The Santa Monica Mountains, one of the Transverse Ranges located in Southern California, are in the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of the California Floristic Province. This ecoregion has two predominant ecosystems, with three primary plant communities: * the California coastal sage and chaparral, with coastal sage scrub along the coast, * the California montane chaparral and woodlands, with chaparral and California oak woodlands as the mountains rise and recede from the coast and descend into the interior valleys.