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Another mystery manzanita from the old quarry at the Los Padres Dam.

It has a large, upright growth pattern; the leaves are erect and dull colored with rounded to wedge-shaped bases, the inflorescence is a panicle with sharp-pointed bracts. No fruit is currently present.

@morganstickrod has suggested that these oddballs may be related to the A. manzanita group and, while I'm not too familiar with A. manzanita, this certainly appears to match many of the A. manzanita characteristics that appear in the keys.

Wacky manzanita in an area of Arctostaphylos canescens and Arctostaphlos crustacea. No burl, blooming at same time as A. canescens. But the leaves are more strigose than felty, are oddly shaped and almost auriculate (A. andersonii characters?), and setose hairs can occasionally be found on the stems and petioles.

In the middle of a large mixed stand of A. tomentosa and A. hookeri, this individual stands out - mainly due to its tiny leaves. It is upright, 2+ meters tall, and has no visible burl (I was also unable to find a burl by digging with my fingers, but there are several large stems suggesting a deeply buried burl is possible). The stems are as red and smooth as the surrounding hookeri, but the twigs are white and nonglandular puberulent to tomentose (although there are minute black spots on some twigs suggesting some glandularity). The leaves are only 1-2cm long, strongly bifacial, abaxially tomentose, and sparsely hairy above. They are similar in color to the surrounding tomentosa (much duller than the hookeri). The raceme-like (0-1 branches) nascent inflorescence is pendant and minutely nonglandular hairy (similar to the twigs) with leaf-like, lanceolate bracts. It shows no sign of preparing to bloom, putting it out of sync with both the tomentosa (which is already blooming) and the hookeri (which is about to start). I only found one berry that wasn't hollow and it appeared to have a fused nut – although it could have just gotten stuck together as it decayed.

So is this some kind of cross-clade tomentosa/hookeri hybrid? A really unusual A. crustacea crinita with a hidden burl? Or just one of the many, many obligate seeders I've never heard of?

The leaf comparison photo has the subject plant on the left followed by a hookeri leaf and a tomentosa leaf. The third photo shows it growing side by side with hookeri.

Looks most to me like a. hookeri, except out of range AFAIK. Does not appear to be cultivated, there were similar plants on another roadcut to the south.

-burl not present
-tomentose, non-glandular hair on new growth
-extremely prostrate growth habit
-panicles extremely tiny (could not get in focus) with brown scaly bracts similar to a. hookeri, smaller than a. montana

Small mixed population of nevadensis, patula and viscida and some apparent hybrids. They didn't look like the nevadensis x viscida hybrids seen near by. Maybe patula involved? Very easy to get to these, they are right above Hwy 20 @sapienshane @morganstickrod

A. canescens x nevadensis ssp. nevadensis. Location is from memory, may be a little off, but they were right along the Happy Camp-O'Brien Rd. near the summit in plain sight. Both parent species next too hybrids. Area has recently burned. The road was closed this year. @sapienshane @morganstickrod

One of the most interesting hybrid swarms I have ever seen. Acres of extremely variable plants. A. nevadensis, mewukka, viscida, patula all present at this location. I've been trying to get Mike Vasey and Tom Parker to check out this spot for years! Not sure if any of the nevadensis is "pure" nevadensis. All of it seems to be integrated with other genes. Fairly low elevation for nevadensis for this region. A lot of other interesting plants also present at this location (Calochortus coeruleous, Calochortus nudus/minimus and hybrids between this one and coeruleous, Erythronium purpurescens - very low elevation for this one). @morganstickrod @dgreenberger