Mission District Commune + Spanish Chestnuts

Kaliflowr Commune - 23rd Street

Kaliflowr Commune - 23rd Street

On the south side of 23rd Street between Shotwell and Folsom is a fenced-in property (a white fence stretches most of the block between Shotwell and Folsom Streets). The owner of the property is the Kaliflower commune, a group with a colorful history that has been in existence since the 1960s, and in this location since 1974. The commune tends a small orchard over the fence, with citrus and avocado trees. (You often can see avocados hanging in the trees.) The group also planted the food-producing Spanish chestnuts (Castanea sativa) and almond trees (Prunus dulcis) fronting the property.   (The chestnuts and almonds are the only examples of each that I know of on San Francisco streets.)   And as of when I walked by earlier today someone had planted an artichoke in an empty tree basin.  

As I write this in late November, the sidewalk underfoot is thick with the prickly shells of the chestnuts, which had come out earlier in the fall.  

If you'd like to take a neighborhood tour where the Kaliflowr commune and these trees are included, check out the Mission Neighborhood Tour in my book. 

Female ginkgos at peak

1044 Shrader Street

1044 Shrader Street

Female ginkgos are at peak fruit drop now, dropping their malodorous fruit (smells like vomit - caused by the release of butyric acid, which also gives rancid butter its horrible smell). This photo was taken on the sidewalk outside 1044 Shrader (cross street Carl), in Cole Valley.   There aren't many places in San Francisco where you can find the female of the species, which is why I created a page in Trees of San Francisco listing all of the SF locations where I knew of female ginkgos.   Particularly if you have a pre-adolescent boy in the house, now is the time to experience one of nature's most unusual and interesting smells!  

No one really knows why ginkgos adapted to have smelly fruit, but the best guess is that it was attractive to an animal, which helped the plant disperse its seeds.  You hear stories of dogs, for example, eating ginkgo seeds.  But since ginkgos have been around for hundreds of millions of years, the interesting question is, are the things that adapted to disperse it still around? Or are they extinct? 

Update:  a reader just emailed to tell me about three female ginkgos in in the courtyard of the Ping Yuen housing project at 655 Pacific (between Kearny and Grant) just inside the fence next to the sidewalk.  Great that there are some in Chinatown!   

Kauri in Jefferson Square Park

Jefferson Square Park - Queensland kauri

Jefferson Square Park - Queensland kauri

Found a beautiful mature Queensland kauri (Agathis robusta) in Jefferson Square Park today - near corner of Turk and Gough.    It's the only one I know of outside of Golden Gate Park, and it's bigger and more mature than any in GGP.   Cool to be still finding amazing specimens out in the open in the City!   We need more of these in San Francisco, judging by how successful this tree is.

European Tour

London Plane in Rome

London Plane in Rome

I just got back from three weeks in Southern France and Italy. Two takeaways:  first, the London plane trees look so much better then in San Francisco (see photo)!  And second, we have so much more species diversity then in most European cities. I think it's because urban trees in Europe are largely planted by the municipalities.    Some bureaucrat decides that elms are the way to go, and bang - hundreds of elm trees, one after another. In the city of Nimes, France, near where we stayed, the entire city was planted with Chinese hackberries.  And in Rome, it seemed like the entire city had only three or four species.  It does create architectural unity, I guess - but I prefer our diverse tree anarchy. 

Orange Tree in San Francisco?

916-18 Anza Street

916-18 Anza Street

I was walking on Anza Street near Arguello recently, and saw something I don't think I've ever seen in San Francisco - a mature orange tree.  Actually bearing fruit.   We have plenty of Meyer lemons, and orange trees aren't unusual in the warmer suburbs of the north and east bay and the Peninsula, but I don't ever remember seeing one in SF.   And in the Richmond, no less - one of our chillier neighborhoods.   It was in a yard over a fence, so I can't be 100% sure, but if you're curious, go to 916-918 Anza (very close to the Columbarium), and check out the tree over the fence!

Mutant in Bloom

I'm often asked about my favorite tree.  Not the type of tree I like most, but my favorite individual tree in San Francisco. This one, at 1221 Stanyan Street in Cole Valley, is my personal number one - and it's just coming into bloom as I write.

