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Trees in Paradise: A California History
California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities. They imported the blue-green eucalypts whose tangy fragrance was thought to cure malaria. They built the lucrative "Orange Empire" on the sweet juice and thick skin of the Washington navel, an industrial fruit. They lined their streets with graceful palms to announce that they were not in the Midwest anymore. To the north the majestic coastal redwoods inspired awe and invited exploitation. A resource in the state, the durable heartwood of these timeless giants became infrastructure, transformed by the saw teeth of American enterprise. By 1900 timber firms owned the entire redwood forest; by 1950 they had clear-cut almost all of the old-growth trees.
In time California s new landscape proved to be no paradise: the eucalypts in the Berkeley hills exploded in fire; the orange groves near Riverside froze on cold nights; Los Angeles s palms harbored rats and dropped heavy fronds on the streets below. Disease, infestation, and development all spelled decline for these nonnative evergreens. In the north, however, a new forest of second-growth redwood took root, nurtured by protective laws and sustainable harvesting. Today there are more California redwoods than there were a century ago.
Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West."
In time California s new landscape proved to be no paradise: the eucalypts in the Berkeley hills exploded in fire; the orange groves near Riverside froze on cold nights; Los Angeles s palms harbored rats and dropped heavy fronds on the streets below. Disease, infestation, and development all spelled decline for these nonnative evergreens. In the north, however, a new forest of second-growth redwood took root, nurtured by protective laws and sustainable harvesting. Today there are more California redwoods than there were a century ago.
Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West."
592 pages, Hardcover
First published October 28, 2013
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August 8, 2019
With one large caveat I'll get to below, this was a wondrous and detailed account of four of the most iconic trees of present California's built environment: redwoods, eucalypts, citruses, and palms. Did you know that the General Sherman giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park was initially named the Karl Marx by 19th century utopian socialists who had occupied the area? Or that Southern California's skies were engloomed by the black smokes of smudge pots lit to protect orange groves from frost long before the same effect was achieved by car exhaust and heavy industry? I did not! I feel like I know slightly more than the average Californian about our dendritic neighbors, but I certainly found this particularly human lens on their uses and misuses enlightening.
And, of course, also alarming and depressing. Farmer takes pains to illuminate the hubristic, bigoted, and often flagrantly racist ideologies that enervate most Western interactions with trees in California, on all sides of our many divides. Magnificent redwoods were superlative lumber to harvest, awe-inspiring curiosities that could earn a quick buck, and quasi-religious totems to preserve in perpetuity, but always objects of some Western mania. Likewise, eucs were variously instruments toward a horticultural utopia, financial investments, and invading barbarian outsiders to be evicted, if not murdered, and Farmer quotes numerous sources that make the analogies to human opinions of other humans very, very explicit. Largely, his own perspective is fairly balanced, though certainly tending toward the live-and-let-live side of the native/invasive divide.
Which is why I was especially disappointed by the omission of oaks, and not just because oaks are ubiquitous and distinctive in our state, or because I am a California native plant enthusiast who lives in a town called "Oakland." Specifically, oaks would have provided Farmer a way to escape his distinctively European viewpoint and discuss a human relationship with trees that extends far beyond the arrival of Europeans in California (Spanish or English). Oaks were a staple wild crop for generations of Californians prior to the arrival of the Spanish missionaries, tended with careful burning and harvested with care in a way that Westerners did not and largely do not understand or appreciate as agriculture. Oaks impressed our Western forebears for different reasons, evocative of the gnarled branches in remnant English forests and dripping with epiphytes like southern live oaks, and inspired many names (Oakland, Hollywood, Paso Robles), and, in many parts of the state, oaks remain prized backyard and street trees. Anyone who has taken the time to investigate the ways of other organisms in California will quickly recognize that oak woodlands sustain a more vibrant and diverse set of denizens than any redwood grove, and will appreciate the wild ingenuity in their ability to survive in situations varying from coastal bluffs to desert ridges to alpine cliffs. To me, oaks symbolize adaptation and not subjugation, and the people who appreciate them are those with a vision for these lands that exceeds quarterly profits, or even the earnings of a lifetime. They would have made the perfect subject for a final chapter that surveyed the preceding chapters from a different viewpoint, one from which he could have looked forward, too, as oaks survived California's shift from a wetter climate to our current dry one, and will undoubtedly survive a return to even drier conditions in the future. In an otherwise excellent history, this oversight seems glaring.
And, of course, also alarming and depressing. Farmer takes pains to illuminate the hubristic, bigoted, and often flagrantly racist ideologies that enervate most Western interactions with trees in California, on all sides of our many divides. Magnificent redwoods were superlative lumber to harvest, awe-inspiring curiosities that could earn a quick buck, and quasi-religious totems to preserve in perpetuity, but always objects of some Western mania. Likewise, eucs were variously instruments toward a horticultural utopia, financial investments, and invading barbarian outsiders to be evicted, if not murdered, and Farmer quotes numerous sources that make the analogies to human opinions of other humans very, very explicit. Largely, his own perspective is fairly balanced, though certainly tending toward the live-and-let-live side of the native/invasive divide.
Which is why I was especially disappointed by the omission of oaks, and not just because oaks are ubiquitous and distinctive in our state, or because I am a California native plant enthusiast who lives in a town called "Oakland." Specifically, oaks would have provided Farmer a way to escape his distinctively European viewpoint and discuss a human relationship with trees that extends far beyond the arrival of Europeans in California (Spanish or English). Oaks were a staple wild crop for generations of Californians prior to the arrival of the Spanish missionaries, tended with careful burning and harvested with care in a way that Westerners did not and largely do not understand or appreciate as agriculture. Oaks impressed our Western forebears for different reasons, evocative of the gnarled branches in remnant English forests and dripping with epiphytes like southern live oaks, and inspired many names (Oakland, Hollywood, Paso Robles), and, in many parts of the state, oaks remain prized backyard and street trees. Anyone who has taken the time to investigate the ways of other organisms in California will quickly recognize that oak woodlands sustain a more vibrant and diverse set of denizens than any redwood grove, and will appreciate the wild ingenuity in their ability to survive in situations varying from coastal bluffs to desert ridges to alpine cliffs. To me, oaks symbolize adaptation and not subjugation, and the people who appreciate them are those with a vision for these lands that exceeds quarterly profits, or even the earnings of a lifetime. They would have made the perfect subject for a final chapter that surveyed the preceding chapters from a different viewpoint, one from which he could have looked forward, too, as oaks survived California's shift from a wetter climate to our current dry one, and will undoubtedly survive a return to even drier conditions in the future. In an otherwise excellent history, this oversight seems glaring.
