What Champagne and Chaparral Have in Common

An Irreverent Look at Chaparral Illiteracy

“Chaparral in France? Sacré bleu!” Arthur quickly downed his remaining Champagne and poured another. He stood up in the tub and raised his drink. With steam wafting up from his naked torso in the evening air, his words became infused with surreal, mythical energy. “The maquis is southern France?! The maquis gave cover to the French Resistance as they sabotaged the Nazi war machine, hence their name, the Maquis! Long live the Maquis!”

Buyer beware. Counterfeits abound.
True Champagne can not be made in California, and a lush forest is not chaparral, despite claims to the contrary.

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It was getting late and we’d been in too long. Our bodies were beginning to overheat in the simmering tub.

Dangling his left hand in the pool to cool down, sipping French Champagne with the other, Arthur turned toward me. “Once, if I remember rightly,” he said as his eye lids began closing slowly like heavy, velveteen bedroom curtains, “my life was a feast where all hearts opened, and all wines flowed.”

“And now?” I asked.

He took another sip, then began slipping into the abyss, telling of his discovery that life is not as simple as he once thought. “One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – And I found her bitter – And I reviled her.”

I don’t recall much more about that evening. Arthur’s life over the past year or so had been what one could best describe as a season in hell, so I suspect we talked a lot about that. However, I do remember how Arthur became irritated with me for handing him a bottle of California sparkling wine and calling it champagne.

We’d run out of the French Champagne he had brought, so I ran into the house to gather more to drink, another baguette, and the last chunk of chèvre cheese.

Upon my stumbling return, Arthur smiled his Mona Lisa, ripped off a piece of bread, then sneered. “That,” he growled, waving away the offending bottle, “will certainly not help me seek the key to the old feast, where I might perhaps find my appetite again!”

Thus began my education on Champagne.

Some California vintners have tried to appropriate the Champagne name over the past couple decades and slap it on their bottles of sparkling wine, but the 2006 Agreement between the United States and the European Community on Trade in Wine slaps them back. Violating the agreement is an international crime.

If it’s not from the Champagne Region of France, it’s not Champagne. Unfortunately, thieves prior to the agreement were grandfathered in.

As is normal fare during discussions in the wee hours at the Chaparral Institute, the conversation eventually wandered into the infinite complexities of the chaparral. “Ah, the maquis!” Arthur declared as he began describing the wonderful days he had as a kid, wandering through the Mediterranean shrublands back home in France. “At least you Americans haven’t tried to steal the maquis.”

“I’m afraid it’s worse,” I replied with a sense of melancholy. “Some have completely erased the name maquis in France, classifying it as chaparral. Do a search on the web. The Americanization of Mediterranean shrublands all around the world is pervasive.”

“Chaparral in France? Sacré bleu!” Arthur quickly downed his remaining Champagne and poured another. He stood up in the tub and raised his drink. With steam wafting up from his naked torso in the evening air, his words became infused with surreal, mythical energy. “The maquis is southern France! The maquis gave cover to the French Resistance as they sabotaged the Nazi war machine, hence their name, the Maquis! Long live the Maquis!”

“Yes!” I proclaimed with my own raised glass, standing up to meet Aurthur’s. “Long live the Maquis!”

We both sat back down, but this time on the tub’s edge. The neighbor slammed shut their bedroom window.

“And if I may add in response to the blasphemers,” I said. “The chaparral is California! If it’s not growing here in the Floristic Province of California, it’s not chaparral. Long live the chaparral!”

We continued discussing all things chaparral, all things French, until the eastern sky began to brighten with an orange glow and the Spotted Towhees colored the morning air with their calls.

Maps: The California Floristic Province and the Champagne region in France. California map source, Conservation International.

The following day, we renewed our spirits with French mimosas, the left-over baguette, and huevos rancheros, the archetypical chaparral breakfast.

Pondering the remains of eggs, chili, and bread on my plate, I returned to our Maquis-inspired conversation and expressed my angst over the widespread nature of chaparral illiteracy. “My gawd, Arthur, people don’t even know how to spell it, much less what it looks like!”

