Dataset: Variation in leaf reflectance spectra across the California flora partitioned by evolutionary history, geographic origin, and deep time

We collected leaf reflectance data from plants in a common garden where plants from across California are grown. We focused on 10 regions of the California Floristic Province represented at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden (RPBG). During the summer of 2020 and the early-fall of 2021, we visited RPBG with a back-pack spectroradiometer (ASD Fieldspec 4 and Fieldspec Pro) with an attached leaf clip and plant probe with its own light source (part number A122327). From each accessible plant we collected leaf-level reflectance spectra (380 to 2500 nm, 3 nm in the VNIR, 10 nm in the SWIR) from ~3 representative leaves). This dataset includes 631 region-by-species mean leaf-level reflectance spectra, both in raw reflectance as well as subjected to Continuum Removal.