Comarostaphylis diversifolia summer holly

Comarostaphylis diversifolia flowers, Stanford Avenue. Sairus Patel, 14 Apr 2023

Comarostaphylis diversifolia fruit, Stanford Avenue. Sairus Patel, 13 Oct 2024

Campus’s only example of this shrub or small tree went unnoticed until April 2023, when, strolling along Stanford Avenue, I glimpsed what appeared to be a strawberry tree in the greenbelt opposite Amherst Street, its slender, multiple trunks lightly twined around a coast live oak. The white, bell-shaped flowers, neatly arranged along outstretched horizontal wands rather than gathered into the loose clusters as with Arbutus unedo, at once drew my attention.

By autumn, the bright red fruits resemble smaller versions of the strawberry tree’s, but each enclose a single hard stone. This lone plant is, in fact, the last surviving remnant of a 1958 planting of several dozen shrubs, installed when the surrounding residential neighborhood was first being laid out.