September 4, 2017
Not the book for which I was hoping, but solid nonetheless.
Farmer wants to tell the story of California through four of its most iconic tree( group)s: redwoods, eucalypts, citrus, and palms. I don't think that he ever makes his broader case that California became modern via its trees--he seems to have caught the academic historian's disease that every monograph fundamentally revises cultural history--but he does convince me that trees were part of the modernization process--he fits natural history into the history of the state's modernization--which is no mean feat. (The environmental history aspect owes a great deal to William Cronon, and his paths into and out of town notion.)
At the same time, he wants to suggest that there were alternative ways for Californians, over the last hundred and fifty years, to integrate trees into their state, and their state into modernity--which were not followed. In particular, he looks to a nineteenth-century tendency to obscure the division between urban and rural, as well as between ornamental and fruiting trees. But he only makes a few references to this road-not-taken--xxxvii and 363, for example--otherwise concentrating on the road that was followed.
And its a relatively well-known road. Farmer starts with the Gold Rush, and the discovery of the redwoods by Europeans and Americans, along the coast and in the Sierras. The weight of this first section is to show early settlers as both recklessly wanton, but also (eventually) moved to preservation--which is a good point, as so often modernism is represented as only destructive, when it contained the (ahem!) seeds of opposition, too.
The second section considers the meaning of immigration and what it means to be a native to California (given the shameful treatment of actual native Californians) through the story of the introduction of eucalyptus. Originally imported to tree a state that was given over mostly to oak grasslands, the Australian immigrants went through cycles of expansion and contraction until the later part of the 20th century, when they were most vilified as ruining the native environment, though Farmer notes that even now there are countervailing trends, with both discourses abutting larger discussions of immigration and nativism.
The third section builds on this--there is discussion of immigration--while also taking up economics and labor concerns, with Farmer turning his attention to the citrus industry in California, started in the late nineteenth century mostly (but not exclusively) in southern California, before later moving to the San Joaquin Valley. Places such as Riverside sought to disguise its abusive labor practices behind a bucolic facade, while other places looked very much like agricultural factory towns. Wending through this section is also a discussion of pest control, which was decidedly oriented around biological control, but also brought in plenty of chemicals. Obscene amounts of water use was also a problem with the industry.
The final section puts the capstone on the traditional story of modernization: from ruthless exploitation, through nativism, industrialization, to post-modern and post-structuralist concerns with simulation. Palms are real trees, and some are even native, but they are also symbols of Hollywood extravagance and fakery--and are themselves sometimes faked, as cell phone towers or to "land"scape malls. Meanwhile, the real palms of the area--the California and Mexican fan palms--have so interbred that southern California may never see pure strains of either again.
This is a lot of material to cover--there's a joke here about how many trees had to die in the service of this book about trees--and Farmer adds to the weight of the tome with his wordiness. He's one of those people, it seems, who can just write and write and write. what would be sentences in other works are expanded here into entire paragraphs. He's a graceful writer, though, and there's a lot of interesting information, though he lacks the ability to identify the telling detail.
According to his acknowledgments, he pared down a lot of his word play, too, which is hard to believe, given how many puns and such are still here. It's not always to the good, either, sometimes making otherwise serious material seem too jokey. The language connects to a more general problem--the voice. Farmer wants to be a historian, but he also is clearly seduced toward journalism, too, and large sections of the book seem more like they belong in a popular magazine. Which isn't necessarily bad, though it makes me wonder about his sourcing, and how much his ideas are driven by his gut feel versus evidence.
Not surprisingly, this problem with not always trusting Farmer is most striking in his sections on eucalypts and palms. That's because his chapters on redwoods and citrus build on extensive existing literature. From what I can tell, he didn't really push these stories in particularly new directions; yes, he was immersed in primary documents, but the larger thematics seemed familiar to me. By contrast, the other chapters, though they did have him stretching into journalism, were more interesting and exciting.
Which leads back to the kind of book I was hoping for when I saw the title. I was hoping for something less circumscribed in topics. I wanted a natural history of trees in California, with the fates of natives--the way their ranges have changed over time--and the importation of the major immigrant species, some of which--like the eucalypts--would mostly have spread through landscaping practices, and others of which--like, say, the tree of heaven (Ailanthus) have become invasive. It would have been a lot of work to put together such a book, no doubt, but it also clearly took Farmer a great deal of work to put together this one.
Still, it's not fair to evaluate him based on the book I wish that he'd written. And what he did write was good, engaging, and informative, if not quite essential.
Farmer wants to tell the story of California through four of its most iconic tree( group)s: redwoods, eucalypts, citrus, and palms. I don't think that he ever makes his broader case that California became modern via its trees--he seems to have caught the academic historian's disease that every monograph fundamentally revises cultural history--but he does convince me that trees were part of the modernization process--he fits natural history into the history of the state's modernization--which is no mean feat. (The environmental history aspect owes a great deal to William Cronon, and his paths into and out of town notion.)
At the same time, he wants to suggest that there were alternative ways for Californians, over the last hundred and fifty years, to integrate trees into their state, and their state into modernity--which were not followed. In particular, he looks to a nineteenth-century tendency to obscure the division between urban and rural, as well as between ornamental and fruiting trees. But he only makes a few references to this road-not-taken--xxxvii and 363, for example--otherwise concentrating on the road that was followed.
