Botany
We field occasional botany questions, particularly where related to Chumash ethnobotany. Please direct pure botany questions to the expertise of our neighbors at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.
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Plants growing in ring
Bob McMahan, Ojai - March 22, 2019
Curator Response
We referred this botanical question to Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Director of Conservation & Research Denise Knapp, Ph.D. Here’s what she had to say:
“I ran this by my crew, and our best guess, given the size, is that it’s an old harvester ant mound. It would make sense that dropped seeds would germinate around it.”
Bob McMahan response:
This makes perfect sense to me. We did see some ants emerges from one of the circles when we compress the dirt. It was softer in the center.