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Not all the oaks in California

Muller oak, Joshua Tree National Park, California; September 2014 The first naturally growing oak I saw in California was in Joshua Tree National Park, just south of Los Angeles. Not a grand old tree like the ones from eastern USA I’d seen in picture books, but a gnarly shrub fighting for existence alongside succulents and desert ephemerals. Huddled near a stand of the local pine tree, the piƱon ( Pinus edulis ), in the shadow of an ochre-coloured, rocky outcrop.  I'm pretty sure it was a Muller oak ( Quercus cornelius-mulleri ), with its spiny, leathery leaves, growing the way oaks do in this part of the Americas. Keeping low to the ground and doing all it can to conserve water. Until 1981, this species was considered a variant of another Californian species, Nuttall's scrub oak ( Quercus dumosa ).  Muller oak, Joshua Tree National Park, California; September 2014 Thomas Nutall, in case you were wondering, was a Yorkshire born biologist who travelled the length of the Missouri

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