Call of the Galls
Standing sentinel near the highest point in the East Bay Regional Park District, an ancient blue oak is our window into a spectrum of life in the orbit of one grand tree.
Botany
Hard Time to Be an Oak
About one-eighth of California's land area is covered in oak woodlands. Despite that vast acreage, it's hard to be an oak in California. Threats to oak survival include the effects of fire management, increased pressure from booming rodent and deer populations, disease, drought, competition from exotic plants, and the largest threat of all, development...
Dinosaur Plants
While living dinosaurs are nowhere to be found in California these days, you can see recognizable descendants of plants that lived with them--right here in the modern Bay Area.
Sudden Oak Death Blitz
The deadly plant disease known as sudden oak death (SOD) has spread to 14 coastal counties, and according to UC Berkeley’s Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab, the continuing epidemic threatens the survival of tanoaks, an ecologically important native tree, as … Read more
World’s Smartest Molds
Watch out for these unusual creatures next time you’re walking in a wet forest.
Book Review: California’s Fading Wildflowers
by Richard A Minnich, University of California Press, 2008, 344 pages, $49.95. This scholarly book by a UC professor of earth sciences surveys historical observations of California flora and compares theories about the original pre-European vegetation and how it has … Read more
Book Review: Nature’s Beloved Son
by Bonnie J. Gisel with images by Stephen J. Joseph, Heyday Books, November 2008, 256 pages, $45.00 John Muir is best known as a mountaineer and wilderness advocate, but he was also a serious scientist who studied the geology, zoology, … Read more
Fall of the Buckeye Ball
The dramatic fall silhouette of the California buckeye shows off its giant seeds, that largest of any of our native plants.
Naturalist’s Notebook: There’s More to Poison Oak
Get a few rash ideas about poison oak!
Berries of the Forest
The classic image of a redwood forest is one of stately tall trees, dense shade, and lots of green. The columnar trunks of the giant trees draw our gaze up to the high canopy, but if we follow them down to the forest floor instead, in summer months we may find unexpected points of brilliant color. These are the colorful fruits (mostly berries) of the smaller plants that live in the shelter of the big trees.
