2024-11-17 El Corte de Madera Creek

Overall

Dominated by coastal redwood tree, douglas fir, and Tan Oaks. Peaceful and quiet place, trails covered by maple leaves, light water drippings rustling the trees. You can literally see the a piece of maple leaf dance in the air and elegantly drops on the ground.

Madrones are found on the top of the hills

with more sunshine exposure and absent from the valley. They are usually tall on the dense forest area, per my observation (also some section in Montebello trails). I found it hard to imagine how the bark turn into smooth new skin. Unlike Manzanita, their barks skin are quite thick and rather than a thin layer. Remains to be seen.

Tan Oaks

It's worth noting you can only find Tan Oaks, but not coast live oak, canyon life oak etc. Checking Wikipedia, it confirms with me speculation: they are shade-tolerant.  The range map shows distribution actually seems collide with Redwood very well. Name "Tan" might stem from the fact acorns contain lots of tannin.

Suspectible to Sudden Oak Death (SOD).

Reasons why it's different from true oak: male flower is upright catkin instead of pendulous. Producing lots of acorns, you can find many on the ground.

Evergreen huckerberry

Found many such bushes growing on the redwood stump. At one point, I thought this is their preferred growing location. Only after I started to see individuals growing on the ground as well.

Should be evergreen huckleberry. fruits are edible.  native people cultivated them in the wild.

Plants of CoastRedwood Region : huckleberry can grow in different environments, and sunnier areas would be sweeter. Fun fact, Mark Twin's famous book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the character names come from this plant because Mark likes the fruit so much... Few would realize that the boy is named after a fruit when reading in non English version..

Tafnion formation sandstone

Water/rain disolve the Calcite, and then evaporate cycling causing unevenness of calcite distribution. When outer side falls of crack, forming holes, further speed up the hole formation. 30myr, feels relevative young.

Misc

Heard some woodpecker sound on the way back, over the ridge, with 3 - 4 short pounds in a row.

Banana Slug with hole on the right side. This is the breathing hole.

Trying to come up with differences between Douglas Fir and redwood without looking at their leaves. (would be easy otherwise). My speculation/vague memory: douglas fir is more of branchless in the bottom/lower seciton.

Found some broad thin leaves tree/bush, found its unsual, well turns out it's just red elderberry