Gabilan manzanita facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Gabilan manzanita |
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| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Arctostaphylos
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| Species: |
gabilanensis
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Arctostaphylos gabilanensis is a rare type of manzanita plant. It's also known by its common name, Gabilan manzanita. This special shrub grows only in a small area of California.
Where It Lives
The Gabilan manzanita is a plant that is endemic to California. This means it grows naturally only in California and nowhere else in the world.
It is found in two separate groups of plants. These groups are in the Gabilan Range. This mountain range is on the border between Monterey and San Benito Counties. Scientists first described this plant in 2004. They found the first plant near Fremont Peak in 2002.
This plant lives in a type of habitat called chaparral. Chaparral is an area with tough, woody shrubs. The Gabilan manzanita is considered vulnerable. This is because it is very rare. One group of plants has only about 30 individual plants. The other group spreads over a large area, about 1000 hectares, but the plants are far apart.
What It Looks Like
Arctostaphylos gabilanensis is an upright shrub. It can grow from a small bush, about one meter tall, to a tree-like plant, up to five meters tall.
Its bark is a medium or dark red color. The small, young branches have soft, fuzzy hairs on them.
The leaves are waxy and gray-green. They can be up to 3.5 centimeters long and 2.4 centimeters wide. The leaves are oval-shaped. They also have a small, earlobe-shaped part on each side of the leaf stem.
The plant's flowers grow in a cluster called an inflorescence. This cluster is shaped like a panicle. The flowers are white or pink. They are shaped like cones or urns. Each flower is about 6 to 8 centimeters long.
After the flowers, the plant grows fruit. The fruit is a round, reddish-brown drupe. A drupe is a fruit with a hard pit inside, like a cherry or a peach. The Gabilan manzanita fruit is about 1 to 1.5 centimeters wide.
See also
In Spanish: Arctostaphylos gabilanensis para niños
