pine forest dominated by sugar pine covers areas of the peak's north summit and the upper reaches of water courses on the north slope. Junípero Serra Peak and nearby Cone Peak sugar pine forests are isolated from the next sugar pine stands by 220 km. An interesting feature of this sugar pine population is the unexpectedly high frequency of a major gene for resistance to white pine blister rust. This fatal disease, caused by an exotic pathogen, has caused high mortality to sugar pine and other white pine in North America. Natural resistance in other sugar pine populations ranges from near 0% in the South Cascade Range to 8% in the southern Sierra Nevada; on Junipero Serra, it is 8.9%. No blister rust has as yet been reported in this stand. The Junípero Serra Peak pines are surrounded by a vast area of scrubby mixed hardwood forest and chaparral. Understory shrubs and herbs associated with the pine forest are also isolated from distant forests, and many of them differ from the nearby isolated montane species on Cone Peak. The most interesting disjunct is Cycladenia humilus var. venusta, which has one population under the pines on the summit of Junipero Serra Peak and three tiny colonies on Cone Peak. The type specimen of this variety is collected at the peak of Junipero Serra Peak. Mountain chickadee, common in southern California and Sierra Nevada montane forest, is present in the South Coast Ranges only in the Junipero Serra Peak and Cone Peak forests. Fire History Junipero Serra Peak has a long history of wildfires. Between 1640 and 1907 fires hot enough to produce basal scars on pines in a small isolated sugar pine forest in the Santa Lucia Range of central California occurred on average once every 21 years. Except for two small lightning fires that were quickly extinguished, no fires occurred in the pine forest after 1907 until the lightning-caused Marble Cone Fire burned the entire forest in 1977. This was the most intense burn recorded within the life of the present forest. It caused significant loss of pines, particularly within the 40 percent of the forest on the north summit above 1600 m elevation. Changes in forest composition resulting from the Marble Cone Fire suggest that several more fires following 50-75 year intervals may eliminate sugar pine forest above 1600 m on Junípero Serra Peak. More recently, the Dolan Fire