Coral Trees and Moreton Bay Figs and Violet

Last week I had to look after my very new Granddaughter- Violet- for a few hours in Santa Monica. Having her in her sling, I decided to take her on a walk to view- whether awake or asleep- two of my very favourite species of trees that are in the same vicinity. They happen both to be unbelievably fabulous, in the original meaning of the word.

I was slightly hampered by the fact that Violet's sling was sized for her mother who is much taller than me- so if I did not manually support her she banged against my legs at each step...and me being far too aged to be a natural mother, and having her in this ill-fitting sling rather than a stroller, I did fantasize that a cop car might waylay me as a child abductor...

First we walked to San Vicente Boulevard. Here are the always rewarding and exciting Coral trees which form a wondrous central pageant of extraordinary pale pinky,lilacy orange sculptures on the green median, where they replaced the Pacific Electric trolly track. In previous posts I have described how an early environmental activist, fellow Treesaver Carol Purcell, together with Mayor Clo Hoover, saved these trees from destruction by the City Council back in the 60's. Since then, they became the official tree emblem of Los Angeles and certain trees on San Vicente were given Historic-Cultural status.

Secondly, we left San Vicente to walk down La Mesa Drive, famous for yet more extraordinary, sculptural trees- the over the top, excessively rooted Moreton Bay Figs. These super-cousins of my beloved Ficus/ Green Gem trees, I have also featured before on this blog. Here they form a curved avenue and each tree amazes you with its uniqueness. On this particular day it had been raining, so the bark, instead of being silvery gray, was often streaked in rich, rusty brown.

I will start with five images of details of Coral trees, followed by the Moreton Bay Figs: