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Another Oak on a Stamp
Angela Moskow, IOS member from California, Oak Program Director at California Oaks and editor of their excellent newsletter, alerted me that a stamp featuring an oak had been issued by the United States Postal Service. It's a beauty. Part of a series of 16 stamps consisting of photographs by Ansel Adams, it shows an oak in late fall or early winter, almost leafless, silhouetted against the setting sun.

The photo is part of Adams' Sunset City Project. He had been commissioned in 1962 to produce publicity photos of scenic features of Whitney Ranch, part of what was intended to be a self-contained metropolis of 100,000 residents called Sunset City. The project was initiated in the late 1950s and funded by Sunset International Petroleum Corporation, which bought up 34,000 acres for this purpose in what is now the city of Rocklin, California, about half an hour northeast of Sacramento on I-80. Sunset abandoned the project in the mid 1960s because of slow real estate sales. Sunset's Assistant Vice President Dale Stringfellow, who hired the renowned naturalist and photographer, remembered seeing him in action. "He thoroughly loved his work," he said. "He would pick a scene and then observe it from dawn to dusk, finding the precise sun angle that suited his eye."

The oak appears to be Quercus lobata (valley oak). Or perhaps Q. douglasii (blue oak)? I asked Sean Hogan, who had led the IOS Tour of California earlier this year, and he told me the "gestalt says lobata, but the 'stiffness' could be douglasii". Would any IOS member like to chime in on the ID? Add a comment below! You can take a closer look at Adams' photo here.
Thank you, Angela! The stamp has been added to the blog entry listing Oaks on Postage Stamps. Seems like the list will never end...
