The house where we are staying with Tillie and Abigail is set in a clearing between a pigmy redwood forest and a grove of standard redwood trees. These very different side by side forests of the same astonishing coast redwood species would have fascinated Charles Darwin if he had wandered in this part of Mendocino County.  Coast redwood (Sequouia sempervirens) is the tallest tree species in the world, yet here near the Van Damme State Park ecological conditions have produced dwarf trees that are definitely of the same species as their tall cousins. Flowers growing here, including the amazing coast Rhododendron, seem not to be affected by the conditions that stunt the growth of trees in the pigmy redwood forest.

The Rhodondendron blossoms will open before we leave this place, so I'll try to get some good photographs of them.