St. John Bridge
James John
St. John High School
It was a cold, foggy January morning in the Portland, Oregon area and daughter S --I won't give her name due to internet creeps-- was bundled in her warmest. A brisk breeze off the Willamette River reddened her cheeks, for we were planning a tree hunt in the Cathedral Park neighborhood. One crosses the bridge to the annexation (in 1910) of St. Johns, a once-Portland suburb that was originally settled as a Donation Land Claim of James John (aka Saint James) in 1847. The St. Johns bridge was built in 1931 and Cathedral Park (below, on the east side) was developed in 1980. The church-like arches of the architecturally inspired span gave rise to the park's name, not that St. James or John held any religious predilections. On October 7, 1852 he platted "St. Johns on the Willamette," but he developed dementia at about 65 years old, and in his last decade he was known as a hermit, more comfortable with children than with adults. He died in 1886 and left his entire estate for the benefit of school children. James John Public High School opened in 1911 and had four students in its first graduating class, but it closed in 1920 after it was condemned as unsafe.
Flora Wonder Arboretum
Pioneer John was secretive about his past; though we know he was born in the small Ohio town of Donnelsville and was briefly a deckhand on the Mississippi River. Eventually he was lured to Sacramento, California and then to the Gaston-Forest Grove area where he grew turnips... very near to where I established Buchholz Nursery and the Flora Wonder Arboretum, then finally to his Willamette River location.
Fagus grandifolia
Cathedral tree map
Many of the homes in St. Johns exceed 100 years, and the streets above Cathedral Park contain some huge trees, many exotics. Daughter S and I used Phyllis Reynolds' Trees of Greater Portland (2013) as our guide, and the accompanying map served as bread crumbs so we could find the trees and still make it safely back to our car. One "introduced" tree, (ie exotic) includes Fagus grandifolia ("American beech") from eastern USA. Such a proud muscular trunk!
Betula pendula
Aesculus hippocastanum
Aesculus hippocastanum
Ulmus parvifolia
From further afield we found a pair of Betula pendula ("European white birch"), Aesculus hippocastanum ("Common European horse chestnut") and Ulmus parvifolia ("Chinese elm"). The latter fronted a run-down dwelling --I suspect a rental-- that continued with the tired message (BLM) that insists "Black Lives (s)Matter." I doubt that today's grungy occupants realize that the elm is native to Asia, and they would probably be against it if they did. I never would have guessed the tree's identity from the round deciduous canopy alone, but the colorful trunk was the give-away.
Quercus garryana
Some old native trees probably date from John's time, such as Acer macrophyllum ("Oregon Bigleaf maple") and Quercus garryana ("Oregon white oak"). Our famous oak at Flora Farm is the "larger" of the two in the overall measurement sense --canopy heigth, canopy width and trunk circumference at chest level-- but the St. Johns specimen was a little taller, and my daughter seconded that observation. Trees such as this are attractive in spring and summer with their shiny green foliage, but I find them just as wonderful in winter when they have disrobed and you can appreciate their forms au naturel, in the nude. It was too cold for S to disrobe, thankfully, but her presence next to the specimens was useful to establish scale, and I'm sure Mr. John would be pleased that many persist over a century beyond him, and old Buchholz and his pretty daughter came on a cold morning to pay their respects.
Arbutus menziesii
Arbutus menziesii
A couple of trees were missing from the Reynols list, such as Arbutus menziesii ("Madrone"), but I explained to S that was usually the case. Often these champions are absent because they are relatively touchy in cultivation where they are routinely overwatered. A Eucalyptus perriniana ("Spinning gum") was also absent, probably due to a cold winter the past decade, and the only reason I cared was because I've never ever seen the species, and I have no knowledge why it "spins" in the first place.
Frangula (Rhamnus) purshiana
Frangula (Rhamnus) purshiana
Frangula (Rhamnus) purshiana
A surprise promise was that a pair of Rhamnus purshiana ("cascara") was said to grow on Edison Street, just before a pair of Acer griseum. The "Chinese Paperbark maples" were easy to spot, but they weren't really of "notable" size, and one often finds them much larger "these days" in Portland as it has become a common, tough and durable street species. The usefulness of the two griseums was that the cascara next to them was more easily identified, except that just one tree of the alder-looking Oregon native was still present. It was actually quite large, especially since it's considered a "brush tree" often found as an understory species, and it exists down by the creek at the bottom of Buchholz Nursery. The tiny fruits displayed a light yellow-pink color, especially since the gloomy fog was now lifting, but eventually they will turn to black.
I recently learned from The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs (2019) that the Rhamnus pershiana classification has been changed to Frangula pershiana, but under the new moniker it is still a member of the Rhamnaceae family. The Pursh specific epithet for cascara honors Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774-1820), a German/American botanist who first classified many western North American plants, most notably Acer macrophyllum, the "Bigleaf maple." Interesting that Pursh studied the plants collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, especially since L&C supposedly camped for a few days at the same Willamette River location prior to James John's land claim.