And its a relatively well-known road. Farmer starts with the Gold Rush, and the discovery of the redwoods by Europeans and Americans, along the coast and in the Sierras. The weight of this first section is to show early settlers as both recklessly wanton, but also (eventually) moved to preservation--which is a good point, as so often modernism is represented as only destructive, when it contained the (ahem!) seeds of opposition, too.
The second section considers the meaning of immigration and what it means to be a native to California (given the shameful treatment of actual native Californians) through the story of the introduction of eucalyptus. Originally imported to tree a state that was given over mostly to oak grasslands, the Australian immigrants went through cycles of expansion and contraction until the later part of the 20th century, when they were most vilified as ruining the native environment, though Farmer notes that even now there are countervailing trends, with both discourses abutting larger discussions of immigration and nativism.
The third section builds on this--there is discussion of immigration--while also taking up economics and labor concerns, with Farmer turning his attention to the citrus industry in California, started in the late nineteenth century mostly (but not exclusively) in southern California, before later moving to the San Joaquin Valley. Places such as Riverside sought to disguise its abusive labor practices behind a bucolic facade, while other places looked very much like agricultural factory towns. Wending through this section is also a discussion of pest control, which was decidedly oriented around biological control, but also brought in plenty of chemicals. Obscene amounts of water use was also a problem with the industry.
The final section puts the capstone on the traditional story of modernization: from ruthless exploitation, through nativism, industrialization, to post-modern and post-structuralist concerns with simulation. Palms are real trees, and some are even native, but they are also symbols of Hollywood extravagance and fakery--and are themselves sometimes faked, as cell phone towers or to "land"scape malls. Meanwhile, the real palms of the area--the California and Mexican fan palms--have so interbred that southern California may never see pure strains of either again.
This is a lot of material to cover--there's a joke here about how many trees had to die in the service of this book about trees--and Farmer adds to the weight of the tome with his wordiness. He's one of those people, it seems, who can just write and write and write. what would be sentences in other works are expanded here into entire paragraphs. He's a graceful writer, though, and there's a lot of interesting information, though he lacks the ability to identify the telling detail.
According to his acknowledgments, he pared down a lot of his word play, too, which is hard to believe, given how many puns and such are still here. It's not always to the good, either, sometimes making otherwise serious material seem too jokey. The language connects to a more general problem--the voice. Farmer wants to be a historian, but he also is clearly seduced toward journalism, too, and large sections of the book seem more like they belong in a popular magazine. Which isn't necessarily bad, though it makes me wonder about his sourcing, and how much his ideas are driven by his gut feel versus evidence.
Not surprisingly, this problem with not always trusting Farmer is most striking in his sections on eucalypts and palms. That's because his chapters on redwoods and citrus build on extensive existing literature. From what I can tell, he didn't really push these stories in particularly new directions; yes, he was immersed in primary documents, but the larger thematics seemed familiar to me. By contrast, the other chapters, though they did have him stretching into journalism, were more interesting and exciting.
Which leads back to the kind of book I was hoping for when I saw the title. I was hoping for something less circumscribed in topics. I wanted a natural history of trees in California, with the fates of natives--the way their ranges have changed over time--and the importation of the major immigrant species, some of which--like the eucalypts--would mostly have spread through landscaping practices, and others of which--like, say, the tree of heaven (Ailanthus) have become invasive. It would have been a lot of work to put together such a book, no doubt, but it also clearly took Farmer a great deal of work to put together this one.
Still, it's not fair to evaluate him based on the book I wish that he'd written. And what he did write was good, engaging, and informative, if not quite essential.
January 19, 2021
Came due before I finished. I have some notes, if I can find them.
Never did, but here's a decent published review:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
I recommend the book, but you may want to skim, or read selectively. Farmer writes well and has done his homework, but he does get a bit carried away at times. A good book for Californians who are interested in trees and state history
Never did, but here's a decent published review:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
I recommend the book, but you may want to skim, or read selectively. Farmer writes well and has done his homework, but he does get a bit carried away at times. A good book for Californians who are interested in trees and state history
March 4, 2024
Who knew that a history of California could be told with four types of trees? Well, not entirely, but this book does attempt that and does a great job.
The book is in four parts, one for each type of tree, these are iconic trees of California and each can be “read as individual botanical and cultural histories.”
Part I: Redwoods – ideas of time, history, antiquity, and mortality.
Part II: Eucalyptus – immigration, naturalization, nativeness, and alienness.
Part III: Citrus – labor, industry, replication, and growth.
Park IV: Palms – beauty, fashion, image, and style.
Redwoods, for their longevity and largeness, and covered all that went along with cutting down the forests for the wood. At first people didn’t believe that trees could be so enormous, samples were taken, cuttings of the trunk would be shipped around the world. Now convinced they were horrified at the atrocity of killing the magnificent tree. I saw one of these in the Natural History Museum in London last summer, now I know how it got there. In Yosemite area, the land was sold off to three monopoly companies, two lumber companies and one organization of socialists. The socialists took nearly four years to build a road. Just as they started cutting trees the land was turned into a National Park – now they were illegally there, and the government came and kicked them out.
Eucalyptus, while not native it certainly feels like it in California. They have been around over 100 years; doesn’t that make them native? And so, the discussion naturally moves to immigration, naturalization and being foreign.
No where else but in California do you see Eucalyptus tree lines streets. In other countries the tree represents something, such as in India the trees symbolize colonialism. My Dad planted a row of these in our yard, they make a great wind break and natural division line. (We also had a Redwood tree!)
Citrus, the trees that were part of the food industry mainly oranges, but other citrus fruits as well. The grafting of trees created the Valencia orange practically in my backyard (ages ago, of course). This section was also close to home as I grew up around orange groves that (to my horror) were cut down to make way for more cookie-cutter housing developments. This passage explains well, from page 318 “The literal ‘orange curtain’ that once marked the transition from Los Angeles County to Orange County no longer exists. Today the leading local landmark is probably the Orange Crush – the largest and most complicated freeway interchange in the world.”
