Here's a close-up of blooms on the Sticky white-leaf manzanita, Arctostaphylos viscida, one of the two primary varieties of manzania that inhabits the Ione Chaparral (the other is the rare and protected Ione manzanita, Arctostaphylos myrtifolia)--a unique botanic association of plants 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. This plant was found blooming near famous Lygodium Gulch (named after the rather common to abundant remains of a fossil climbing fern, Lygodium kaulfussi, whose closest modern counterpart is the living Lygodium palmatum, now native to Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia north to New England), one of the great fossil leaf localities in the Middle Eocene Ione Formation, 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.