1221 Stanyan Street

1221 Stanyan Street

For starters, it's one of the city’s best specimens of New Zealand Christmas tree (Metrosideros excelsa), popular for its showy red bottlebrush flowers. And indeed, all of the many hundreds of New Zealand Christmas trees on San Francisco’s streets have red flowers — except for this one, at the corner of Stanyan and 17th Streets.  Every May and June, that tree pops with spectacular yellow flowers.

How did the tree end up with yellow flowers? The story goes back to Victor Reiter, a founder of the California Horticultural Society, and San Francisco’s most famous plantsman from the 1940s until his death in 1986 (more about Reiter, and his still-surviving garden behind Stanyan Street, in my book).  In 1940, there was a natural mutation of the species on tiny Motiti Island in New Zealand, and Reiter was one of the first Californians to obtain a cutting. As the Reiter family lived in several homes in a three-block stretch of Stanyan Street, they planted the curiosity in front of their 1221 Stanyan address—still occupied today by a family member. And more than 70 years later, the tree is thriving. It’s a beautiful mutant with an amazing history and pedigree—and my favorite tree in the City.

 

 

 

Why so rare?

414 Shrader Street

414 Shrader Street

laburnum closeup.jpg

I only know of one of these trees in the city, and its beautiful wisteria-like flowers are in full bloom right now, at 414 Shrader, near Oak Street in the Haight-Ashbury.   The tree is a golden chain tree (Laburnum X watereri), a hybrid cross between Laburnum alpinum and Laburnum anagyroides, the only two species in the Laburnum genus - both native to southern Europe.  It's a small deciduous tree (rarely more than 20 feet tall) that blooms in late April/early May.  

This tree has been called the "goldilocks of the plant world", preferring a climate that's not too hot, and not too cold - which means it's perfectly suited to San Francisco.  To steal a quote from Matt Ritter, this is an "undeservedly rare" tree here in the city, and I'd love to see more of them.   But be careful if you plant one - all parts of the plant are poisonous.  

Carrotwood in a downtown planter

Sometimes great trees are found in strange places.   Carrotwood (Cupaniopsis anacardioides) is an Australian tree in the soapberry family.  It don't seem to do well in San Francisco - you rarely see one that looks healthy.   So it's always a pleasure to walk past this thriving tree, in the 100 block of Sacramento Street.   Who would have thought that the best example of a tree would be in a cement planter in the middle of the financial district?    

Carrotwood - 100 Block of Sacramento Street

Carrotwood - 100 Block of Sacramento Street

Wollemi pine in the Ancient Plant Garden at the Arboretum

IMG_1277.jpg

Thought to have been long extinct for 100 million years, and known only from fossil records, the Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) became a botanical revelation in 1994, when a few dozen specimens were discovered in a deep ravine in the Blue Mountains, 100 miles west of Sydney, Australia.  The director of the Sydney Royal Botanical Gardens was quoted as saying this discovery was "the equivalent of finding a small dinosaur still alive on Earth."  The tree is from the Araucaria family, and so is a relative of the Norfolk Island pine, monkey puzzle tree; bunya-bunya, cook pine, etc. 

The location of the 100 or so Wollemi pines was initially kept secret, to protect the small grove of trees. Before announcing the discovery, the  Sydney Royal Botanical Garden propagated cuttings and distributed them worldwide to botanical gardens and nurseries before announcing the discovery. 

There are only two outdoor specimens of Wollemi pine that I know of in San Francisco, and they're both in the Botanical Garden, in the Ancient Plant Garden.   Both were received in 2004, so they're about 10 years old.   The adjacent photo is one of them.    

This is probably not a good street tree for planting in sidewalk cuts, but I think it’s a great choice for side yards or open spaces. Hello, Recreation and Park Department? Hello, Presidio Trust?   The trees are very easy to order commercially (I was surprised recently to discover that some friends had a Wollemi pine in a pot in their living room).   If you want to participate in the effort to get more of this interesting species planted in San Francisco, you can order one here:  http://www.wollemipine.com/index.php 

Theater Artaud - a Palm Paradise

Chilean wine palm (Jubaea chilensis) on Florida Street 

Chilean wine palm (Jubaea chilensis) on Florida Street 

I was lucky to go on a Friends of the Urban Forest walking tour of the Project Artaud grounds in the Mission recently with Jason Dewees, who I think of as SF's leading palm expert.  During the tour we met up with Benjy Young of Artaud, who is responsible for planting all of the palms around the property.  Benjy’s father collected rare palm trees and Benjy has honored his memory by planting a garden of rare palms in this little corner of the Mission.  

