Silktassel, a dioecious shrub has two  kinds  of plant – male and female, each with its own kind of catkin – i.e this species has two “homes”, where di=two and oeci=home, creating the term dioecious.

The catkins start growing in late summer and consist of tightly packed fluffy bracts. During winter, the male staminate catkins elongate with “flowers” emerging from the sequence of fluffy bracts, before producing pollen. If one brushes against the catkins, powdery pollen spills out. Some of this pollen is seen in photos of the catkins. Bees and predatory ladybugs harvest the pollen.

(Silktassel – male staminate catkins)

(Silktassel – pollen on male catkins)

The much shorter female catkins, on the other hand, maintain the tightly packed bracts, from which the styles protrude.

(Silktassel – female catkins)

To help identify this plant, Garrya veatchii, the leaves had to be examined. According to Jepson, veatchii and elliptica have leaves covered in woolly hairs. The characteristics separating these two species are not very definitive, but having looked at photos of the two plants, the leaf shapes are different.

(Silktassel – underside of  leaves of Garrya veatchii)

The catkins on this winter-flowering plant are very intriguing. While observing the fluffy bracts, one wonders if the bracts duplicate the function of a woolly winter cap. When the male catkins elongate, the flowers are very airy with small vents that probably allow air movement to disperse the pollen. A curtain of catkins could also provide a porous wind break for pollen-seeking insects. Photographing the insects was frustrating because they kept disappearing behind the lacy drapes of staminate catkins.

(Silktassel – Ladybug)

Otherwise, autumn leaves have mostly fallen, leaving blue-gray skeletons of Blue Oak and white trunks of Sycamore. Newly flowering plants include more numerous Milkmaids, a scattering of Buttercups, one or two Fiddlenecks, and very few Bigberry Manzanita.

(Bigberry Manzanita)

Some notable birds were a pair of seemingly young Red-tailed Hawks along Figueroa Road (I keep hoping to see a Golden Eagle). One of Red-tailed Hawks was seen flying with legs extended, something I had only seen with paired White-tailed Kites – maybe many hawks do this? One can hardly fail to notice the Band-tailed Pigeons and Acorn Woodpeckers along Alisal Road, even while driving.

(Band-tailed Pigeon)

From the “meadow” on Figueroa Mountain, the views toward the ocean (always into the sun) are spectacular.

(Santa Cruz Island, Santa Ynez Mountains and Valley, Cachuma Lake & H154 – Click picture for larger image)

Learning by doing: having delved into the world of local botany for the first time in 2002 at a late age, when the only local plant I knew was California Poppy, photographing and writing about them helps to slowly assimilate the vast world of botany terminology — even if I don’t always get it right.

Slideshow

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