Here is an overview of the two major varieties of manzanita that inhabit the Ione Chaparral, observed near the famous Lygodium Gulch fossil leaf locality in the Middle Eocene Ione Formation. Ione Basin, western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Amador County, California: the low-lying, dark-green shrubbery in the immediate foreground is the rare, protected Ione manzanita, Arctostaphylos myrtifolia, which grows nowhere else on Earth in the wild, save on the extraordinarily harsh, acidic soils weathered from the Eocene Ione Formation of the Ione Basin. In the middle-ground and capping the hill in the distance is the paler-green, taller Sticky white-leaf manzanita, Arctostaphylos viscida. Image snapped on October 22, 2002.

Please note: All fossil localities in the Ione Formation of Amador County, California, presently occur on private property; explicit permission from the land owners must be secured before collecting fossils there.