Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden

In my recent post about the Rainbow Eucalyptus, I mentioned how the trees I found were opposite UCLA's Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. Well, needless to say, after wallowing in the excitement of the Eucalyptus', I explored the Garden to my great enjoyment. It does not cover a large area, but because it is set in a hollow with paths winding about between dense trees, it seems much larger than it actually is.

The garden - started in 1929 - has undergone many changes over the years under different Directors and has been widely used for experimentation in growing tropical trees and plants. For instance, it was one of the first places in LA to grow different varieties of Eucalyptus trees. In 1971 it was given Mildred E. Mathias' name, she having been a long-term Director and a botanical pioneer, researching into and introducing new flowers and trees to the country- as well as being an early environmentalist.

It is wonderful to find yourself stepping off the road and suddenly plunging into this exotic world. How lucky UCLA students are to have this shady refuge on their doorstep. What a delightful place to- as I did- have a picnic lunch...

One of the first trees I came across was in fact another Rainbow Eucalyptus- Eucalyptus deglupta- but the bark of this one was, at this time, more subdued than the ones I had been photographing on the street:


Another beautiful Eucalyptus there was a Eucalyptus grandis, or Rose Gum:


And when I first entered the garden I got really excited by a grove of Eucalyptus maculata- or Spotted Gum- the patterns of their peeling bark being like a black-and-grey version of the London Plane tree:



And then I discovered another Eucalyptus, with a very different bark- Eucalyptus botryoides, or Southern mahogany:



This next tree could not be mistaken for a Eucalyptus! It is an Agonis flexuosa, or Willow myrtle:


Now I come to a tree that astonished me: it is yet another variety of Ficus tree, Ficus racemosa, or Cluster Fig. What amazed me was the way the figs grow out of the bark instead of on the ends of branches. To me, they looked as if they were the work of a Designer, who had scattered them onto the surface of a tree for a shop window display!




And here is another Ficus- Ficus gnapthalocarpa, or Sandpaper Fig. This time it was the geometric pattern of the bark that caught my eye:


It was the crazily peeling bark that attracted me to this next tree too- a Melaleuca styphelioides, or Prickly Paperbark:



I am always fascinated by Palm trees bark formations, however often I see them. First, a Brahea armata, or Blue Hesper Palm:


Secondly, a Butia capitata, or Jelly Palm:


Arriving down at the bottom of the hollow, beside a stream was this collection of Bamboos. When I first looked at them, I was upset that they had been so covered in name carvings- then it occurred to me that they actually looked like some wonderful Egyptian sculpture- or the spines of antique, leather-bound books. Sad as it was that they had not been respected as living organisms, at least they were still beautiful...


Here are some more- uncontaminated- bamboos:


And here is a group of the many Turtles that bask in the sun on the shores of the stream:


Finally, I took a look up into the sky, to the tops of Palm trees and Dawn Redwoods:



I have only mentioned the particular trees that caught my eye, but there is so much more to see- it is well worth a visit...

Rainbow Eucalyptus

I fell in love with the Eucalyptus deglupta tree when I first came across one in Los Angeles' Huntington Botanical Gardens several years ago (and later used its bark as my logo on both my business card and website). Apart from being a magic tree, it has two magic common names: Rainbow Eucalyptus and Painted Bark Eucalyptus, both descriptive of it's multicoloured bark. Like other Eucalyptus' it sheds its bark- but in this case the lower layer is a vivid green. As different layers mature, they change colour- to orange, purples and blues, dark maroon being the final colour- resulting in fantastic paint brushstroke-like streaks.

A week ago I was reminded of them when reading up about the different varieties of Eucalyptus (of which there are 734!) and immediately longed to go to Hawaii where there are some spectacular examples of these painted trees. This being out of the question, I Googled to find some nearer to me than the one in the Huntington Gardens. I tracked down a row of them at UCLA opposite the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, which I had never visited. Fortunately a Big Blue Bus took me virtually from door to door. These particular trees are comparatively small- as they can grow up to over 200ft with a trunk girth of 8ft- but I was enchanted by them and had a wonderful, happy time examining and photographing them. Here are some of the results:





Not only are the colours and patterns of the bark engrossing, but so are the sometimes almost human or animal and sometimes bone-like shapes of their limbs:






I find these protuberances that look as if they have been woodturned on a lathe quite wonderful:


I will conclude with some brush strokes of colour:

New York City December Trees

Twelfth Night has been and gone, so although it is really far too late to write about Christmas I am now going to tell you something about a short family visit to New York, between Christmas and New Years Eve.

In Manhattan I have always been struck by the two very different approaches to Christmas decorations: on the one hand, you see the very formal, minimalist ones- a few lonely, outsize Christmas tree baubles or a whole store wrapped in a giant red Christmas bow- on the other hand the delightfully romantic way every tree is delicately entwined with Christmas lights, turning the streets into fairyland. It is the latter visual experience that I want to share, so here are some images:



Having lovely memories of a Christmas spent here 14 years ago, I was eager to show my granddaughter the iconic scene of the Rockefeller Center with its skating rink and Christmas Tree. Unfortunately, when we reached it- after time spent in MOMA- she was fast asleep! But that didn't stop me enjoying the lights- although the crowds were so dense you could barely see the skaters:





Needless to say, I cannot visit New York without going into Central Park. I find it fascinating that the concept of this park was largely that of a 19th Century visionary, Frederick Law Olmsted. He was multi-talented with varied, enlightened careers- a prolific landscape architect among others. In this industrial age, he understood the need to both protect the natural phenomena- such as the Niagara Falls and Yosemite National Park- and to create parks within cities. It was he who had the vision of Boston's Emerald Necklace as well as being co-designer- with Calvert Vaux- of Central Park, which was built between 1857 and 1873.

I like this quote of his from 1870: "We want a ground to which people may easily go when the day's work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour, seeing, hearing, and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets where they shall, in effect, find the city put far away from them..."




The above photos were taken on this last December visit, when the weather was comparatively mild for New York- if not compared with left-behind sunny Los Angeles- whereas the next two were taken last year on a freezing February day...



Another fact I like about Central Park: in these days when we see so much needless destruction of trees, it is good to know that here the trees are valued and protected, as I read in a New York Times article in 2009. Film director Brett Ratner was filming a segment in Central Park for "New York, I love You". Although there are some 26,000 trees there, a filmmaker is not allowed to touch a single leaf. Because of this, Mr Ratner had to provide his own prop tree together with a crane to support it while his leading lady "shivering in a pink cocktail dress, dangled from a branch"!

Now THAT is the way to respect trees!

The King Palm

The King Palm- Archontophoenix Alexandrae- is a native of the rainforest regions of North East Australia but seems to flourish in Santa Monica and Los Angeles. It can grow from 50- 80 feet high with a spread of 10-15 feet of its pinnate leaves, the single grey trunk being attractively ringed.

When I first became aware of these elegant trees, I was totally enchanted by their exotic "chandeliers" of flowers, on coral-like stems, so was not surprized to learn that they were named as the King of Palms:







These ivory or magenta flowers are succeeded by wonderful cascades of brilliant red berries:








I love their bright, lime green crownshafts, speckled with reddish-brown:



And eventually the brown overtakes the green...


Palm trees may not be as environmentally indispensable as many other trees (after all, they are officially PLANTS rather than trees) but to me they are certainly visually indispensable...