Seed collecting

Went seed collecting today to refresh the Nursery’s seed bank, especially for this years plants: CA sage brush, monkey flower, mountain mahogany, golden yarrow, goldenbush, piney-leaf goldenbush, and Juncus patens(?). The CA fuchsia was a bust… looks like it didn’t even bloom. The mountain mahogany seeds were scant, as prior years the tree’s looked like featured boa’s.

The Willow-Laurel loop is really a treasure chest of plants (thank you Sarah for this observation). Along Willow so much was dried up together, it was very difficult to determine identify plants.

The oak trees: scrub and coastal live, have acorns ....on the trees that were bearing. What determines if an oak will bear is a mystery. I saw at least 5 scrub Oak loaded with acorns. The acorns will be ready to harvest when they start to turn brown, and are easy to pull from the cap… probably in 3-6 weeks.

Scrub oak acorns:

Coastal live oak acorns: