Most often associated with rich farmland, bountiful orchards, spreading cities, irrigation channels, and well-traveled highways, California's Great Central Valley and nearby Sierra Nevada Foothills have long hosted abundant, varied, and often surprising plant and animal life. Meet the pickleweed, which survives in intensely alkaline soil by concentrating the salty water on the tips of its branches; lentinus, a hairy-capped mushroom called "train wrecker" because it decomposes railroad ties; the river otter, which has nearly one thousand hairs per square inch of skin; and hundreds of other miracles that carry on their ancient lives in a much-changed environment. Overflowing with accurate yet fanciful illustrations, Magpies and Mayflies follows biologist Derek Madden as he explores the natural world of the Central Valley and Foothills. Book jacket.