Palms, the iconic tree of Hollywood, L.A., really of Southern California. They do feel out of place in areas such as Big Sur where different types of trees dominate. The Mexican Palms are in a type of “invasive species” which will grow up out of the asphalt if left alone. The tree doesn’t provide much shade but does give a certain look. They are also high-maintenance trees and can be costly to city governments which causes more controversy for urban tree development. It is dangerous work to keep the fronds trimmed, and when they aren’t the trees look scraggy and not the image desired. Palms can be easily transported and installed elsewhere and for the larger trees big business for instant large palms in flashy places such as Las Vegas.
I could go on, barely touched the surface here of all that is covered by these four tree types, while barely mentioned all the social history. I listened to the audiobook version while had alongside me the print book, which probably is a better way to read this one. The print book included many photos. Also found only in the print book are many, many pages of notes, an index, a lengthy further reading section (there goes my to read list!), and a listing of all the common and scientific names of many plants and trees. The print book was from the library, now I may have to search to get my own copy.
The book is in four parts, one for each type of tree, these are iconic trees of California and each can be “read as individual botanical and cultural histories.”
Part I: Redwoods – ideas of time, history, antiquity, and mortality.
Part II: Eucalyptus – immigration, naturalization, nativeness, and alienness.
Part III: Citrus – labor, industry, replication, and growth.
Park IV: Palms – beauty, fashion, image, and style.
Redwoods, for their longevity and largeness, and covered all that went along with cutting down the forests for the wood. At first people didn’t believe that trees could be so enormous, samples were taken, cuttings of the trunk would be shipped around the world. Now convinced they were horrified at the atrocity of killing the magnificent tree. I saw one of these in the Natural History Museum in London last summer, now I know how it got there. In Yosemite area, the land was sold off to three monopoly companies, two lumber companies and one organization of socialists. The socialists took nearly four years to build a road. Just as they started cutting trees the land was turned into a National Park – now they were illegally there, and the government came and kicked them out.
Eucalyptus, while not native it certainly feels like it in California. They have been around over 100 years; doesn’t that make them native? And so, the discussion naturally moves to immigration, naturalization and being foreign.
No where else but in California do you see Eucalyptus tree lines streets. In other countries the tree represents something, such as in India the trees symbolize colonialism. My Dad planted a row of these in our yard, they make a great wind break and natural division line. (We also had a Redwood tree!)
Citrus, the trees that were part of the food industry mainly oranges, but other citrus fruits as well. The grafting of trees created the Valencia orange practically in my backyard (ages ago, of course). This section was also close to home as I grew up around orange groves that (to my horror) were cut down to make way for more cookie-cutter housing developments. This passage explains well, from page 318 “The literal ‘orange curtain’ that once marked the transition from Los Angeles County to Orange County no longer exists. Today the leading local landmark is probably the Orange Crush – the largest and most complicated freeway interchange in the world.”
Palms, the iconic tree of Hollywood, L.A., really of Southern California. They do feel out of place in areas such as Big Sur where different types of trees dominate. The Mexican Palms are in a type of “invasive species” which will grow up out of the asphalt if left alone. The tree doesn’t provide much shade but does give a certain look. They are also high-maintenance trees and can be costly to city governments which causes more controversy for urban tree development. It is dangerous work to keep the fronds trimmed, and when they aren’t the trees look scraggy and not the image desired. Palms can be easily transported and installed elsewhere and for the larger trees big business for instant large palms in flashy places such as Las Vegas.
I could go on, barely touched the surface here of all that is covered by these four tree types, while barely mentioned all the social history. I listened to the audiobook version while had alongside me the print book, which probably is a better way to read this one. The print book included many photos. Also found only in the print book are many, many pages of notes, an index, a lengthy further reading section (there goes my to read list!), and a listing of all the common and scientific names of many plants and trees. The print book was from the library, now I may have to search to get my own copy.
December 31, 2019
Absolutely loved this book. A cultural history of four iconic California tree families, only one of which is native to the state: redwoods, eucalyptus, citrus and palms.
- REDWOODS: The native plants covered in this book are the two species of redwood, coast and Sierra, the world-record tallest and most massive trees, respectively. Not only are these famous trees enormous, they are ancient, older than most other conifers in evolutionary scale. Jared Farmer covers their cultural significance to both Native and settler California cultures, as well as their role in the state's architecture, logging industry and as the catalyst to the creation of both the state and national parks system.
- EUCALYPTUS FAMILY: Now iconic in California, but all species are native to Australia. Originally recruited in the 19thC as a timber tree, for which they were a total failure. Although they provide precious shade in the hotter parts of the state, they've also become controversial for being water hogs and, in places where the Blue Gum species has become naturalized/invasive, a fire hazard. (My one and only gripe here is that Farmer somewhat downplays this legitimate danger in the East Bay microclimate, and even allows euc sentimentalists to perpetuate the false claim that eucs harvest fog moisture the way redwoods do, which they do not.) Nevertheless, in the state's hotter Southland and Central Valley eucs are the ultimate and iconic "fencerow tree," the unmistakable shaggy, Dr Seuss-like protective border to farmyards as well as crop fields and pasture, and memorialized in regional landscape painting.
- CITRUS FAMILY: Living money. The most lucrative trees, and the must lucrative crop, in the state, unless you count the mineral crop of gold itself. Fascinating horticultural and social history here of the development of the naval and Valencia orange, and how California snagged a piece of the citrus action from Florida. Also a great cultural history of how citrus ranching was pushed out of Los Angeles County and the surrounding SoCal counties due to real estate development.
The part that blew my mind was that, at its peak in SoCal, the 1920s-40s, California citrus farming was a major source of air pollution! Citrus ranchers routinely burned filthy kerosene "smudge pots" in the groves at the end of the season to protect their precious fruits from the cold ... on such a scale that the smoke became a public health hazard in the orchard towns. That's pretty amazingly ironic, given that the "healthful" orange and lemon groves were an early inducement to LA's late-19th and early-20th-century manifestation as a health colony for consumptives and asthmatics.
