Aliso & Wood Canyons 1

Posted on September 3, 2003 in Biomes Hikes and Trails Photos The Orange

Learning the name of the trees and shrubs that I photograph is a matter of pride, which the nuns taught me was a sin but I still fall into it. When we climbed the Valido Trail enroute to Aliso Peak, I saw several twisted woody shrubs that stood not more than a foot taller than myself. They weren’t scrub oaks, toyon, sugar bushes, or any of the chaparral plants that I knew. I photographed several both on the way up and the way back. The bushes sprang from the ground as if each branch were it’s own person struggling to get my attention. They grew in the red sand that had been worn off the San Mateo formation and mixed with a few generations of vegetable detritus until it could suit and sustain stockier shrubs.

Being curious, I clipped a twig and stuffed it in my map case for later identification. It took an hour of browsing through web sites (thank the Universe for this list!) and reading in Raven’s Native Shrubs of Southern California before I decided that I was looking at the leaves of ceanothus megacarpus, an identification which is like throwing goldenrod pollen in the monitor-wearied eyes of my readers. Calling it “big-pod ceanothus” doesn’t help much either. I feel, however, that I have found a common ground with all the other people out there who care about such things. I can talk now with botanists and they will know the bush of which I speak.

The poet in me, on the other hand, feels dissatisfied. “Big-pod?” he says. “Is that the best name you have for it? How dull these scientists be!” Of course, the cowboys who rode through this country probably didn’t name it at all, regarding it as just another nuisance that required that they wear chaps. I feel that the plant deserves a more colorful name worthy of repetition. For this reason, I dub it “Nyarlathotepia” or simply “gnarly bush”.

I think doug the Mute Troubadour would like that one. What do you think, doug?

Click on the image to see more of these strange shrubs.