California Oak Savanna Explained

[@nightvisiongoggle4100]

I love it after the rain and everything is green. So beautiful.

[@Lazris59]

100%! I just wish it was like that more than just between Nov-Jan. I visited my GFs family in Three River's last Christmas. While driving around Lake Kaweah there were clouds hanging on the hill sides, the hill sides were SO GREEN. It made me think of what the rolling hills of Scotland might look like. Man it was beautiful, the disappearing foothills was just majestic and it made me miss home... but then I remembered it'll all be dead in a few months and 100+ degree heat

[@bhg123ful]

While I love the cool, lush, foggy central and northern California coast, there is something about the arid, semiarid and seasonally rainy landscapes of the Western US that just shouts "vastness" and space and evokes "frontier" something that is wrapped up in the mythology of the West. Besides when you get into local high mountains/sky islands, etc. or streamside riparian corridors and oases it makes those places even more special and unique.

[@thehapagirl92]

Speaking of the Chinese building the railroads, one of my exes who is half Chinese has a picture of his full Chinese ancestor working on the railroads up in NorCal. I’m Japanese, Chinese, German, and Russian and found that some of my ancestors I never met were in Japanese internment camps and Russian wars. Pretty crazy

[@bhg123ful]

I think I've been to that Chinese garden spot before. Yes in the early spring there were some great wildflower blooms there!

[@JRushHikes]

Great place to check out an Oak Savanah is going out to the valley in Fort Hunter Liggett in Monterey County.

[@Lazris59]

How interesting. I've always seen these biomes when I lived in Porterville but I never knew they were oak trees. I only found out these are valley oak trees this last Christmas. The crazy storms ended up dislodging a branch of one and it broke my windshield. Father in law called it a big "valley oak". I ended up Wikipediaing it and reading about them. California does have a long history with Chinese immigrants, they were a majority of the laborers. It's why SF has such a big vibrant china town. Eureka, where I live now, has some dark history regarding Chinese. There was a brawl where a councilmen was killed by accident. They ended up forcing all of the Chinese to leave. They were all attracted here as laborers for the logging industry... another hard labor job. The whole west coast has a lot of Asian influence. Seattle - International district. LA - Koreatown. It's just the other content we are closest to. I imagine the east coast has more European influence, such as NY - little Italy, Boston's Irish, etc. I guess the golden foothills are pretty in the own way, but to me living in the lush, green and very wet forests of northern California brings me joy and happiness everyday I commute to work. I love having all the foliage around me and coastal mist keeping everything cool and damp. It's very comfortable too as it's never above 80 degrees. Then again that's the lost coast micro climate effect. A 45 min drive into the mountains towards redding and it's easily in the 90s. I DO NOT MISS having weeks of 105 to 110 heat, going to work in it or leaving a nice comfortable AC'd store into that wall of heat... it never felt good. It is just getting cooked alive!!! lol. I worked a fire works booth a couple years.. my god was that torture.

[@roamingbenji]

Thanks for the comment! Sorry about your windshield. Last winter was definitely crazy. I am a big fan of the lush, cool environments as well. The coast of California is such a pleasant place with that marine air. Being near the coast feels so fresh!

[@jfjf-yn6wj]

Are all the grasses invasive?

[@AdamCarlson-br6dp]

oak savana is the white flower or the shrubs?

[@robertshunter]

The trees are oaks, and 'oak savanna' describes the overall mixed grassland ecosystem.