Lynn Bohs and John Sperry took Tony Frates and me to see a natural oak hybrid on the foothills above Dry Creek. This is probably a relic from warmer times, perhaps 5000 years ago, when the Canyon Live Oak (Quercus turbinella) survived this far north - today its typical habitat is in the  southern part of the state. Hybrids between this evergreen species and our familiar Scrub Oak (Quercus gambelii) may have survived all that time as long-lived clones that simply keep sprouting from the roots if the plant gets damaged or burned.

Leaves of the hybrid remain green much longer than those of the Scrub Oak, setting it in sharp contrast during late Fall. These photos, taken today, show the small hybrid clone at the edge of a normal clone that has lost all its leaves. Several hybrids are known with varying degrees of resemblance to the two parent species. It turns out that by chance some of the local images on Google Earth were taken at about this time of year, and the tree we visited is easily picked out as the greenest one at the southern end of the patch. Tony photographed leaves of the two parent species (not the actual parent plants!) and the hybrid: