nakjoy's Journal

Blue Gum Eucalyptus- E. globulus\

key to group#: 1', 2', 3', 5', 8', 9', 13 ---> group 8

g8: 1', 3', 4', 16', 18', 20 ---> Eucalytus spp.

pg56: 1', 11 -----> Blue Gum

Myer Lemon tree:
1', 2', 3', 5', 8', 9', 13', 14', 15 ----> group 10

g10: 1', 2 ---> Citrus spp.

My girlfriend and I drove up CA highway 1 and pulled off at Hearst Memorial Beach/Estero Bluffs State Park. We walked right along the beach until we saw the pathway that heads up into the eucalyptus groves. This pathway leads you along San Simeon point, and then around it to the western face of the head·land. I took these images along the entire route: from the parking area to the Estero Bluffs trail (not sure what the actual name is, or if it even has a name).

Black Wattle: Acacia mearnsii
1', 2', 3', 6', 7' -- group 6
group 6: 1', 3, 4', 6 - Acacia sp.
pg. 21: key to sp.: 1, 2', 3', 4'

maiten tree: Maytenus boaria
1', 2', 3', 5', 8', 9', 13', 14', 15 - group 10:
group 10: 1', 2', 4 - maytenous boaria
pg: 82

Apple Tree
key: 1', 2', 3', 5', 8', 9', 13', 14', 15'- g. 11
group: 11: 1', 2', 6', 7, 8', 9', 10 - Malus spp.
page: 81

American Sweetgum:
key: 1', 2', 3', 5', 8', 9', 13', 14 - g. 9
group:9: 1', 3', 7', 8', 9, 10 - sweetgum: Liquidambar styraciflua
page: 76

I went further up the Mariposa Trail off the Irish Foothills nat reserve. So these pictures are from the Oak woodland; as you go up the trail, the plant community phases into chaparral. I feel like when you enter, you're in an oak woodland/riparian area (but the stream is intermittent). And then the ecotone between woodland and chaparral it a grassland area with annual grasses and flowers. I only ID the genus for some of my plants because I couldn't determine the specific sp. I thought maybe the Deervetch is Deerweed: Acmispon glaber. I could not determine which kind of checker-bloom the pink/purply flowering plant is.

First tree: Coast Live Oak
Key: 1', 2', 3', 5', 8', 9', 13', 14', 15: group 10
group 10: 1, Oak tree
pg. 101: Quercus agrifolia

second tree: weeping Bottlebrush
key:1', 2', 3', 5', 8', 9', 13 - group 8
group 8: 1, 2 ( bottlebrushes: Callistenmon spp.

My girlfriend and I wen t to find the trail entrance to Irish Hills, which is placed oddly in the middle of an upper-class suburb. Having plans to hike in the Santa Lucia area, we trekked pretty fast down a narrow path. I snapped pics of as many eye-catching plants. The bottom of the Polypody was super interesting to me and my girlfriend.

I am quarantining with my girlfriend and my best friend, so my best friend and I went to Cuesta Canyon Park to enjoy some nature that's right in our backyard. It's about 1.2 miles from my girlfriend's apartment. The weather was just right for a visit to the park (Am I supposed to be narrating like an actual journal entry?).
Nonetheless, Kylie and I went to Cuesta Park because I am familiar with the area; last quarter I had to do a presentation about the upper-creek part of SLO's watershed for my environmental rhetoric class. To be honest, I already knew most of the trees in the park because of the presentation. I wanted to breeze through the observations because I simply wanted to spend time soaking up the sun while making daisy-chain crowns with my best friend.

The Bay Laurel seems to be the focus of the picture you get after descending the concrete steps. It's a BIG ole tree. It's limbs stretch out across the creek, dipping low to it's surface. There are a few other bay trees in the park, but this one is the most prominent.

The sycamores are abundant in the park, they are giants. I took a picture of a sapling for comparison, I guess. IF I had to choose one leaf to wipe with, it would be a Platanus racemosa leaf. It's big and soft. I know the wide shot of the willows is kinda shitty, but they form in clusters and have relatively thin branches. Even with the naked eye, willows are hard to distinguish. I did get pretty nice pics of their fuzzy seed pods though!

I messaged my wilderness friends for the plant ID for French Broom: some of them are majoring in fields where they'd know this sort of information. Others are simply nature enthusiasts. Annie Meeder responded with "f**king french broom. Genista monspessulana. It's super invasive." I'm not sure if it's a tree or a shrub, but I took pictures of it because it was intriguing. So I figured "hey, why not make an observation about it?"

I'm pretty confident in my ID of the Quercus agrifolia. It was growing on a fence, so maybe it could have been scrub oak. But the leaves were more lush than scrub oak. And I will NEVER mistake identifying Toyon. The serrated edges on this tree could make due for a small weapon. The one I'm not too sure about is the Peruvian pepper tree... I've never encountered it before, but the pictures iNaturalist provided for comparison looked like a match.

I met up with my best friend, who had been exploring and enjoying the creek while I ran about, snapping twigs and pictures. We sat on the great lawn that makes up a good portion of the back half of the park. I showed her my pictures and cuttings and told her about the constructed pools in the creek to help precipitate steel-head tout spawning. Then we made little flower crowns and bouquet out of those white flowers that often appear in grass fields.