The Elks Order has a picturesque plot in Mountain View Cemetery on a south-side hilltop. This elk-topped crypt is surrounded with rugged boulders of serpentinite, probably of local origin. The stone is well chosen, being inhospitable to plants and moss, and adds a bit of miniature grandeur.
Oakland Geology 
27 August 2009 at 7:19 pm
I think I would start with the California Native Plant Society at cnps.org.
27 August 2009 at 4:33 pm
Wow, I’ve walked through the cemetery many times without having ever really noticed this monument.
Just found your blog, and I’m really enjoying going back and looking through the entries. Especially appreciate your posts on the absurdity of the development up in the hills, as I grew up in that area and have long been irked by this myself. You might like this video: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/californians_gather_to_celebrate
I’m wondering if you might be able to point me to any resources that would describe what flora and fauna would have been living on the Mountain View slope before the bluegrass and dead people were planted there.
26 August 2009 at 10:21 am
Just this morning I found another example of this stone, used in a similar decorative way, on Pill Hill at the intersection of Summit Street and Hawthorne Avenue. There the stones are slapped together with a little mortar, and the public’s attention is causing it some attrition. Still, at a distance it lands a cooling aspect to the shady spot it occupies, under a spreading oak tree. It strongly resembles the ragged blueschist/serpentinite of the Crestmont body.