Imagine Wilshire Park if there were no trees! Summer heat would be unbearable, there would be nothing for kids to play hide-and-seek behind, and there’d be minimal carbon capture or carbon sequestration — the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Most of all, where would dogs leave their calling cards?
Fortunately, that’s not the case. In 2017 volunteers inventoried the park’s 347 individual trees and found 18 different species. Only five of the species were native to Oregon, though a few natives have been added since. Our state tree, the Douglas fir, was, and continues to be, the most common. But a close second is the Norway maple, now considered invasive since its helicopter seeds are easily lofted to other locations and germinate readily.
It would be easy to fill the entire BWNA newsletter with fascinating information about the park’s trees, but space limitations make that impossible. So for more tree details, visit tinyurl.com/26er7sxn.
When you do, be sure to scroll down the sidebar until you come to “Tree Walk Through Wilshire Park.” There you’ll find a detailed map identifying each tree present in 2017 and, with one more click, interesting facts about that individual tree.
For a more immersive dose of native plants, take a stroll through Wilshire Park’s NatureSpace. A native Ponderosa pine guards the south end of the gravel path and, at this time of year, cascaras, madrones, and vine maples are just leafing out elsewhere.
On warm March days you may catch a whiff of the early white blossoms of the osoberry shrubs, whose leaves smell like cucumber. Its female flowers call to mind almonds, and male flowers smell to some like cat urine! As the days get warmer, watch for the handsome fawn lilies, with their blooms lining the path near ground level.
In college Peter Mogielnicki vacillated between careers in writing or medicine. He chose the safer route, but since retirement has enjoyed writing short essays for his blog at Cereflections.com, reading, working on environmental and biodiversity issues, birding, and identifying insects (bugging??) with his grandchildren.