#coast live oak

[pointandshooter]

coast live oak

National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, Washington, DC

photo: David Castenson

[rinibayphoto]

[pickleweed2]

Trinity River along highway 96, before it's meeting with the Klamath

Weitchepec, California

[jenfoundabug]

Gorgeous October thorn moth (Tetracis jubararia) I found while camping in Northern California a few months ago. These leaf mimics in the Geometridae family reach adulthood sometime in the fall (August - November depending on the locality), making their brown camouflage all the more clever. As a bonus, the serrated edges of their wings resemble the leaves of the live oak trees, which are common around here. Live oak picture, for your reference. Not brown, but you get the idea. They're evergreen, but shed old brown leaves fairly regularly, particularly in the fall.

[littleguydrawings]

A scientific illustration of some oak leaves I did for an application. The shading on both is done with stippling! Back home, all we had were coastal live oaks. When I went off to college, I was so surprised to learn that these big rounded leaves were also from oak trees! So different from the spiky little bastards I know.

[crudlynaturephotos]

[punkass-diogenes]

Plant journal

[inkymink]

Coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) and neighbors. Green Valley (Fairfield area), California. 14 Nov 2021.

[bluebelly-sun-serpentine]

One of my favorite oak individuals. A coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) who's had some run-ins with ivy and misteltoe, still making the best of the steep hillside – with last fall's green acorns – and the flowers growing at their feet this spring. I'm not great at identifying bulb flowers (everything looks like a daffodil to me), so if you know who these guys are please share their name. Narcissus what? I'll take any kind of common name, too - these are just as important.

This oak grows near a group of really strong buckeyes - I'm pretty sure they're Aesculus californica. I've always thought both coast live oaks and buckeyes have the most beautiful skeletons - agrifolia branches in curls, and there's something so compelling about bare winter buckeyes before they send out new leaves. Both feel so solid. The trees in my area have been struggling over the last few years, and a long rainy season has been very welcome. I truly thought it was over when we had that hot spell, but then we got some strong showers of the last few days. I feel like I've heard more frogs this season than I have in the whole of the time we've lived here.

I recently had another bereavement (a few too many in too few years). It's come at a bad time, with too much to do. I'm not sure what I'd do if I weren't able to go out and see and hear things growing. Red shouldered hawks use these buckeyes and oaks to scan for squirrels and woodrats. I found a tiny agrifolia sapling growing in a forgotten outdoor planter on my porch, and will have to decide where to put them and how best to care for them when they outgrow that. Crows hassle ravens in the redwoods up the street - underneath the redwoods is a damp skirt of captured fog. Probably there are tardigrades luxuriating there. I have a warm shelter when it's wet outside. Not everything is grief, or aggrieved, or grieving. Probably in different circumstances I'd look for some other way to prove that, but it's helpful to be able to just walk outside and see so many lives turning on and over.

[emperornorton47]

Live oak

[kinningnessie]

who wants to learn about uhhhhhhhh. Plants of southern and baja california

[I.D. Two images. The first one is a map showing the distribution of coastal live oak (Quercus agrifolia) varieties agrifolia and oxyadenia. Quercus agrifolia var. agrifolia is along the coast of southern california from santa barbara county down into baja california. Quercus agrifolia var. oxyadenia is more inland and only in san diego and baja along the serra juarez. The second image is a page with pressed live oak leaves, a drawing of a cross section of a flower with all its parts labeled and a bunch of notes. At the top of the page is a timeline. "Precambrian, 4.6 billion years ago. Paleozoic, 540 million years ago, plants have evolved. Mesozoic, 245 million years ago (MYA). Cenozoic, 66 MYA to now." Below it are various notes on plants. "CO2 + water + sunlight ->chlorophyl-> glucose + oxygen. 80% of all plants are flowering (angiosperms) which evolved during the cretaceous period of the mesozoic era. Over 600 species of oak. Oaks are family Fagaceae. Oaks are dicots. Quercus agrifolia var agrifolia has less trichomes (fuzzy bottom of leaf) Quercus agrifolia var oxyadenua has thicker trichomes. They are part of the black oak subgenre (erythrobalanus). These two are part of the same subgenre and can therefore hybridize. Oaks are monoecius which means male and female flowers are on the same plant (as opposed to the dioecius jojoba). There are two classes of angiosperms, monocots and dicots. Monocots have flowers in multiples of 3, parallel leaf veins, taproot, stem vascular bundles scatterd, pollen with a single furrow or pore. Dicots have flower parts in multiples of 4 or 5, netted leaf veins, fibrous roots, stem vascilar bundles in a ring, pollen with 3 furrows or pores. End I.D.]

[shevahh]

Landscape Los Angeles Design ideas for a mid-sized industrial drought-tolerant and full sun backyard decomposed granite and wood fence raised garden bed in spring.

[eiochaidh-darachrugadh]

The Oak King, Green God of Agriculture, Spring & Summer, Light & Day, Fair Weather - Quercus agrifolia

The Holly King, Red God of Pastoralism, Autumn & Winter, Dark & Night, Fowl Weather - Heteromeles arbutifolia

[lemaquillage]

Industrial Landscape - Landscape

[fluentisonus]

fire damage 4 years on

[belinda-amy]

Living Room - Home Bar