After listening quietly for awhile, still subdued from the evening’s goings-on, Arthur gently set his mimosa on the breakfast table, placed his warm hand on my arm, leaned forward and offered whispered advice. He warned me not to entrust my well-being to those I can not control, least they bring out in me, “the dreadful laugh of the idiot.” He then placed his hand over his heart and said, “La charitè est cette clef – Charity is key.”

Arthur’s Stoic wisdom reminded me what I had learned in the past, but had allowed to be forgotten during my momentary lapse – allowing inner demons free rein to determine one’s reactions is not the path to happiness. Taking the needed breath, I channeled my energy over the next few days into sending constructive messages to sources on the web that were, shall we say, less than informed about the world’s diverse native shrublands.

However, before revealing the results of our effort to engage the offending parties in a friendly manner, we felt it would be entertaining to reveal the depth of chaparral illiteracy one can encounter on the web, even from entities that should know better.

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Where Has All the Chaparral Gone, Long Time Misidentified

We’ve never been bothered that Chaparral Boats and The High Chaparral television series were usually the top search results when searching the web for the word chaparral. After all, boats and Hollywood are much more popular than shrubs. What chapped our hides was what followed after – a plethora of sites filled with misconceptions and blasphemous errors.

Worse, the blasphemy had metastasized across the entire internet as websites duplicated the errors of other websites, ad nauseam, multiplying like empty bottles of Cooks Brut after a bridal shower gone bad.

Let’s first establish a baseline – what genuine chaparral actually looks like.

Genuine Chaparral made in California. This photo was taken near Lake Hodges in San Diego County in 2013, twenty-three years after the 1990 Paint Fire.

Now, let’s examine how many of the websites in the top ten search results identify chaparral.

Photos: “We aren’t in chaparral anymore.” Landscapes mistakenly identified as chaparral in the top ten internet searches. 1) A weedy, struggling oak woodland from ThoughtCo. 2) A grassy hillside from World Atlas. 3) A conifer forest from Bioexpeditions. 4) Another weedy grassland also from Bioexpeditions. 5) A lush forest from Eartheclipse.

How can this kind of thing happen? All we can come up with is that these folks mistakenly thought every plant community within every Mediterranean climate zone across the world is somehow the same and should be called chaparral, regardless of what chaparral actually is. Or, perhaps the error was made way back in the early days of the web and has just been repeated robotically?

Chaparrals!

Then we have the perversion of the King’s English by the pluralization of chaparral to chaparrals!

Chaparral is defined in the English language as an uncountable noun, meaning it is grammatically incorrect to make it plural because chaparral is not quantifiable, just like the words biology, lava, or rice. One doesn’t say there are many lavas in volcanoes, rices in restaurants, or biologies in school… or chaparrals wherever!

Yes, there are five Mediterranean shrublands in the world, but each has its own uncountable name: the maquis in southern France; the matorral in central Chile; the fynbos in South Africa; the kwongan in Australia; and the chaparral in the California Floristic Province.

Unfortunately, a horde of websites and publications have joined the pluralization crusade and decided that all Mediterranean shrublands across the world shall hereby be called by the name used to identify native shrublands in California – chaparral. Hence, we get completely nonsensical sentences like this one: “Chaparrals can include forests, shrublands, grasslands, and savannas, depending on their location and topography.” The same site goes on to claim that, “savanna or grassland chaparrals are located in central California.”

Grassland chaparral? Maybe they mistook small mounds of perennial grasses for shrubs?

We shudder at the thought of doing the same with the word France in a conversation with Arthur. You know, calling all wine growing regions in the world, France, as in there are quite a few Frances out there, like the Napa Valley, Temecula, and the Santa Ynez Valley Frances. And of course, the common beverage found in the Frances is champagne. So many champagnes in the world! Speaking of a season in hell.

