After heavy winds and rains in the last few days, this morning a large Brazilian pepper tree (a common and problematic invasive species) tumbled down the gulch and nearly obliterated Caly. It severed one of Caly's main stem (by our estimate at least 20-30 years old), which was just about ready to flower...
Before image:
After image:
The silver-line is that, because we were monitoring Caly real-time, we realized this happened and within a couple of hours were at the site removing tons of additional debris that likely would have smothered the remaining live branches. Nevertheless, it will take a long time for Caly to fully recover...
A few more images of the destruction:
Caly entirely toppled
plantCam equipment was not spared
I think we are supposed to call this an 'stochastic event', but still hurts...
Nevertheless, this illustrates how entire species may be at risk from relatively small random events such as fires, storms, etc...