Most of us from California are aware of the bush or bush-like tree called Manzanita.  These plants, of which there are several species, are characterized by smooth, orange-to-dark reddish bark, and brittle and hard branches.  A reply to my recent Pacific Madrone Blog-post prompted this post ...and yes, manzanitas are related to Pacific Madrone with all of them falling into the family Ericaceae.

Five species of manzanita (genus Arctostaphylos) are found on the University of California's Hopland Research & Extension Center.  Of those five species there are two that have distinct subspecies forms... and if you look at the common names they include: hoary manzanita, Sonoma manzanita, Eastwood manzanita, Stanford manzanita, white-leafed manzanita, and (common) manzanita.

As with the Pacific madrone, the manzanitas also shed the outside bark layer this time of year, but rather in smaller tight curls as the photo shows.  This curled bark has been used medicinally by Native Americans as a tea for nausea and upset stomach.

Being one of the smallest snake species in the North Coast, the Sharp-tailed Snake (Contia tenuis) is easily overlooked, and sometimes the backyard gardener thinks it just an earthworm of some kind.  The sharp-tailed snake is usually associated with oak woodlands over much of its range, but can also be found in coniferous forests, open pine forests, and chaparral brushlands.  Small in size, as you can see from this photo of one on a madrone tree leaf, adults typically only reach 8 to 12 inches in length, and juveniles can be only 3 to 8 inches in length.

The food for this snake consists almost entirely of small slugs, and reported observations from captivity note that the hard, sharp-pointed tail spine is used as an anchoring hook in the substratum when a captured slug attempts to pull away to escape the snake's grasp. Little is known about the reproduction of this species, but preliminary data shows that the female lays one to five eggs in early summer and they hatch in late summer/early fall.

Herpetologists (those who study reptiles and amphibians) from Oregon have taken notice of certain individuals from the forested mountains of southwestern Oregon and northern California (around the Siskiyou Mountain range) have much longer tails and different scaling on the tails and these may actually be a soon-to-be-recognized different species of snake than the typical sharp-tailed snake. The "normal" sharp-tailed snake is secretive but fairly common at the UC Hopland Research & Extension Center.

First described to modern science in 1813-1814 in Flora Americae Septentrionalis, the Pacific Madrone (Arbutus menziesii) is a broadleaf evergreen tree with reddish-orange bark that annually peels away on mature wood, leaving a light green satin-like sheen.  The species name was given in honor of the Scots naturalist, Archibald Menzies, who accompanied George Vancouver's voyages of exploration.

After the annual "bark-peeling", which occurs this time of year, the exposed wood feels smooth and cool to the touch.  Although drought tolerant and relatively fast growing, the species is currently declining through most of its range because of dominant seral stage change (conifers out-competing the madrones in mixed forests as a result of fire suppression), increasing development pressures, alterations in natural drainage flows, and occasional markets for hardwood flooring.

Mature trees and stands are found at the UC Hopland Research & Extension Center, as well as recently established stands within the last twenty years or so.

Continuing from yesterday's post, the lizard malaria parasite study at the UC-Hopland Research & Extension Center is the longest study of a natural, non-human malaria parasite to date, and on-going research continues to uncover new, unanswered questions.  Led by Dr. Jos.J.Schall at the University of Vermont, and now in collaboration with Dr. Anne Vardo-Zalik at the Pennsylvania State University - York, new research questions regarding parasite/vector genetics hope to uncover the mystery behind the parasite's transmission cycle.

The malaria parasite has four major rounds of reproduction during its life cycle, two in the lizard and two in the sand fly.  In the lizard, asexual reproduction occurs first in fixed tissues and then proceeds repeatedly in the red blood cells of the lizard.  During this asexual stage, some of the parasite form gametocytes, the sexual transmission stages of the parasite, which are picked up during a blood meal by the sand fly vector.

Here you see a magnified photo of one of the sand flies of the genus Lutzomyia. Female sand flies lay their eggs in the feces of California ground squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi) and thus the importance to this research of maintaining healthy ground squirrel populations at HREC. (written by Dr. Anne Vardo-Zalik with more to follow in future posts)