Toyon - Heteromeles arbutifolia

In brief

Heteromeles arbutifolia, Rosaceae.

- Evergreen shrub or small tree
- Native to California and Baja California
- Flowers June and July
- Fruit a red pome held November to February

Where it grows

Chaparral and oak woodland.

When it blooms

It flowers in June and July, white and in flat clusters. The berries are the display, and they are a winter display.

Seed and fruit

A small red pome. Birds strip them through the winter, which is the point: the fruit ripens when there is nothing else on offer.

Here

Photographed heavy with fruit, and again on February 5, 2021 standing behind a stand of golden fleece gone to seed. In that one frame there are three plants doing three different things in the same week of February, which is the argument this whole site makes about the land.

Three plants, one week in February

Toyon still in berry, golden fleece gone to seed beside it, and both of them standing in a burn that is still growing back. Three things doing three different things in the same week of February, which is the argument this whole site makes about the land.

Toyon in red berry beside golden fleece carrying tawny seed heads, among burnt trunks

February 5, 2021.

Dense flat clusters of small white five-petalled flowers above glossy toothed leaves on red stalks

In flower, June 28, 2023.

The flowers, in June

Flat clusters of small white flowers, five petals each, above leaves that are simple, leathery and sharply toothed on red stalks. Elderberry blooms in the same weeks in clusters of the same shape, and its leaves are compound. That is the whole difference.

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