#frangula

Date: 9/11/2019

Time: 10:15 AM

Location: Lower Arroyo Park, heading towards the Arroyo Seco Trail, in the sycamore field.

Route: From the parking lot, head towards the Arroyo Seco Trail. On the walkway towards the Arroyo Seco trail, you’ll see a field with a large sycamore.  Walk through the field on the western border.  Coffeeberry will be about 100 ft. up on the left.

Weather: About 80F, sunny and hot.  The frangula was right outside the shade of the platanus, so the sun was beating down pretty harshly in this area.

Habitat: This is where I found the most ant activity.  This area was kind of a forest, kind of a savannah in the sense that there was a lot of direct sunlight, but also a couple of pretty tall coast live oaks and western sycamores.  The closer I got to the frangula, the more ants showed up.  As I was walking up to the frangula, I also felt some burrows under the sycamore leaves - I wasn’t able to tell what kind of burrows they were.

FRANGULA CALIFORNICA - CALIFORNIA COFFEEBERRY

Even though Frangula californica was a pretty large shrub (about 10-12 ft - maybe not a shrub, but an actual tree), I almost missed it, since it was in such close proximity to a very dense quarcus agrifolia (Coast live oak).  When I got close to it, I realized that the Frangula had a pretty classic leaf shape - oval-ish and coming to a point at the end.  The edges of the leaves were almost not jagged - it was honestly such a light jagged pattern, I barely noticed it.  The leaves were mostly green and felt like thick rubber leaves, but much more matte and they seemed to have a lot of dust on them.  On the front, the veins of the leaf appeared green, but if you turned the leaf over, you could find yellow/red veins.  Some of the leaves had already begun to yellow on this plant.

At the end of three or four branches, I noticed black berries - about the size of a small blueberry.  Each berry branch held only one berry.  The black little coffeeberries seemed like they were on their last limb - on most of them, the black skin had fallen off revealing a white interior.  I foolishly ate these berries, and realized quickly that they don’t taste like coffee.  Actually, between the skin and the white seed, there was this really thick and sweet sap.  Maybe like the willow on Day 1, that’s why i noticed so many ants?  The taste of this plant was really sweet at the sap part and super bitter everywhere else - it literally tasted like a rock. 

Frangula (Alder Buckthorn) – What it is, Benefits and How to Use

Get to know Frangula , a plant with medicinal properties, and learn how to enjoy its benefits. The frangula  is a medicinal plant also known as grits, fusaro-black alder and belonging to the family of Ramnaceas. This plant is a shrub or small tree that can reach from 2 to 6 meters high and lives from 30 to 50 years. Widely used for its laxative effect, the frangula  is indicated to treat…