Here are some photos I shot while in beautiful southern California.
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Balboa Park, San Diego, CA.
Balboa, at 1,000 acres, is a very large park. It's one of the most beautiful city parks I've ever visited.
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Balboa Park, desert habitat.
San Diego's year-round mild climate coupled with average annual rainfall of only 15'', allows for a wide variety of plants. Desert plants seem to like the climate here. |
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Ensete ventricosum
I managed to get up to Quail Botanical Gardens one day, which is well worth the admission I might add. They had a great variety of plants, including this banana relative. |
Jubaea chilensis
This palm is located at a hotel in Pacific Beach, CA, just north of San Diego. It was magnificent! Plus, it had small fruits lying on the ground below which I got to taste. Called "coquitos," they really do have somewhat of a coconut flavor. |
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Caryota sp.
I also saw these at Quail Botanical Gardens. Note the two small Trachycarpus species growing underneat the fishtail palms. One was marked "T. takil," but it looked more like T. wagnerianus to me. It had enormous seeds - 4 times the size of regular Trachycarpus species - and I picked quite a few up. As of November, none have sprouted. |
Wodyetia bifurcata
I hope I spelled that correctly! I snapped this in Coronado, CA, just across the bay from San Diego. It is a truly beautiful palm! |
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Syagrus and Jacaranda
The Jacarandas were in full bloom when I arrived in San Diego. I snapped this one near where I was staying in Coronado. Sorry about the tilt - when I closed the lid of my scanner the breeze moved the picture a bit. |
Phoenix canariensis
Sunday night we went to a picnic and Naval band concert in Sprekles Park in Coronado, where I snapped this picture. There were also a lot of large Eucalypts in this park. |
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Roystonea elata
These are growing at the same hotel in Pacific Beach where the Jubaea (above) is growing. Actually, this hotel had a nice collection of palms, but many were crowded and hard to photograph. |
Coronado from the Coronado Bridge
This is what I saw everytime we rode across the bridge back into Coronado. The photo doesn't really do this view justice. |
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Me on the cliffs at La Jolla
Later I found out that this is actually a very dangerous place to stand and that people have been washed away as the surf crashes onto the rocks! The next day, I braved the cold Pacific and swam for about an hour at Coronado beach. After getting wet, it wasn't so bad and I was pleasantly surprised to be able to see my feet clearly in chest-deep water - something you can't do on the North Carolina coast! |
Coronado beach with the Hotel del Coronado in the background
This, the largest wooden structure in the world, is also an expensive place to stay! Note the Washingtonias and large Norfolk Island Pine in the background. |
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Coronado beach at Dusk
I walked here a couple of nights as I was staying only about six blocks away. What a view! |
Downtown San Diego from the Coronado Ferry Dock
My last night there, we took the ferry you see in the picture into the Gaslamp district for dinner. |
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