I still haven’t gone to sleep & now the freaking roosters are up—gossiping with the waning moon & some guy is arguing with me about Agnès Varda. Really? Varda’s niece, a Hungarian filmmaker used to stay with her uncle Jean on the Charles van Damme ferry in Sausalito. I had posted on someone’s site a video clip, that I was at one of those famous Jean Varda parties as a child, and it seemed familiar, and one of them must’ve been Agnès—as she was familiar too. This guy decided to argue with me saying that it wasn’t possible. I said, I beg to differ, it was MY MEMORY...and I went from there, growling. We worked it out but it sure made me hopping mad. How typical of a guy to mansplain and attempt to erase or negate someone’s comment. Well, as you well know, I’ll have none o’ that, now.
Meanwhile, the chickens were already up and crowing. No hope of retrieving lost sleep. Whenever the chickens see me near my car they come galumphing, listing from side to side like drunken sots, especially if I melodiously croon Chickens! and say BuckBucks. Because, well, food. Handsome Pele and his girls. Alpha flock. Except for the dingbat silkie who doesn’t know the front end of the chicken from the back end. No danger there of him passing on his genes.
A lot of people were up at 3 AM, it was a virtual Facebook pajama party. Gary Glazner, Margaret Maughan, and on the other side of the world, my Irish cousins were even chiming in. It was quite the night. Meanwhile Ken Bullock was also up, but then, he’s my resident nightowl, and we were trading Cornish insults as our wont because it was, and still is St. Piran’s Day. Gool Piran da dheugh why oll!
I also I had a long, if busy, day yesterday. I edited several month’s worth of photos, and then made small photo albums for the California Native Plant Society, with several needing IDs from its sister group, California Invasive Plants. So my mind was going like a race car. My daffodil post came from this planty intersection, as did the pond turtle story. I thought I was done for the day. But like Steve Jobs saying, wait, there’s one more thing....
The most astonishing post of all was of some mistletoe I had taken a photo of, still attached to a branch with leaves, and a Cazadero biologist was more interested in the attached oak leaves than the mistletoe. He said the oak was a hybrid, an Oracle oak.
Unfortunately some mistletoe was an invasive legacy introduced by Luther Burbank. But I was gobsmacked. Hybrid oracle oaks are rare, and are usually not a coastal phenomenon.
Suddenly I cold actually see what he was talking about—the leaves were hybrid, not deeply lobed like a black oak, but with little spines like a live oak, but the leaf was not cupped or curled like a live oak Why didn’t I notice this when I first found the mistletoe? I was too busy looking at the mistletoe and not the oak. Well, it was December.
Understand that I am a ballpark amateur in the realm of native plant ID. I can a get close ID, but I can’t tell the difference between subspecies. I can’t really hone in like the pros. Why I joined the group in the first place was to learn. I was expecting a simple answer. The universe did not comply.
Once I was content with knowing if an oak tree was a Coast Live Oak, or if it was a deciduous one. My mind stopped there. End of story. Sure I could say valley oak, or black oak, and I knew that there are nine kinds of oak trees in California—but did I know the difference? Not really. I barely knew all the interior oaks.
Well, this has certainly been an interesting and productive twinned goosechase, curtesy of Luther Burbank, and apparently, the wind. Expecting a simple ID, I got way more than I bargained for. Steep learning curves. And I guess I needed to post my mistletoe find under invasive plants vs native ones. interior live oak.
And suddenly I’ve entered the realm of multitudes of oaks that can hybridize with each other. My mind is reeling. My grandmother once told me that the word for door comes from the Irish duire, simultaneously meaning both door and druid, aka fios, or knowledge. You can’t ever shut that door once it opens.
And Geoffrey Davis, also enter into this conversation, obliquely, for he was always pointing out the black oaks in the valley...whereas I was only aware of our coast live oak, because that was the extent of my entire ecosystem on Arroyo Road. I think of him each time I pass a stand of black oaks. Then, of course, there was the Black Oak restaurant...
I can see where this is going....
my oak tree notes transcript TBF. That is, if I ever get around to writing about oak trees. So many ideas, so little time.
Is this an invasive mistletoe. It’s still attached to the oak branch. I read that if mistletoe is growing on deciduous oak, then it probably is native. If it’s growing on fruit trees, then it’s the European mistletoe introduced by Luther Burbank. This was found on the Joe Rodota Trail, between Sebastopol & Graton.
Roger Raiche wrote:;The oak or the mistletoe? The oak looks like oracle oak, but not sure about the mistletoe.
I said: I just assumed it was a valley oak, but the leaves aren’t very lobed. Isn’t an oracle oak a hybrid between coast and valley oak? Joaquin Hale said black oak...
Roger Raiche: No, those two are in separate groups that don't cross. It is usually a hybrid between black oak, Q kelloggi and interior live oak, Q wislizenii, both in the black oak group. Q kelloggii and Q agrifolia can also cross and can look rather similar.
me: Just wondering how interior live oak got to Graton. Well, it is an old railroad bed.
Roger: Well as mentioned, it could be the hybrid betw Q kelloggii - common in area, and Q agrifolia, also common in area. This is called Q Xchasei - you can look it up. But I don't think it is that hybrid. This hybrid is often not recognized in the Floras, so you have that as well.
There is Q wislizenii in West County, mostly I've seen it in chaparral, so there is a pollen source close enough. even after 40 years of looking at oaks, some still puzzle me.
Mo Hurley Well there are several possibilities to explain that. 1, the pollen, which is wind-borne - came from a few to many miles away; 2, some bird or animal , even human was carrying the seed and dropped it or planted it there; or 3, my ID is wrong (but being semi-deciduous is consistent with oracle).
I said: Before I joined the group I had no idea that there was even such a thing as a hybrid oak so this is all new to me. Of course I am intrigued by the name, Oracle Oak. especially with mistletoe growing on it. Roger Raiche My eyes are as big as clock towers with all this. Before I was content with oak. Either it’s coast live oak, or some type of deciduous one. Now this. A hybrid. I’m gobsmacked. Joaquin Hale But but but… it’s nowhere near the interior... We only have Coast Live Oak here.
Mo Hurley but learning is fun and you'll see even more now.... FLW
Joaquin Hale said: Mo Hurley it is usually Interior live oak plus Black oak=Oracle oak. that brings the question, does it get a different name? no idea. From Facebook.
Then there’s my creamcup post, with 350 likes and 10 shares, its taken on a life of its own—and I think I just accidentally documented the fossil remains of a former vernal pool...the creamcups and blennosperma growing in concentric rings. Make that 400 likes....who knew creamcups would be so popular? Pushing 450 Likes. World Facebook Like record for me. No, I take that back, my Brownie Mary photo was stolen, my name deliberately cropped off, and it has had thousands of likes. 35k on one site alone. Too depressing for words.
No comments:
Post a Comment