There are more than a dozen different palms around the property.   I had known about the Chilean wine palm on the property (Jubaea chilensis), which is the large palm with the very thick trunk on Florida Street between 17th and Mariposa - you can't miss it.  But there's a lot more here, including some very rare trees for San Francisco.  

One of the coolest trees on the property is planted in the sidewalk, right at the corner of Florida and Mariposa Streets - it'a a Guadalupe palm (Brahea edulis).  It's native to Guadalupe Island off of the Western coast of Mexico; in fact it's endemic to that island, meaning that it's found only there.  Jason believes that this palm is a great choice for San Francisco (not surprising, as Guadalupe Island's Mediterranean climate is similar to ours) and in fact Guadalupe palms were recently used to re-landscape the median of Cesar Chavez Street not far away.  

Guadalupe palm at corner of Florida and Mariposa

Guadalupe palm at corner of Florida and Mariposa

 

What I loved about this tree at Florida and Mariposa is that it was producing hundreds of perfectly round, golfball sized fruits.  And since that block of Mariposa slopes gently down to Alabama Street, the round seeds have rolled down the flat sidewalk and street, and self-seeded in several places on the block - little volunteer Guadalupe palms are coming up on their own.   Pretty good evidence that this tree that is well-adapted here!

Other trees in or around the Project Artaud block:

  • Brahea armada (Mexican blue palm):  Mariposa Street close to Alabama Street (small tree with bluish fronds)
  • Butia capitata (Pindo palm): on the west side of Florida St. between 17th and Mariposa (as you face the wine palm, it's the small palm with very curved fronds to your right)
  • Chamaerops humilis (Mediterranean fan palm): on Florida St. between 17th and Mariposa; just behind the wine palm 
  • Jubaea chilensis (Chilean wine palm): in addition to the huge-trunked tree on Florida St., there are also two tiny wine palms in gigantic clay pots on Florida, close to Mariposa
  • Parajubaea cocoides (Quito palm):    on Florida St. side, the tall palm growing next to the large Brazilian pepper tree inside the courtyard
  • Bolivian Mountain Coconut (Parajubaea torallyi):  on Florida St. just to the left of the wine palm 
  • Phoenix reclinata (Senegal date palm):   near the corner of Florida and 17th 
  • Rhopalostylis sapida (Nikau palm):   inside courtyard - very hard to see from the street

Coast Banksia in the Richmond

Coast banksia
Coast banksia -285 10th Avenue

Coast banksia -285 10th Avenue

This coast banksia (Banksia integrifolia) is one of two at 285 10th Avenue/Clement in the Richmond, and the largest that I know of in the city.   This tree from the protea family is an Australian native, and is *way* too rare in San Francisco.   It has spectacular protea-like pale yellow flowers, and seems to thrive in our climate.  They're very hard to find, but I think the folks at Flora Grubb sourced these two, so if you're interested in buying one, you could try checking in there.  (And if anyone finds a good source for these trees, please let me know.)

Coast banksia - closeup of flowers

Coast banksia - closeup of flowers

Not a great way to prune palms

Not a great way to prune a palm tree :-(    Saw these palms (I think queen palms, or Syagrus romanzoffiana) on Pond Street in the Castro.   Owner no doubt wanted to keep them under the wires, but by removing the terminal bud, it probably means these trees are history.   Too bad, because palms are so easy to transplant (and mature ones are valuable).  

Queen palms on Pond Street

Queen palms on Pond Street

Amazing New Zealand Christmas Tree(s)

NewZealandChristmasTree - Presidio.JPG

Don't know why I never noticed this grouping of Metrosideros excelsa in the lawn of the Main Post at the Presidio.    Decided to use this photo for the NZ Christmas Tree photo in the 2nd Edition of Trees of San Francisco.   

There are other great trees nearby - the Centennial Tree (blue gum eucalyptus that was planted on the nation's centennial in 1876); also some of the city's best giant dracaenas (Cordyline australis).