PALM TREES OR SHALL WE SAY "TREES": Did you know palms are more closely related to grasses (e.g. bamboo) than trees?!? I didn't. Another amazing thing I learned was that, unlike most (true) trees, palms pretty easily survive transplanting and thus can be sold at mature or near-mature height from property to property like a carved mantlepiece, stained-glass window, etc. How perfectly adapted to the California sport of buying and selling real estate. Across the decades, palms have visually signaled a sort of "paradise" image of California and have thereby served as a sort of vegetable sales force for the real estate business.
Regarding specific palm species, I misspoke a bit up there ... there is one native California palm, Washingtonia filifera, a fan palm. It's the one with raggedy fan leaves, and a relatively squat stature of 50' high or less. But the 100-foot tall ones that look like spindly pom poms on the LA skyline are Mexican fan palms. Meanwhile, the really symmetrical, stately feather-leaved palms that function almost as architectural columns are date palms native to the Mideast/Mediterranean. An interesting and slightly elegiac tidbit is that LA's super-tall, skinny Mexican fan palms may not persist past this generation of trees because they've hybridized with the shorter California variety to the point where the nursery stock is pretty thoroughly mixed up. So the ultra-tall palms that accompanied the city's 20th century -- especially mid-20th century -- real estate boom may prove to have been as much a part of that human-built environment as the carports, patios, picture windows and kidney-shaped pools.
I probably loved the palm section best, because the material was most unfamiliar to me. If you're in California, you can't help but pick up info about redwoods, eucalyptus and citrus; redwoods especially are charismatic megaflora. But who has really looked into the history of palms in California, which except for a few rare oasis ecologies, mostly function as tamed landscape plants? They are the most entirely "cultural" of the four plant types, which is not exactly to say artificial.
Anyway, this book is well-written, enjoyable and satisfyingly long. I would caution that it's written by a historian, not a botanist or ecological biologist, so terminology and discussion inclines toward the popular rather than the scientific. But as long as it's read in that spirit, you won't regret it.
- REDWOODS: The native plants covered in this book are the two species of redwood, coast and Sierra, the world-record tallest and most massive trees, respectively. Not only are these famous trees enormous, they are ancient, older than most other conifers in evolutionary scale. Jared Farmer covers their cultural significance to both Native and settler California cultures, as well as their role in the state's architecture, logging industry and as the catalyst to the creation of both the state and national parks system.
- EUCALYPTUS FAMILY: Now iconic in California, but all species are native to Australia. Originally recruited in the 19thC as a timber tree, for which they were a total failure. Although they provide precious shade in the hotter parts of the state, they've also become controversial for being water hogs and, in places where the Blue Gum species has become naturalized/invasive, a fire hazard. (My one and only gripe here is that Farmer somewhat downplays this legitimate danger in the East Bay microclimate, and even allows euc sentimentalists to perpetuate the false claim that eucs harvest fog moisture the way redwoods do, which they do not.) Nevertheless, in the state's hotter Southland and Central Valley eucs are the ultimate and iconic "fencerow tree," the unmistakable shaggy, Dr Seuss-like protective border to farmyards as well as crop fields and pasture, and memorialized in regional landscape painting.
- CITRUS FAMILY: Living money. The most lucrative trees, and the must lucrative crop, in the state, unless you count the mineral crop of gold itself. Fascinating horticultural and social history here of the development of the naval and Valencia orange, and how California snagged a piece of the citrus action from Florida. Also a great cultural history of how citrus ranching was pushed out of Los Angeles County and the surrounding SoCal counties due to real estate development.
The part that blew my mind was that, at its peak in SoCal, the 1920s-40s, California citrus farming was a major source of air pollution! Citrus ranchers routinely burned filthy kerosene "smudge pots" in the groves at the end of the season to protect their precious fruits from the cold ... on such a scale that the smoke became a public health hazard in the orchard towns. That's pretty amazingly ironic, given that the "healthful" orange and lemon groves were an early inducement to LA's late-19th and early-20th-century manifestation as a health colony for consumptives and asthmatics.
PALM TREES OR SHALL WE SAY "TREES": Did you know palms are more closely related to grasses (e.g. bamboo) than trees?!? I didn't. Another amazing thing I learned was that, unlike most (true) trees, palms pretty easily survive transplanting and thus can be sold at mature or near-mature height from property to property like a carved mantlepiece, stained-glass window, etc. How perfectly adapted to the California sport of buying and selling real estate. Across the decades, palms have visually signaled a sort of "paradise" image of California and have thereby served as a sort of vegetable sales force for the real estate business.
Regarding specific palm species, I misspoke a bit up there ... there is one native California palm, Washingtonia filifera, a fan palm. It's the one with raggedy fan leaves, and a relatively squat stature of 50' high or less. But the 100-foot tall ones that look like spindly pom poms on the LA skyline are Mexican fan palms. Meanwhile, the really symmetrical, stately feather-leaved palms that function almost as architectural columns are date palms native to the Mideast/Mediterranean. An interesting and slightly elegiac tidbit is that LA's super-tall, skinny Mexican fan palms may not persist past this generation of trees because they've hybridized with the shorter California variety to the point where the nursery stock is pretty thoroughly mixed up. So the ultra-tall palms that accompanied the city's 20th century -- especially mid-20th century -- real estate boom may prove to have been as much a part of that human-built environment as the carports, patios, picture windows and kidney-shaped pools.
I probably loved the palm section best, because the material was most unfamiliar to me. If you're in California, you can't help but pick up info about redwoods, eucalyptus and citrus; redwoods especially are charismatic megaflora. But who has really looked into the history of palms in California, which except for a few rare oasis ecologies, mostly function as tamed landscape plants? They are the most entirely "cultural" of the four plant types, which is not exactly to say artificial.
