Field journal

Toyon heavy with green berries

Woodland Hilltop

  • A leafy shrub with long, finely toothed leaves and reddish stems holds several dense clusters of small, hard green berries, with tall pines and a cloudy sky behind.

    Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) with its berries still green at the end of summer.

  • Looking up a slope thick with toyon shrubs hung with green berry clusters, toward a tall pine and oaks against a streaky blue and white sky.

    Toyon grows thick on parts of the hilltop slopes, below oaks and tall pines.

Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) on the slopes of Woodland Hilltop Arbory was hung with heavy clusters of hard green berries on the morning of September 18, under a partly cloudy sky. The shrubs grow thick on parts of the hilltop, over wood-chip mulch and below oaks and tall pines.

The berries ripen red later in the fall: by November, toyon on the hilltop was heavy with red fruit (there’s a photo on the site page).

Theme Monitoring biodiversity

All field journal entries More from Woodland Hilltop More on Monitoring biodiversity

More from Woodland Hilltop

  • At night, a black-and-white skunk with its bushy tail raised stands in short green grass beside a dirt track, lit by a bright beam, with its shadow on the track behind it. +1 photo

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Two skunks on a November night

    Two skunks crossed a grassy track on the hilltop at Woodland Hilltop Arbory at about 8:20 pm on November 21, 2025, caught in the beam of a…

  • A small plant with deep blue, bell-shaped flowers and round, toothed gray-green leaves grows from bare reddish soil, with a shaded path behind it.

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Seed-mix wildflowers on bare ground

    One of the native wildflowers from the seed mix we sowed at Woodland Hilltop Arbory, in bloom on bare ground beside a path in mid-June. We…

  • Small yellow-and-white tidy tips and pale blue baby blue eyes flowers grow among flat stones lining a shallow swale. +1 photo

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Wildflowers in the swales

    Tidy tips (Layia platyglossa) and baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii) are blooming in one of the rock-lined contour swales at Woodland…

  • A single spike of deep blue-and-white lupine flowers rises from wood-chip mulch, with young lupine leaves at its base and blurred green shrubs and trees behind. +2 photos

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Lupine through the wood-chip mulch

    Lupine (Lupinus sp.) was flowering through the wood-chip mulch at Woodland Hilltop Arbory on April 6, 2025, among low, leafy shrubs, on…

  • Seen from a drone flying low over a hilltop, two tall pines and an oak stand at the edge of a slope of wood-chip mulch and low gray-green plants, with wooded ridges and wispy clouds beyond. +1 photo

    · Woodland Hilltop

    A low drone pass over the mulched hilltop

    On the afternoon of March 23, 2025, we flew a small drone low over the top of Woodland Hilltop Arbory, skimming the masticated ground.…

  • A gloved hand holds a smooth brown acorn topped by a thick, golden, fuzzy cup, with yellow dust on the glove's fingers and leaf litter and wood chips on the ground below.

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Golden-cupped acorn on the hilltop

    An acorn with a thick, golden, felted cup, held in a work glove at Woodland Hilltop Arbory on October 28. Yellow dust, probably fuzz from…

  • The Milky Way runs up a starry night sky above dark silhouettes of oaks and pines, with a faint pale glow and a few small lights along the horizon. +1 photo

    · Woodland Hilltop

    Milky Way over the hilltop

    On a clear night at Woodland Hilltop Arbory, around 9 pm on September 29, the Milky Way stood over the oaks and pines on the hilltop, with…