Castro Valley Educational Foundation

PO Box 2693

Castro Valley, CA 94546

510-397-4095 or cvef@comcast.net

Tax ID# 94-2797523

The Castro Valley Educational Foundation is a 501(c)(3)corporation. Donations may be tax deductible. Please consult your tax advisor.

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The Castro Valley Educational Foundation is now a partner with the United Way of the East Bay. When you make your contribution be sure to designate CVEF.

CVEF is now a member of

Group ID 500030630

Castro Valley Elementary School

20185 San Miguel Avenue, Castro Valley, CA CVE has some fascinating natural features, such as walnut, almond, and pistachio trees. In addition, several wonderful ceramic murals on the school depict images from Latin America, the age of the dinosaurs, and other interesting scenes.

	1. Pin Oak (Quercus palustris). Pin oaks, natives of eastern North America, are popular decorative trees. This medium-sized deciduous tree is fairly easy to recognize because the branches tend to droop downwards. The leaves have five or seven lobes with deep sinuses between the lobes. Unlike many oaks, pin oaks have shallow roots, which makes it easy to transplant.
	2. Laurel (Laurus sp.). Laurels are a group of evergreen shrubs and small trees. They were originally from the Mediterranean area, but now they are found widely distributed around the world. The leaves of some species are used for cooking.
	3. Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua). The sweet gum leaves have five or seven pointed lobes with fine-toothed edges. They are an Eastern (primarily Southeastern) tree. In the fall, the leaves turn a beautiful red. Later in the fall, the leaves are lost from this deciduous tree, but you can often still recognize the tree by its distinctive seed pods, which are brown, round, and contain a lot of spikes. Look for some of them to be still on the tree in winter or on the ground nearby. The heartwood is used furniture-making.
	4. Junipers (Juniperus sp.). Junipers are an evergreen bush with pointed needles and scale-like foliage. There are male and female plants, and only female plants produce fleshy, blue berries. There are hundreds of different varieties of juniper with a variety of sizes and colors. They also have different shapes, including prostrate, spreading, and upright.
	5. Agapanthus (Agapanthus sp.). The plants have funnel-shaped bluish flowers. Each stem has many flowers. Agapanthus grow from bulbs or seed. The bulbs can be “separated” to produce new plants.
	6. Herb garden. The herb garden contains many herbs, including mint, lavender, and rosemary.
	7. Tristania (Tristania sp.). Tristania is a small tree with dense branches. The leaves are evergreen, and its flowers bloom in dense clusters of yellow flowers. It is commonly known as the water gum.
	8. Almond (Prunus dulcis). The almond is a small deciduous tree. Some of its relatives are plums and cherries, but in almonds, the “fruit” is the nut we all like to eat. Unlike plums and cherries, the soft tasty flesh has been replaced by a shell. Almonds are originally from southwest Asia.
	9. Pistatio (Pistacia vera). The pistachio is a small tree originally from central and southwestern Asia. It has deciduous pinnate leaves. Like the almond, its fruit is a not a true nut, but certainly looks like one. The “nuts” come in a whitish shell and have a light green color and a characteristic flavor. The tree here is technically not on the campus, but it’s just too good to pass up as a natural feature.
	10. Squirrel nests. Squirrels build nests of leaves high up in trees. They are pretty visible in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. In fact, winter is a great time to look for many things in trees. For example, a lot of mistletoe grows in the trees in Castro Valley.

	11. Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera). The date palm is extensively cultivated for its edible fruit. However, this particular example is a male and bears no fruit. These medium-sized trees often clump together with several trunks from a single root system or growing singly. We eat the seed or dates.
	12. Vines growing up trees. These vines are a good example of the strategy they use to get themselves up high enough to get sunlight.
	13. Black walnut (Juglans nigra). The black walnut or American walnut is a native of eastern North America. They are large deciduous trees with grey-black, deeply furrowed bark. The wood is of very high quality and used for furniture making. The leaves are pinnate with 15–23 leaflets. The largest leaflets are in the center of the leaf. The nuts are contained in a green husk that turns brown before it falls. The husk will stain your clothes or hands so be careful.
	14. Elm (Ulmus sp.). Elms are deciduous trees found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. They have simple, single- or double-serrate leaves. The flowers are pollinated by the wind. The wood of the elm has an interlocking grain and resists splitting. It is used for wheels and chair seats. Because the wood resists decay when wet, it was used for water pipes in mediaeval Europe.
	15. Washington thorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum). This deciduous broadleaf tree is in the hawthorn family. It has white flowers with yellowish pink anthers. The light brown bark is thin and smooth on young branches, but later becomes scaly. The leaves start out as bronze and quickly turn green and finally burgundy in the fall.
	16. Black spruce (Picea mariana). The black spruce is a common conifer tree in North America. It is a slow-growing, small tree. Its grayish brown bark is thin and scaly. The dark bluish green needles are ½ inches long and have four sides. The cones are the smallest of any spruce (0.5 to 1.2 inches) and are dark purple. They stay on the tree for several years.
	17. Adobe wall. The wall between the school and the Adobe Center is probably 150 years old. Adobe is clay that is allowed to dry in the sun. It was used by many people around the world as a convenient and useful building material.
	18. Mulberry (Morus sp.). Although this tree is a fruitless mulberry, other types produce a delicious dark berry. Mulberries grow fast when they are young and slow down later. They are usually less than 50 feet tall. The leaves are simple and often more lobed on juvenile than the mature branches. our in several species. Mulberry leaves, particularly those of the white mulberry, are eaten by the silkworm, whose cocoons are collected to make silk.
	19. Tree roots. Visible on the ground below are roots running in every direction. Tree roots cover a lot of area. The roots of Southern magnolias spread out nearly four times the diameter of the leaf crown. On average, tree roots spread about three times further than the dripline (a line enclosing all of the branches). In other words, a tree with a 10-foot spread of branches would have a root area 30 feet in diameter. Every tree species has its own type of root system. For instance, some oaks frequently develop tap roots; maples often do not. The arrangement of roots for any specific tree, however, will be determined by a variety of factors, such as the type and compaction of the soil and availability of water.
	20. Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). The redwood is the world’s tallest tree. The tallest known specimen is 368 feet, but typically, they reach 200 feet or so. The trunk is reddish brown and much tapers from a very thick bottom to a thinner top. Sprouts grow from stumps, and in redwood forests, you can usually find circles of redwoods that that have grown up from the remains of the original tree. This is a very important tree for lumber.
	21. Cedar (Cedrus sp.). Cedars are closely related to the firs and have very similar cones. The trees grow to about 150 feet tall and have spicy-resinous scented wood. A layer of wax protects the evergreen leaves from water loss and causes their color to vary from bright grass-green to dark green to pale blue-green. The cones are barrel-shaped and 2-5 inches long and take a year to mature.