This is a close-up of white flowers and leaves on the Sticky white-leaf manzanita, Arctostaphylos viscida, growing in the vicinity of Lygodium Gulch, a classic fossil leaf locality in the Middle Eocene Ione Formation, Ione Basin, western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Amador County, California. Sticky white-leaf manzanita is one of the two rather wide-spread species of manzanita that inhabits the unique Ione Chaparral botanic association in the Ione Basin. The other variety of manzanita found there is the rare and protected Ione manzanita, Arctostaphylos myrtifolia, which grows nowhere else in the wild on Earth, except on the harsh, acidic soils developed in the Ione Formation of the Ione Basin, California. Image taken on March 8, 2004.

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.