A naturalist would prefer not to see these South African plants in our woods and fields, but we got 'em anyway.

Gazanias show up on the levees of the South Band and up in the hills -- places that our natives are not
adapted to, so the alien moves in. They're not the worst thing ever to escape from a garden.

And they're all different, like snowflakes, except sometimes a group will be all the same (unlike snowflakes).

That should tell us something about genetics, but I don't know what it is. Are there different strains out there,
or does the species produce its own variation? The naturalist might not know, but he should wonder.

You might find a patch, or maybe only one for miles. How did it get there? A windblown seed?
(doubt it, they're sunflowers, basically). A seed carried by a bird or animal? Did it pass through its GI tract?

These are from Skyline Ridge, near Horseshow Lake, in the Santa Cruz Mountains.