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Frangula purshiana
Hillier cites the pharmacological properties of cascara, that the bark contains the drug "cascara sagrada."* My father taught me how to identify the species and distinguish it from the more common and larger Alnus rubra, and indeed I harvested the laxative-inducing cascara bark as a summer job when I was 16 and 17 years old. I would go deep into the Oregon woods where no one could see me because I was often on private timber land. Even though I would completely debark the trunk from about 2-7 feet up, the top would die but the tree always resprouted. Completely sustainable, and I routinely made $25-$35 a day, plus I got to make my haul alone in the woods. I threw full gunny-sacks into the back of my old beater pickup and laid the bark out on chicken-wire racks to dry, then I delivered it to the local feed store who in turn sold the bark to another middle-man before it eventually made it to the drug company. This was in the 1960s and my forest job went a long way to pay for my college. Those were the days!
*Cascara sagrada, according to the School of Forest Medicine, is "the sacred bark of letting go." It has been used by Native Americans for centuries and has been marketed by pharmaceutical companies since the 1800s, and many claim the Pacific Northwest native is the most widely used purgative in the world. Native Americans, speaking in the Chinook Jargon --a mongrel language used in common by white trappers and Natives of various tribes to facilitate trade-- used the name "chittum," which I always found humorous. Whether "chittum" or "shittum," first gather a lot of pine cones.
Acer psedosieboldianum
Again, the T of P book lists various "notable" trees, not necessarily "heritage" or "champion" trees. Near to the cascara, also on Edison St., was a solo Acer pseudosieboldianum ("Korean maple") that was worth a mention in 2013, so I wondered how it had grown since then, or if it was even correctly identified at all. I found the tree, I guess, the only maple on the parking strip, sandwiched between some cherries. It wasn't so big really --I could have grown one to that size at the nursery in just ten years,-- so I suspect that Ms. Reynolds was tipped off by a resident, otherwise she would have assumed the little sapling in 2013 was just another of the dozens of Acer palmatums that are popular in this Cathedral area. I wish to return in May to see the maple in leaf, and hopefully the hideous white van will have been moved by then. "Return." I'd like to. S smiled because I probably express that hope with nearly all our destinations. Return in spring, in autumn, when the sun is out etc.
Female Araucaria araucana
Araucaria araucana
Further north up Edison St. --a little further than we wanted to walk-- we decided to drive to an old Araucaria araucana, said to be a female "Monkey Puzzle" specimen. I wanted very much to photograph a female cone, but they're usually not low enough without a ladder or cherry-picker, and I was probably a few months too late in the season anyway. S and I spotted it from a block away so we parked and walked toward it, but no cone was still intact, only the cone base and the spindle shaft. I gathered a few seeds from the ground to prove to my daughter that the "pinones" are edible and actually pretty tasty, but alas all shells were empty.*
Araucaria araucana
Araucaria araucana at Arboretum Tervuren
Araucaria araucana male pollen flower
*Maybe all the viable nuts were eaten or cached away by the hoards of scampering squirrels that have overrun the area, as we saw literally hundreds of the furry culprits during our walk. Actually the only time I've tasted monkey nuts was in fall, 2011 at the Arboretum Tervuren in Belgium where a fantastic forest of the species, both male and female, was left to naturalize as if in a wild state, including with grasses and weeds beneath. I asked the arboretum Director about seed germination percentages. He laughed and revealed that Belgic squirrels would eat them all, so seeds are harvested and grown on in a greenhouse, then a few years later the seedlings would be transplanted into the collection.
Archibald Menzies
The A. araucana species was introduced to England by Scotsman Archibald Menzies who sailed as the "naturalist" on Captain George Vancouver's voyage around the world (1791-1795) on HMS Discovery. When at port in Chile Menzies was served seeds of the "Chilean pine" as a dessert while dining with the Viceroy of Chile. Menzies pocketed some seed which germinated on board and he returned to England with five thriving plants. Thus Menzies gets credit for the "introduction" even though he apparently never "witnessed" the species in the wild.
Male Araucaria araucana
Male Araucaria araucana
Before I conclude today's Cathedral Park adventure I'll mention a tree search for an A. araucana in another east-Portland neighborhood a week or two previous. The tree was described as male, located at 419 Hazelfern Place. It was easy to find and loomed large on the corner lot, even on a dull, drizzly day. Even more of a great "discovery" than the main tree itself was a two-foot root sucker that sprang up near the monster's trunk. I have read about that before, about the species proclivity to regenerate from the roots, but at first I assumed that a seedling had germinated near the "mother tree." Well, wait a minute! --this tree was a male-- with no other "Monkey Puzzle" in the near vicinity, so the young shoot could not be a seedling offspring. But... well, this was Portland after all, Portland in year 2025, so who knows what about any gender anymore.
I wonder how Daughter S will remember these days, when she and her old retired father would criss-cross Portland for slim purpose. We began our morning in the frigid gloom of north Portland, our noses dripping as we walked from tree to tree; then we were home by mid-day in our warm car, happy that we were safe and sound. S and I lingered in the driveway, laughing about some joke or story that one of us told. Wife Haruko caught us giggling, like two happy teenagers after a successful first date.
Daughter S posing beneath Garrya elliptica
Flora was pleased with the day as well. I think she appraises my daughter as a welcome recruit, and I'm obviously proud that they get along.
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