Anyway, this book is well-written, enjoyable and satisfyingly long. I would caution that it's written by a historian, not a botanist or ecological biologist, so terminology and discussion inclines toward the popular rather than the scientific. But as long as it's read in that spirit, you won't regret it.
August 27, 2022
Interesting, the first section about the Redwoods and Sequoias and the last about the Palms were the best.
#JennyGuyColvin
#JennyGuyColvin
February 28, 2017
Jared Farmer, has written a unique and interesting book on the changing landscape of California from Gold Rush days to the present. If it was not for the subtitle, A California History, one might presume that Trees in Paradise is simply a botany book. Although the book’s focus is on the big trees (redwoods and giant sequoias), the eucalyptus (from Australia), orange trees and palms, there is much more. Associated with the four major themes are a myriad of lesser topics including lumbering, Save-the-Redwood League, agribusiness, immigration, postwar building boom, freeways and smog.
For me, the book was especially engaging because I grew up in the Citrus Belt (now known as the Inland Empire). I remember taking short-cuts through the orange groves on my way to school. My family’s traditional summer vacation was spent camping at Sequoia National Park. I saw the General Sherman Tree – the world’s largest tree by volume. I was quite surprised to learn that before the General Sherman Tree became part of a national park, it was called the Karl Marx Tree. I also learned that in earlier times the planting of eucalyptus was believed to counteract the “miasma” or bad air that caused disease. The oil from the leaves was believed to be good for asthma, rheumatism and the “gleets – a detestable malady with an appropriately ugly name.”
In a book about trees and changing landscape, I did not expect the political undertone of racism and nativism. Not confined just to the Chinese, Japanese and Mexican workers, the principle was also applied to the plant world. Should non-native species be removed to restore natural habitat? How long must an “immigrant” tree reside in the state before it can truly be considered part of its natural vegetation?
For me, the book was especially engaging because I grew up in the Citrus Belt (now known as the Inland Empire). I remember taking short-cuts through the orange groves on my way to school. My family’s traditional summer vacation was spent camping at Sequoia National Park. I saw the General Sherman Tree – the world’s largest tree by volume. I was quite surprised to learn that before the General Sherman Tree became part of a national park, it was called the Karl Marx Tree. I also learned that in earlier times the planting of eucalyptus was believed to counteract the “miasma” or bad air that caused disease. The oil from the leaves was believed to be good for asthma, rheumatism and the “gleets – a detestable malady with an appropriately ugly name.”
In a book about trees and changing landscape, I did not expect the political undertone of racism and nativism. Not confined just to the Chinese, Japanese and Mexican workers, the principle was also applied to the plant world. Should non-native species be removed to restore natural habitat? How long must an “immigrant” tree reside in the state before it can truly be considered part of its natural vegetation?
Read
January 11, 2023I was looking to learn a little bit about California, when I discovered this book, which aims to tell the history of California by telling about some of its iconic trees. Cool idea. I like trees, so why not?
The four trees are redwoods, eucalyptus, orange, and palm. Whatever your interests, you are sure to find here some cool stories and fun facts. You are also sure to find more than you wanted to know about something or other. I realized midway through that I had read another book by Jared Farmer, and I had called him a man who simply could not stop researching. But I also had said that I didn’t mind because it was interesting.
The first thing I learned about the California redwoods is that the Coast Redwoods and the Giant Sequoia are two different species of tree. They live in different habitats and have different growth habits. The redwoods are taller and the sequoias are more massive. Both are magnificent and unique to California.
We learned about how white setters “discovered” these giant trees, and their clumsy attempts to share the news with folks back east, many of whom simply didn’t believe it. One of the early attempts to show just how big the redwoods are was to strip the bark off one and reassemble the pieces in New York or Chicago. Of course that killed the tree. But there was more of that to come.
Another thing I learned is how inefficient the early attempts at logging redwoods were. They didn’t have saws big enough. They didn’t have machines that could move them. So, until we had diesel engines and tractors, a good chunk of the trees felled for lumber were burned, or left to rot. But for a while, in California, redwood wood was cheap and plentiful, and they made absolutely everything out of it.
The book details the long seesawing struggle between preservationists and lumber men. We learn about legislation and the creation of parks, about Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived in the crown of a tree for over two years, and the lumber men who carved a redwood into the shape of a giant peanut and shipped it to Washington, but President Jimmy Carter didn’t want it, and sent it back.
The second story, that of eucalyptus trees, was perhaps my favorite, as it was something I knew nothing about. The original landscape of California was open, grassy, with scrubby little shrubs. Settlers arrived from the east and said, “This place needs trees.” They thought it would make a more healthful environment. They also thought it would also make the place more civilized.
Their tree of choice was eucalyptus, which was native to Australia. The trees did well, especially the blue gum variety. They were planted everywhere. Thousands of acres of them. Some people planted them for lumber. There was a panic in the 19th century that the country was going to run out of wood, at a time when almost everything was made out of wood. The “timber famine” never materialized, because it people started to make things out of metal and plastic, and because the clear-cut Eastern forests started to grow back nicely.
Plus it turned out that the wood of eucalyptus trees is no good for lumber, at least not until the trees are really old. Young eucalyptus wood warps and twists, and isn’t good for much beside firewood and pulp. Plus the trees are really thirsty and suck up all the water.
A lot of people came to love the eucalyptus trees because of their distinctive blue-green color, and their distinctive medicine-y odor, and their deep shade. But now the mature trees are aging, and people are worried that they will drop their limbs and kill schoolchildren in parks. There is also a lot of concern about fire. Eucalyptus trees shed their bark in shreds that pile up on the ground. The bark and the fallen leaves contain a lot of oils, which can feed fires. Since forest fires are a real danger in California, debate rages about what to do with the trees. They are among the most loved and most hated trees in the state.
