The Trees of San Francisco. Michael Sullivan
Potrero Hill
I WOULD like to thank the many people who helped me write this book. Arthur Lee Jacobson, author of Trees of Seattle, first suggested the idea, and he was generous with his time in reviewing the original manuscript. Matt Ritter and Jason Dewees—both tree professionals who have likely forgotten more about trees than I will ever know—answered countless questions and helped me identify rare and unusual members of San Francisco’s urban forest. Jaime Pandolfo provided much of the photography in the first edition of The Trees of San Francisco, and Matt Ritter and Nathan Brewer added beautiful images for this second edition. Dan Flanagan, Doug Wildman, and others from Friends of the Urban Forest have made that organization’s wealth of data available to me, and have helped in numerous other ways. Mark Bittner, Rigo 23, and the family of Victor Reiter contributed information and content to these pages. Peter Ehrlich, forester at the Presidio Trust, added details for the Presidio walking tour. Michele Palmer, Sid Silverman, Ted Kipping, Drew Dara-Abrams, Karla Nagy, Evan Martin, Meena Tappouni, Adrianne Jang, Samuel Clay, Brittany Janis, and Gordon Matassa made valuable suggestions for the walking tours and sidebar stories.
SOME 10 years have passed since the first edition of this book was published, and much can change in a decade, of course. My own family tree has grown, as I had dedicated the first edition to my son, Joseph, a few months before he was born. Now he is an engaging nine-year-old, and a lover of trees—especially of what he calls “his tree,” the thriving soapbark (Quillaja saponaria) that we planted in front of our house the week of his birth.
Ten years also have brought change to San Francisco’s evolving urban forest. More than a few of the trees that I highlighted in the first edition are no longer with us. Sadly, they’ve been victims of windstorms, truck collisions, disease, and old age. But the passage of a decade also allows this second edition to showcase new species, younger trees coming into their prime, and some jewels that had escaped my attention until recently (see for a great example of that). For any of you who are first-edition readers, and whose copy is worn and dog-eared, you’ll appreciate knowing that this new book offers many more close-up photos and five additional tree-focused walking tours (for a new total of 12). You’ll also enjoy an updated mix of short features, or sidelights, that take you deeper into San Francisco’s urban-forest history, culture, and idiosyncrasies.
Like its first-edition predecessor, The Trees of San Francisco is not a field guide, and it won’t overwhelm you with botanical vocabulary. It does, however, provide both common and scientific names for each tree, details of general interest, and some surprising facts about various species.
Rather than an exhaustive list of all the trees to be found in San Francisco, this collection presents in text and images the city’s most representative array. The entries appear in alphabetical order according to each tree’s common name, with its scientific name prominently displayed as well. Two or more photos accompany each entry, and captions pinpoint the locations of the trees depicted, making it easy for readers to visit them.
Interspersed among the entries for the trees, you will see the 13 “Sidelights” mentioned above. These brief features will inform and entertain you with unique stories or aspects about San Francisco’s trees, tree lovers, and tree origins.
In addition, on pages 86–136, the book leads you on 12 self-guided tours into diverse tree-rich neighborhoods. Following “Walking Tours,” you will come to “Landmark Trees,” which I humbly submit as my own list of the city’s most noteworthy and eye-catching trees. To make them easier to visit, I’ve grouped them within 23 neighborhoods that range from residential to commercial, and from waterfront to wooded.
All in all, if you liked the first edition, I think you’ll love the second!
WRITING this book allowed me to combine two passions: trees and San Francisco.
Although I’m a botany amateur, I’ve always had a love for trees. I grew up in the hardwood forests of upstate New York, with maples, beeches, birches, and oaks; palm trees were things you saw on television in exotic vacation locales (like California). So when I moved to San Francisco in 1984, I was delighted to discover an entire urban forest that was almost completely alien to me—full of trees with strange shapes, exotic scents, unusual bark, colorful flowers, and leaves that stayed on the trees year-round. The one unifying feature among all these species was their unfamiliarity.
A few years later, I began volunteering with San Francisco’s nonprofit Friends of the Urban Forest. Over many years of Saturday-morning plantings and tree-care days with this organization, I became acquainted with the exotic varieties from around the world that have found their way to San Francisco’s streets and parks. As I got to know the city’s trees, I became familiar with their stories: their origins, histories, smells, textures and shapes, reproductive tricks, and relationships with Homo sapiens.
Like many before me, my immediate attachment to San Francisco had been partly visual—a reaction to the sheer physical beauty of its hilly, waterfront setting. But over time, the real attraction became the neighborhoods—unique, bohemian, beautiful, vibrant communities, each with a distinctive personality, and eminently walkable. I have enjoyed countless hours exploring the streets of San Francisco. Often my only purpose was the joy of discovery, enhanced by my growing appreciation of the city’s unique assortment of street trees. Each block had the potential for something new, and just as some people delight in coming upon a stunning Victorian home, a thriving Ginkgo biloba did the same for me.
I hope this book brings the same joy to those of you who live here and to those who are visiting. For San Franciscans, this book offers an easy opportunity to learn about the trees you pass by every day, trees that form the living part of our outdoor architecture. For the tourist (especially if you’re from the land of maples and beeches, like me), this book can open a door to the new and the exotic.
TREES can have a hard time in San Francisco. Before the arrival of the Spanish to the Bay Area in the late 18th century, San Francisco was largely treeless. Only a few live oaks and willows huddled in wind-sheltered valleys interrupted the expanse between the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. In fact, according to historian Hubert Bancroft, the Spanish explorers described the area as “the very worst place [for settlement] in all California … since the peninsula afforded neither lands, timber, wood, nor water, nothing but sand and brambles and raging winds.” To understand what the city looked like in its natural state 200 years ago, just gaze across the Golden Gate to the Marin Headlands, where you’ll see grassy, windswept hills—and no trees.
San Francisco’s urban forest is a relatively recent phenomenon. Early tree-planting efforts focused almost exclusively on public parks. Beginning in 1870, the creation