I’ve blogged about toyon before, but here’s something new: The plant has been used as a treatment for Alzheimer’s by indigenous people of California, and 2016 research backs this up. Toyon contains compounds that are known to protect the blood-brain barrier, prevent the infiltration of inflammatory cells into the brain and prevent neuronal damage. This plant medicine may provide new leads for drug therapy in the disease. Cool!
I learned a new word, and botanical term. Stipule. If something has stipules, it is stipulate (adjective).
The verb stipulate, meaning to make an agreement or covenant to do or forbear anything; to contract; to settle terms; to bargain, comes from the Latin stipulus meaning firm, which also has roots in stipes, a trunk.
So ultimately both uses of stipulate come from the same trunk, but have very different meanings. I love etymology.
Since the oaks finished flowering, I’ve been checking on the baby acorns at every opportunity. The valley oaks have the lead at this point; they will eventually be much larger than the coast live oak acorns so that’s not surprising. It’s fun to peek among the leaves and see what I can spot — not every oak produces flowers/acorns every year so it’s a bit of a treasure hunt.
I have lived within an hour’s drive of Conejo Valley Botanic Garden for decades. How is it that I never visited until the other day? What a lovely place! What other nearby natural joys am I missing out on?
It was a delight to come upon an unfamiliar, yet local, oak tree, Quercus tomentella. This species is a relict. Though it is now limited to the offshore islands, it was once widespread in mainland California, as evidenced by the many late Tertiary fossils of the species found here. The tree in the gardens is young (planted 1995). All going well, it should grow two and a half times this high. Live long and prosper, Island Oak!
Further to my post of March 29, it looks like the macadamia is pregnant!
Correction on a previous blog post, and an attempt at a comic-style nature journal page (probably only entertaining to me). A reminder that sometimes we see what we want to see.
UPDATE 5.6.23: I incorrectly showed the position of the female flowers. See this post.
It promises to be a great year for acorns around here! Most of the coast live oaks are currently sprouting thousands of yellow fingers, male flowers on their long catkins. Their female counterparts are hard to see, but if you look closely you can find them wedged in the angle between leaf and branch.
California’s oak woodlands sustain higher levels of biodiversity than virtually any other terrestrial ecosystem in the state. More than 300 species of birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals depend on oak woodlands for food and shelter, and that doesn’t count the many hundred species of insects, spiders, mosses, lichens and fungi.
Like so many other habitats, oak woodlands are under severe threat from development and climate change. But for this year, at least, we can look forward to a healthy acorn crop. Yay!
Experimenting with stencils and mark-making, à la Esté MacLeod.
The myoporum thrips is an invasive species that’s causing a lot of damage to Myoporum laetum and M. pacificum plants in landscapes and nurseries along the California coast. We have five M. laetum trees alongside our driveway; one of them has been infested with this insect for a couple of years now.
Last year we tried introducing lacewing larvae to the tree for natural pest control, but we had storms soon afterwards and never saw evidence of adult lacewings. I’d like to try that again this year, after the winter rains are done.
The thrips can kill even well-established trees so it would be good to get them under control.
They say the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The second-best time, in our case, is five years ago. We’re happy to see flowers on the macadamia for the first time; here’s hoping that they pollinate successfully. We do have a lot of bees in the yard, so there’s reason to be optimistic.
The macadamia is native to rainforests in south east Queensland and northern New South Wales, Australia. (It is not native to Hawaii, as many people think.) Our variety (Cate) was developed here in Malibu, and suits a more Mediterranean climate.
hashiworks 