Oranges are another non-native tree that was introduced to California in a big way. This section is partly about the needs of the trees: for irrigation, for pest control, for protection from frost. But it is also about the social and economic issues that surrounded the growing of oranges. Orange groves were at first seen as a way to achieve a genteel kind of respectability, and orange-growing communities were seen as preserving wholesome American family values (read “white”). But there were labor issues with non-white pickers, the creation of a grower’s collective (Sunkist), and creation of demand through advertising. Oranges went from being seen as a Christmas treat to being a daily breakfast item.
The short version is that orange growing moved toward a bigger, more industrial model. The trees themselves were seen as disposable, and whole groves would be bulldozed when no longer profitable. There is a long section on the burning of oil in smudge pots on subzero nights, which caused a choking black smoke in the air, which people hated. And a long section on the ongoing struggle to control citrus diseases.
The section on palm trees is as much about the emotional meaning attributed to palm trees than the trees themselves. As a street tree, palms (which aren’t even trees) are almost all trunk, with a few leaves high up. They provide almost no shade, and very little air-purifying effect. But they look tropical, and people liked having a visible sign that they weren’t in New England anymore. Palms meant luxury, ease, wealth. On the other hand, they meant shallow materialism.
People loved them. People hated them. They have gone through fashions. They require expensive and dangerous maintenance. They are vulnerable to disease. They can catch on fire. It was interesting that there is an active market for “used” palm trees, that people will dig them up from your yard to move them to a new building site.
In general, the author’s point is to talk about the ideas attached to all these trees, but I most enjoyed the stories about the trees themselves, more than the discussion of ideas.
The four trees are redwoods, eucalyptus, orange, and palm. Whatever your interests, you are sure to find here some cool stories and fun facts. You are also sure to find more than you wanted to know about something or other. I realized midway through that I had read another book by Jared Farmer, and I had called him a man who simply could not stop researching. But I also had said that I didn’t mind because it was interesting.
The first thing I learned about the California redwoods is that the Coast Redwoods and the Giant Sequoia are two different species of tree. They live in different habitats and have different growth habits. The redwoods are taller and the sequoias are more massive. Both are magnificent and unique to California.
We learned about how white setters “discovered” these giant trees, and their clumsy attempts to share the news with folks back east, many of whom simply didn’t believe it. One of the early attempts to show just how big the redwoods are was to strip the bark off one and reassemble the pieces in New York or Chicago. Of course that killed the tree. But there was more of that to come.
Another thing I learned is how inefficient the early attempts at logging redwoods were. They didn’t have saws big enough. They didn’t have machines that could move them. So, until we had diesel engines and tractors, a good chunk of the trees felled for lumber were burned, or left to rot. But for a while, in California, redwood wood was cheap and plentiful, and they made absolutely everything out of it.
The book details the long seesawing struggle between preservationists and lumber men. We learn about legislation and the creation of parks, about Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived in the crown of a tree for over two years, and the lumber men who carved a redwood into the shape of a giant peanut and shipped it to Washington, but President Jimmy Carter didn’t want it, and sent it back.
The second story, that of eucalyptus trees, was perhaps my favorite, as it was something I knew nothing about. The original landscape of California was open, grassy, with scrubby little shrubs. Settlers arrived from the east and said, “This place needs trees.” They thought it would make a more healthful environment. They also thought it would also make the place more civilized.
Their tree of choice was eucalyptus, which was native to Australia. The trees did well, especially the blue gum variety. They were planted everywhere. Thousands of acres of them. Some people planted them for lumber. There was a panic in the 19th century that the country was going to run out of wood, at a time when almost everything was made out of wood. The “timber famine” never materialized, because it people started to make things out of metal and plastic, and because the clear-cut Eastern forests started to grow back nicely.
Plus it turned out that the wood of eucalyptus trees is no good for lumber, at least not until the trees are really old. Young eucalyptus wood warps and twists, and isn’t good for much beside firewood and pulp. Plus the trees are really thirsty and suck up all the water.
A lot of people came to love the eucalyptus trees because of their distinctive blue-green color, and their distinctive medicine-y odor, and their deep shade. But now the mature trees are aging, and people are worried that they will drop their limbs and kill schoolchildren in parks. There is also a lot of concern about fire. Eucalyptus trees shed their bark in shreds that pile up on the ground. The bark and the fallen leaves contain a lot of oils, which can feed fires. Since forest fires are a real danger in California, debate rages about what to do with the trees. They are among the most loved and most hated trees in the state.
Oranges are another non-native tree that was introduced to California in a big way. This section is partly about the needs of the trees: for irrigation, for pest control, for protection from frost. But it is also about the social and economic issues that surrounded the growing of oranges. Orange groves were at first seen as a way to achieve a genteel kind of respectability, and orange-growing communities were seen as preserving wholesome American family values (read “white”). But there were labor issues with non-white pickers, the creation of a grower’s collective (Sunkist), and creation of demand through advertising. Oranges went from being seen as a Christmas treat to being a daily breakfast item.
The short version is that orange growing moved toward a bigger, more industrial model. The trees themselves were seen as disposable, and whole groves would be bulldozed when no longer profitable. There is a long section on the burning of oil in smudge pots on subzero nights, which caused a choking black smoke in the air, which people hated. And a long section on the ongoing struggle to control citrus diseases.
The section on palm trees is as much about the emotional meaning attributed to palm trees than the trees themselves. As a street tree, palms (which aren’t even trees) are almost all trunk, with a few leaves high up. They provide almost no shade, and very little air-purifying effect. But they look tropical, and people liked having a visible sign that they weren’t in New England anymore. Palms meant luxury, ease, wealth. On the other hand, they meant shallow materialism.
People loved them. People hated them. They have gone through fashions. They require expensive and dangerous maintenance. They are vulnerable to disease. They can catch on fire. It was interesting that there is an active market for “used” palm trees, that people will dig them up from your yard to move them to a new building site.
In general, the author’s point is to talk about the ideas attached to all these trees, but I most enjoyed the stories about the trees themselves, more than the discussion of ideas.
