the scrub oak".

In its natural state, chaparral is characterized by infrequent fires, with natural fire return intervals ranging between 30 years and over 150 years. Mature chaparral (at least 60 years since time of last fire) is characterized by nearly impenetrable, dense thickets (except the more open desert chaparral). These plants are flammable during the late summer and autumn months when conditions are characteristically hot and dry. They grow as woody shrubs with thick, leathery, and often small leaves, contain green leaves all year (are evergreen), and are typically drought resistant (with some exceptions). After the first rains following a fire, the landscape is dominated by small flowering herbaceous plants, known as fire followers, which die back with the summer dry period. Similar plant communities are found in the four other Mediterranean climate regions around the world, including the Mediterranean Basin (where it is known as [[maquis shrubland), central Chile (where it is called [[Chilean Matorral), the South African Cape Region (known there as fynbos), and in Western and Southern Australia (as kwongan). According to the California Academy of Sciences, Mediterranean shrubland contains more than 20 percent of the world's plant diversity. The word chaparral is a loanword from Spanish [[Quercus coccifera, meaning place of the scrub oak, which itself comes from a Basque word, txapar, that has the same meaning. Conservation International and other conservation organizations consider chaparral to be a biodiversity hotspot – a biological community with a large number of different species – that is under threat by human activity.

Another phytogeography system uses two California chaparral and woodlands subdivisions: the cismontane chaparral and the transmontane (desert) chaparral.

Cismontane chaparral ("this side of the mountain") refers to the chaparral ecosystem in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome in California, growing on the western (and coastal) sides of large mountain range systems, such as the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in the San Joaquin Valley foothills, western slopes of the Peninsular Ranges and California Coast Ranges, and south southwest slopes of the Transverse Ranges in the Central Coast and Southern California regions.

Transmontane chaparral or desert chaparral —transmontane ("the other side of the mountain") chaparral—refers to the desert shrubland habitat and chaparral plant community growing in the rainshadow of these ranges. Transmontane chaparral features xeric desert climate, not Mediterranean climate habitats, and is also referred to as desert chaparral. Desert chaparral is a regional ecosystem subset of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, with some plant species from the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion. Unlike cismontane chaparral, which forms dense, impenetrable stands of plants, desert chaparral is often open, with only about 50 percent of the ground covered. It is distinguished from the cismontane chaparral found on the coastal side of the mountains, which experiences higher winter rainfall. Naturally, desert chaparral experiences less winter rainfall than cismontane chaparral. Plants in this community are characterized by small, hard (sclerophyllic) evergreen (non deciduous) leaves. Desert chaparral grows above California's desert cactus scrub plant community and below the pinyon juniper woodland. It is further distinguished from the deciduous sub alpine scrub above the pinyon juniper woodlands on the same side of the Peninsular ranges. Due to the lower annual rainfall (resulting in slower plant growth rates) when compared to cismontane chaparral, desert chaparral is more vulnerable to biodiversity loss and the invasion of non native weeds and grasses if disturbed by human activity and frequent fire.