The two parent plants of this hybrid, Arctostaphylos refugioensis and Arctostaphlos purissima, both occur within Santa Barbara County of California. I therefore can't say with any certainty whether this is a naturally-occurring hybrid where the ranges of the parent plants overlap or whether this is a garden hybrid occurring as a result of a purposeful cross or proximate cultivated parent plants. To explain the last bit, a hybrid progeny can sometimes occur when two species are grown near each other in cultivation, but will likely never occur in the wild because of the geographic distance between the natural distribution ranges of the parent species.
Photography resource link: Image Deconstruction, an essay by Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape about interpreting the contents of a photograph and finding the stories within.
Stunning photo. Being from Maine, I was caught by surprise that this is a species of Arctostaphylos. Our common species is A. uva-ursi (Bear berry) a low-lying shrub, very different in appearance from this photo. It is worth a trip to
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ARCTO3
to check out the distribution and diversity of this genus. I continue to be surprised at the amazing diversity of form that can occur within a single genus, or family, and this is a prime example.
Actually, if you look at a bearberry that has a few years under its belt there is a little manzanita tree at the middle of it as well.
A long time ago I noticed some hairy manzanita bushes growing on the top of the cliff across from the overlook (ladders) at Granite Falls, Washington. These were somewhat unexpected as this is a rainy area in the Cascade Mountain foothills--part of THE rainiest corridor into this range, in fact. Eventually I realized it was possible to park off the highway nearby and walk up to this spot. Upon doing so I discovered that these "bushes" were in fact a single sprawling specimen perhaps 15 ft. (4.57 m) across. Bearberry plants, including some that appeared hybrid were growing all around it on the bare area between the forest and the dropoff, but no other hairy manzanita were seen.
Unfortunately, a followup visit some years ago was greeted with the discovery that a cleft had been sawn right through the middle of the bush by someone, after decades of it having been left alone. I counted the growth rings in one of the branch stumps and got 60 years of age for this one branch.