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 had gone unnoticed until April 2023, when I strolled down Stanford Avenue and glimpsed what looked like a strawberry tree in the greenbelt opposite Amherst Street, its slender trunks entwined around a coast live oak. The white bell-shaped flowers were neatly arranged along outstretched horizontal wands rather than in a loose cluster as with Arbutus unedo, attracting my attention. In the fall, the bright red fruit look like smaller versions of the strawberry tree’s, but with a stone inside.