By Interpreter Christine Cardosi 

One thing I most appreciate about a career as an interpreter is how the natural world has simultaneously grounded me while widening my perspective, especially when it comes to the ever constant changing of the seasons. I used to think California didn’t really have seasons (see Naturalist Candace’s September 2025 article on our Mediterranean climate or my April 2024 article on nature myths and misconceptions). But by slowing down to notice and appreciate what is happening right now, right here, I can assure you there is wonder in every season. 

Coyote Brush Aglow 

I’ve heard two stories as to how this adaptable plant got its name.  The first is about Coyote: the man (sometimes), the myth, the legend of many California Indian sacred narratives.  Wherever Coyote would take a leak, Coyote Brush was sure to grow – and it does seem to grow EVERYWHERE.  Coyote Brush is perhaps one of the most widespread plants in our area and thrives in freshly disturbed ground. 

Here at Sycamore Grove Park, look for it in places that have had recent landslides, fire or flooding.  Being one of the first to show up after a big event, Coyote Brush can also play a supportive role for other plants that take longer to establish.  Peer beneath a Coyote Brush shrub and you may find a small oak sapling.  Hidden away from hungry browsers and not at the mercy of brutal summer sun, that young sapling may one day become an ancestor oak thanks to the nursing of the Coyote Brush.   

The second story is one you can only really appreciate during this time of year.  This evergreen plant is pretty nondescript most of the time, shrubby with small, green leaves.  Even the flowers are small and greenish-yellow in color.  But right now, as the flowers that bloomed in late summer turn to seed, the seed heads look as if a coyote has brushed against the shrub, leaving behind bits of their fur.  Only the female coyote brush will have these furry displays; coyote brush is one of the rare plants that are “dioecious,” meaning the male flowers and female flowers are “housed” in different plants. 

Take a stroll through the park on a November afternoon to see Coyote Brush’s tufts of seed heads become aglow, backlit by the long rays of the low, near-winter sun. 

“Disney Skies” 

When my dad moved out here for college from the suburbs of Chicago, there was a lot to adjust to – as to be expected for a midwestern transplant to the Bay Area in the 70s!  But one of the things that struck him most that first fall was the sunsets.  When telling my sister and me about this first impression of the place he and our mom later chose to start a family, he would call these California sunsets “Disney skies.” 

The spectacular display of fall sunsets, so stunning that they seem crafted in an animation studio, is due to a few factors - first, physics. 

Ninety-three million miles away, the sun emits electromagnetic radiation comprised of invisible infrared and ultraviolet light (please wear sunscreen), and the visible “white” light.  After traveling across the cold emptiness of space, these rays hit Earth’s atmosphere and that “white” light bounces across small gas molecules in our atmosphere revealing the different colorful wavelengths of visible light.  When the sun is overhead during the day, the shortest of those wavelengths—blues and violets—scatter more than others, longer wavelengths of colors.  To our eyes, the clear daytime sky looks blue! 

As the Earth turns away from the sun during sunset, that angle of light now passes through more and more atmosphere, and more and more molecules.  Longer wavelengths of light—oranges and reds—now scatter strongly.  And ever since the summer solstice in June, the sun has been travelling a lower and lower path across the southern skies, leading to longer sunsets. 

Second, fall weather.  After the expansive blue skies of a long, dry summer, the shift into our cool wet season brings with it even more atmosphere.  Our proximity to the Pacific Ocean nearly guarantees a nighttime marine layer throughout the year; I’ll often enjoy the wisps of these low-flying clouds burning off over Sycamore Grove Park in the morning.  But a good and decent rainstorm brings different clouds – high- or mid-flying clouds like cirrus and altocumulus. Combine that with storms that clear out hazy, large particles (think smoke, pollutants, or dust) that mute sunlight’s colors, and we have cinematic sunsets that may convince you to become a permanent resident of California. The sunsets will likely get better as we progress into winter as the temperature drops, the sun continues to dip, and more intense storms clear out haze.

A Look Forward 

Dangling from a naked tree, whose leaves and flowers are a long-gone memory of spring, hangs the largest seed in California and the tree’s namesake: California Buckeye.  As the outer shell of the fruit opens, it reveals the shiny chestnut color within, like someone just awakened opening drowsy eyelids.  Its English common name, Buckeye, refers to the eyelike appearance of the nut. Imagine a large, warm brown eye of a deer with a white spot of reflective light.  

Although large in size, the seed’s toxicity prevents it from being a meal to most except hungry squirrels.  Its dispersal is still a debated topic.  Look at the base of a parent tree and find many a buckeye seed.  On slopes and in canyons, these round fruits will tumble before finding purchase somewhere in the wet fall soils.  Make the hike along Patterson Ranch Trail to see a grove of happy buckeyes along a stretch of single track carved into a hillside and it’s easy to see how gravity disperses the nuts.  But how did a buckeye come to be perched on top of a hill? 

This is, of course, discounting humans as dispersers and caretakers.  Ohlone peoples and many California Indian tribes have long known the secret to eating and making use of this toxic seed; crush up the seed and leach out the toxins for a flour not dissimilar in processing to acorn flour, or use the crushed up nut to stupefy a pool of fish for easy catching.   

Now is also the perfect time to plant a buckeye seed of your own to enjoy a sprout by early spring.  Give it a few years and you’ll be rewarded by the captivating aroma and appearance of a California Buckeye in full foliage and bloom. 

What signs of the season let you know November is here?  Please feel free to share with me at natureprograms@larpd.org.