This has flowers and fruit at the same time (NOW at the UC Botanical Garden). In its native habitat, it has flowers and fruit all year long. I'll have to watch this one and see if it does, too. Can you tell how bumpy the surface of the fruits are? Some people put it in a separate genus because of that. Plants in the Arctostaphylos genus are supposed to have smooth fruit. But they both have those distinctive urn-shaped flowers.
As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I studied Conservation of Natural Resources. I took a couple of entomology classes and became very interested in insects. After I graduated, I held several jobs working with bugs: in the fields of central California, the forests of Connecticut and Idaho, and the labs of Berkeley. Then I went to grad school and studied entomology at UC Riverside and UC Berkeley (back in the olden days when UCB had an entomology department). When my kids were little, I wanted to share my love of insects with them, so I started a butterfly garden before butterfly gardens were popular. Then of course, their teachers asked me to bring caterpillars into the classroom and I started doing classroom presentations. I do presentations in elementary schools, provide teacher trainings, teach adult school classes, and bring live insect specimens to garden fairs. My book is perfect for helping elementary school kids learn about butterflies.
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