A California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) is done for the season. Time to turn off photosynthesis, suck all that is valuable from the leaves into the roots, and drop the leaves for the hot summer. Time to pour resources to developing the pollinated buckeye seeds, to display them on this hemispherical tree, twisted bare branches festooned with hanging baubles, waiting for the next soaking rain. (Summer moistenings don't count.) Then to drop the pregnant seeds onto the moist earth, wishing some of them good fortune in carrying forward the lineage. I used to think that California Buckeyes were a remnant species: evolving with our local camels and other macrofauna (mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers, giant sloths) capable of carrying their large seeds to new niches. But when all these animals became extinct, another local creature took up the job of spreading the seeds and tending the buckeye trees: the First People, who have shaped our ecosystems for the past ten thousand years and more. They found many uses for the valuable buckeye, and doubtless encouraged its growth and spread. Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Road C along San Francisquito Creek. 7/17/2022, 9:20 am.