Last weekend I had the pleasure to be invited to a walking tour of the St. Francis Woods neighborhood led by Matt Ritter, professor of botany at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and author of A Californian’s Guide to The Trees Among Us - my favorite book on California’s trees (which just came out in a 2nd edition - click on the link to get your copy). St. Francis Wood was a planned neighborhood that got its start 110 years ago, and as part of its 110 year old birthday party, the neighborhood invited Matt to do a walking tour of interesting and landmark trees in St. Francis Woods.

Most of the participants were neighborhood residents, but a few tree aficionados tagged along, including Richard Turner, editor emeritus of Pacific Horticulture, Jason Dewees, author of Designing with Palms, and Sairus Patel, soon to be author of an updated Trees of Stanford. Landscape architect Bonnie Fisher, who with Matt has been advising the St. Francis Woods neighborhood on tree issues, joined us as well.

Who knew that the tallest Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata) in the Western Hemisphere was in St. Francis Woods? Not me - but Matt took us to the tree, and since he’s the State Coordinator for the California Big Tree Registry, no one was second-guessing him. The tree is in a lawn in front of 214 Santa Clara Avenue. Where is the largest in the world, you might ask? According to Matt, it’s in the Tokai Forest, near Cape Town, South Africa.

Matt also brought us to a huge Catalina ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. asplenifolius) in the northern end of St. Francis Park, adjacent to San Jacinto Way near its intersection with Santa Paula Avenue. This species exists only on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Clemente islands off the southern California coast, and Matt speculated that this tree could well be the largest outside of the tree’s native range.

prickly melaleuca *(Melaleuca styphelioides)*

At the northwest edge of the park the group stopped to admire a grove of prickly melaleucas (Melaleuca styphelioides), a relatively rare tree in San Francisco.

We learned that the eucalyptus that lines many of the streets of St. Francis Woods is the ribbon gum (Eucalyptus viminalis). It’s one of the two most common street trees in St. Francis Woods - but it’s found almost nowhere else in the City as a street tree. The other common tree in St. Francis Woods is red flowering gum (Corymbia ficifolia), and the “national champion” tree (largest in the country) is in the neighborhood - it’s in the median of Monterey Boulevard near Junipero Serra.

Matt shared some interesting tree factoids along the way. One of my favorites: many who know the story of eucalyptus in California know that it was extensively planted in 19th century by landowners hoping to get rich from the lumber of the fast-growing tree. By the 1860s California was facing a timber shortage as the state grew rapidly and had began to run out of its native redwood timber. Eucalyptus was seen as a solution for the state’s lumber needs - it was thought to be an excellent source of lumber, as Australian sea captains visiting San Francisco arrived in boats made from excellent eucalyptus wood. But the Eucalyptus trees that were cut down 25-30 years later had wood that was terrible for lumber - it warped, twisted and cracked, and the Eucalyptus “gold rush” crashed by the turn of the century. What Matt explained is that there’s an inverse relationship between trees that are growing very fast and the quality of lumber. The “old growth” eucalyptus in Australia - hundreds of years old - made excellent timber; the get-rich-quick 30 year old California trees - not so much. That’s what Californians in 1860 didn’t know - Eucalyptus does make great timber, but you just have to be patient!