By David Romano

There is an astonishing variety of trees in the outer Richmond District.  

One tree, found in profusion, is the New Zealand Christmas tree. You can recognize it by its red bottle brush (spiky) flowers. There are many trees from New Zealand and Australia in our neighborhood including the Brisbane box tree, New Zealand tea tree, karo tree, primrose tree and myoporum.  

I think they must have been chosen because of their characteristics of being hardy and drought tolerant, able to withstand the often-harsh conditions on the coast. None of these species is native to California.  

According to Wikipedia, “Myoporum is a genus of flowering plants in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae. There are 30 species in the genus, 18 of which are endemic to Australia, although others are endemic to Pacific Islands, including New Zealand, and one is endemic to two Indian Ocean islands. Myoporum seems to thrive in even the most windswept locations.

You can see many primrose trees on Cabrillo Street. They can be recognized by their small white and pink flowers. They don’t get to the height of the New Zealand Christmas trees, which can be very large. The bronze loquat, which you can see next to the New Zealand tea tree on 42nd Avenue, is native to Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and South Vietnam. Its leaves are used in Taiwanese folk medicine as an expectorant, according to Wikipedia.

Cabrillo is lined with Spanish Daggers and Balboa Street is lined with dragon trees. Spanish Dagger is native to the southeastern United States. The dragon tree is native to the Canary Islands, Madeira, Cape Verde and western Morocco. I don’t see any Spanish Daggers on Balboa or any dragon trees on Cabrillo so this must be by design. Dragon trees are so short you hardly notice them, and they are not, properly speaking, trees.

Arbutus or strawberry trees are common. 

“Members of the genus are called madrones or madronas in the United States, from the Spanish name madroño (strawberry tree),” Wikipedia reports. “It is native to  the Pacific Northwest and Northern and Central California regions but is also found in regions of the Mediterranean, western Europe, the Canary Islands.” They actually have a strawberry-like fruit, as you can see from the photo. On some trees the fruit is edible and can be used for making jam. Their trunks are reddish in color.  

According to Wikipedia, “The Arbutus was important to the Straits Salish people of Vancouver Island, who used arbutus bark and leaves to create medicines for colds, stomach problems and tuberculosis, and as the basis for contraceptives. The tree also figured in myths of the Straits Salish.

Thus far, none of the street trees in our survey are native to California, except Arbutus. Looking at the trees of nearby Golden Gate Park, certainly the many eucalyptus, also called gum trees, in the park are famously Australian, but the park also has spruce, pine, cypress and juniper so there may be a preponderance of native trees there.

Walking east on Cabrillo, once you pass 43rd Avenue, you are in the land of the peppermint willows (also native to Australia). These gracious trees line both sides of the street, and I always get the feeling I am walking through a grove of peppermint willows for a few blocks. They get their name from the profusion of little white dots, like peppermint drops, that are their flowers.

I look forward to sharing more trees with you. I’m happy to be out walking in our beautiful Richmond.

David Romano is a naturalist who lives in the Outer Richmond District and an occasional contributor to RichmondSunsetNews.com.