Jackals, Goats, and Thick Bark

The inevitable consequence of amalgamating all the Mediterranean climate zones together as “chaparrals,” beyond the lousy English and the misclassifications, is the elimination of regional identities and the unique biodiversity found in each of those regions.

For example, exotic animals such as jackals and Bezoar goats are listed as characteristic species of the chaparral on several chaparral biome sites. The jackal (Canis aureus) – the animal, not the film with Bruce Willis – is an opportunistic carnivore found in southeastern Europe and the Middle East. We’re not sure if jackals are partial to shrubby patches in Syria, but you won’t see them roaming the chaparral covered mountains above Santa Barbara.

Other bizarre factoids accumulate throughout these bastions of chaparral illiteracy. The Bioexpedition site that identifies non-native grassland as chaparral also claims chaparral plants have “heavy bark.” We’re not sure where that one came from, but perhaps since the site also identified a conifer forest as chaparral, perhaps they are thinking of the bark on big trees?

Not surprisingly, most of these sites also get the chaparral fire story wrong.

Photos: The bark on chaparral shrubs is notoriously thin. Paper thin manzanita bark peals off at the beginning of the growing season, nearly exposing the vital cambium layer beneath. Last photo shows what heavy bark looks like, on a pine in a Sierra Nevada alpine forest. Note explorers for scale. Photo credit for first photo goes to David Hogan (with his hand).

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There’s Hope: The Kids of Massachusetts

After sending off our notes to the questionable websites, and not hearing back, we sent a friendly reminder. We finally got a nibble. We first heard from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Barbara, California, that had the following statement about chaparral animals on their site made for kids:

“The animals are all mainly grassland and desert types adapted to hot, dry weather. A few examples from California are: coyotes, jack rabbits, mule deer, alligator lizards, horned toads, praying mantis, honey bees and ladybugs.*

So, chaparral animals are all just a bunch of migrants from grasslands and deserts? Regardless, the list of animals is more characteristic of the critters one would find in a rural neighborhood, not an intact chaparral stand. The inclusion of non-native European honey bees, and the improper common name for horned lizards (they’re not toads) adds insult to injury as native bees and the coastal horned lizard are becoming increasingly rare.

*(Addendum: Staff at NCEAS let us know shortly after the publication of this essay that they removed the chaparral biome page with the erroneous statement).

Unfortunately, the statement remains on a bunch of other sites, waiting to be innocently picked up by students just trying to do the best they can on their assignments, such as the kids who produced Biomes of the World. Educational websites, the ones that should know better, add to the chaos: Animal Corner, Quizlet, and Sage Answers.

Curious minds want to know, where did this misinformation originate in the first place? Turns out, it likely came from the Blue Planet Biomes website created by a dedicated group of 6th graders.

The folks at West Tisbury School on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, helped us figure this all out with a kind note that explained their students had constructed their website back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The purpose of the project was “to teach students the power of the Internet as a tool for both communication and learning, and how to use this tool while at the same time express their scientific/environmental knowledge in a fun way.”

The “About” page on the Blue Planet Biomes ends with the suggestion, WHEN IN DOUBT, GO THE NICE ROUTE.

That’s the kind of school any parent would want their children to attend.

Although the Blue Planet Biomes site has not been maintained for a couple decades, it has been updated to newer website standards. It’s legacy status on web has contributed to it being ranked near the top of any search for the word chaparral.

The West Tisbury folks promised to do what they could to correct the errors as soon as they could.

So, What’s the Big Deal?

We suppose the final question here is, why do we care so much and spend so much energy trying to help the world get the chaparral story right?

Well, misconceptions are so pervasive about the chaparral that they have a tendency to find their way into public policy. Which partially explains why we are suing Cal Fire. The outfit is still plagued by the old rancher mentality – the demon brush must be removed.

After trying for nearly 20 years to help Cal Fire correct their misconceptions, we’ve given up with the emails, the letters, and the meetings. Our first hearing before the judge will be September 7, 2023.

Knock, knock. Please let the truth in. The Wrentit… the voice of the chaparral.