Coast live oak by Anita363 A photogenic specimen in the Santa Monica Mountains, The Grotto Trail. https://flic.kr/p/2jnekgt

Driving on the roads by Los Olivos and this tree in the field caught my eye. The California live oak is an evergreen tree that grows west of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The tree typically has a much-branched trunk and thrives in the coastal environment in full sun. #roadtrip #driving #california #fieldsofgold #tree #farm #land #outdoors #nature #oaktree #californiaoak #oak #coastliveoak #afewinterestingfacts (at Los Olivos, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFlgenhBpuQ/?igshid=6lk4kazjeoct

#HollenbeckCanyon with that classic California scenery. #QuercusAgrifolia #CoastLiveOak #Jamul #California (at Hollenbeck Canyon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwqehHdHo9T/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=10pfijm6grlc4

I recently got some feedback that apparently people actually ✨like✨ my enthusing about plants so that really nice to hear! 😳🙊🙈 🌱 Anyways new year new plant post (but seriously why isn't new year's day on the solstice? How did humanity fuck this one up?) and this time it is about Coast Live Oak: 🌳 Coast Live Oak is "live" because it does not drop its leaves in winter! (Plants that do loose their leaves are known as deciduous!) It is the oak that can be found throughout the Oakland CA hills and IMO really should be the leaf shape the city references in it's logo! (See my valley oak post for more on that flub up!) 🌱 Speaking of leaf shape, something I have noticed about this Oak IS that the amount of points on the leaf have to do with if the plant has ever been cut or bitten — my father pruned the lower limbs of an oak in our back yard once and the leaves returned so siky afterwards that I thought the tree was a holly! However the upper leaves where nothing had ever touched or eaten the tree are generally perfectly round little ovals, no spikes to speak of! 🌳 One of my favorite things about these trees is the number of birds they attract — between the acorns and the lichen on its bark (and the bugs hiding IN the lichen, too) these trees provide a lot of food to a huge variety of birds. I've seen 20 birds of 5 species in 15-20 minutes of sitting on my parents' tree-height back porch before! 🌱 Speaking of bugs, did you know that if birds can't find bugs they have nothing to feed their babies? This is part of why we can't naïvely pull out native plants and just put up feeders, baby birds need PROTEIN to grow, and bugs provide that, but bugs can only eat plants they have co-evolved with. "Exotic" plants from other regions of the world have different chemicals that kill off bugs if they bite, so they don't. So why your princess tree looks so perfect without a single nibbled leaf is… it's actually a f*cking Food Desert for the animals. Yikes. 🌱 Anyway, I guess I have a lot to say about these trees! Oaks are my favorite! :3 They've got a silhouette I can now recognize in an instant. 💚 #CoastLiveOak #Oakland #OakTree #Oak #Quercus #QuercusAgrifolia https://www.instagram.com/p/BsHwByPlkQc/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qoacdehg45sf

The big, dried thistles in the first pic remind me of miniature puffer fish.

After we left the recreated Chumash village, we saw what I think is a dark-eyed junco. And of course lots and lots of twisty-turny live oaks!

To be continued...

Destructive beauty or beautiful destruction? #naturewalk #bearsback #bearsD #rsm #coastliveoak #golfboys (at Rancho San Marcos)

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root: It is what you fear. I do not fear it: I have been there. #sylviaplath #quercusagrifolia #coastliveoak https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo2urMFBp_S/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=129xo0eeuazn8

Natural deer-sculpted #topiaries. #CaliforniaBayLaurel #CoastLiveOak #deerbonsai #deerpressure #deerorchard #orchardflora #vulturehill

This year’s #acorns sure have some interesting variations. #QuercusAgrifolia #CoastLiveOak https://www.instagram.com/p/BpDknnhHpEO/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=w05zoil26ej8