Natural History Wanderings

I went to the  UC Botanical Garden (Berkeley,CA) both to see flowers and test an old lens 28 to 300 lens.  I

California Mahonia (Berberis_pinnata)

had hoped to use the lens as an all-purpose lens for an upcoming trip.  Before I even got home I could tell with the live-view feature on my camera that the lens had failed the test.  It  seemed incapable of sharp focus.  The garden fortunately did not fail. I saw Glacier Lilies, Currants, Ceanothus, Manzanitas Mahonia, Zigadene, California Poppies and Rhododendrons in bloom.  There was much more  but I didn’t get to that much of the garden today.   I was disappointed with most photos but here are two that weren’t too bad.

Shaggy-bark Manzanita (Arctostaphylos_tomentosa)