September 29, 2014
Never has such a fascinating book been concealed by a more prosaic title. A book about trees for crying out loud. But the book is really about the history of California and how the people used and were shaped by the iconic trees of California: Redwoods, Eucalyptus, Citrus and Palms. It is amazingly well researched and Jared Farmer's ability to translate our relationship with these trees into themes of indigenous nativism, immigration, business, and style is extremely entertaining. There's a lot in this book which is awesome and a lot that's troubling, and everything in between. It's as if Farmer invites you to admire a beautiful Redwood burl, and as you look increasingly closer at the lovely swirls and loops, you slowly become aware that, rather than a slab of wood, you are looking at a mirror.
April 23, 2018
While at times repetitive, this book was also fascinating. Could have been called politics and trees, though. Who knew whether one liked eucalyptus trees or not could be skewed into a discussion of immigrants and validity? Or how oranges were tied somehow to Anglo-Saxon pride? Beyond that this book gave me a new way to look at redwoods and palm trees. And it also provided a lot of factoids about California I didn't know - that Pasadena was once called Indiana, or that LA supplied Jews with palm castaways for Sukkot. I also am going to be looking at the landscape here more closely.
April 16, 2018
This book was fantastic for anyone who is curious about California's history. I live in Riverside, a major player in the citrus industry discussed in this book. While I personally loved the citrus aspect, all four of the tree's history in the state were fascinating. I never knew tree's had such an impact on California's success. I hope to re-read this book again soon as it was smartly written, well organized and full of stories of how these trees impacted those who lived among them.
February 21, 2017
This is a much needed book about the variety of the botanical life in the Golden State. California is a rich land in every front. And when it comes to trees, it has an astonishing amount of life to show for it.
This is the cover of the book I read. It is no coincidence that it shows a group of mad men trying to cut down a tree many times their group's size. It is such a crime against nature what men are doing to the biosphere!
This is the editorial information of the book I read. This particular edition was published in 2013, so its contents are current as of the disgrace of the time being.
This is the table of contents: The book is quite complete with information about the trees and their families, as well as the crimes against their lives.
A couple of nice quotations about trees and California. Especially a short one by San Francisco Call "By their trees ye shall know them"
These are the first and last pages of the book. As you can see, the book starts depicting the beauty of the tree variety in California, and ends with a voice of despair because now California is brown instead of green.
Here are some images of trees extracted from the book:
I liked this book because it has beautiful pictures of beautiful trees. It worried me somehow because we are killing all the trees in the world, and this particular example of California is quite dismaying.
I hope you liked this review. Did you know that I also have a blog? Take a look here:
http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com
This is the cover of the book I read. It is no coincidence that it shows a group of mad men trying to cut down a tree many times their group's size. It is such a crime against nature what men are doing to the biosphere!
This is the editorial information of the book I read. This particular edition was published in 2013, so its contents are current as of the disgrace of the time being.
This is the table of contents: The book is quite complete with information about the trees and their families, as well as the crimes against their lives.
A couple of nice quotations about trees and California. Especially a short one by San Francisco Call "By their trees ye shall know them"
These are the first and last pages of the book. As you can see, the book starts depicting the beauty of the tree variety in California, and ends with a voice of despair because now California is brown instead of green.
Here are some images of trees extracted from the book:
I liked this book because it has beautiful pictures of beautiful trees. It worried me somehow because we are killing all the trees in the world, and this particular example of California is quite dismaying.
I hope you liked this review. Did you know that I also have a blog? Take a look here:
http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com
October 25, 2018
This is a great history but I would have liked a bit more analysis. This is a great read for anyone who loves trees and/or California, particularly the Californian coast. This would also be a great read for people traveling to California who want to know the big, BIG history.
November 21, 2021
This book tells significant historical and social developments in California history through the exploration of four well-known tree species. It's a long book with much botanical information but by no means is it boring. By using this approach, there's insight into the motivations of the people responsible for cultivating such nonnative trees as oranges, some palms, and eucalyptus trees. I wanted to learn more about the redwoods, and I did, but I learned so much more. A fascinating history.
May 17, 2017
I gave up about halfway through. There is interesting stuff in here, for sure, but Farmer's writing is so redundant that it is painful to pull out the good stuff. It's a bummer, too - I really wanted to like this book!
December 23, 2018
With sixty pages of endnotes and ten pages of recommended additional reading sources, Trees in Paradise is a wonderful work of scholarship, intertwining the fields of botany, history, sociology, and social psychology thoroughly enough to satisfy this reader, and hopefully innumerous others, as homo sapiens continue to propel the Anthropocene onward, toward a creeping abyss of uncertainly and misery for most, never mind the fragile ecosystems of plants, insects, sea life, and animals. Dr. Farmer tags himself as "a place-based historian, or anthrogeomorphologist, or geohumanist", so embrace those and take it from there. It's nice to locate a choice quote to use as a simplistic summary, and epilogues are fertile soil for such finds:
"Extinction lasts forever; nothing else does. The tree rings of sequoias remind us that individuals, nations, even whole civilizations may flower and perish during the life of a single California plant. The longevity of the state's introduced gums, citruses, and palms is more comparable to a human's duration. By considering both time scales, we can better appreciate the landscape Americans cultivated in California--its beauty, its penalty, and its fragility." (p. 438)
I look forward to his next big work. Here's an interesting interview with Brandon Keim for The Chronicle of Higher Education in FEB 2018:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The...
PS: I purchased this title directly from the publisher, Heyday Books (https://heydaybooks.com/). I'd rather spend a few dollars more directly supporting the source, than toss it into Bezos's bloated coffers. Maybe with some thought and empathy, you will too.
"Extinction lasts forever; nothing else does. The tree rings of sequoias remind us that individuals, nations, even whole civilizations may flower and perish during the life of a single California plant. The longevity of the state's introduced gums, citruses, and palms is more comparable to a human's duration. By considering both time scales, we can better appreciate the landscape Americans cultivated in California--its beauty, its penalty, and its fragility." (p. 438)
I look forward to his next big work. Here's an interesting interview with Brandon Keim for The Chronicle of Higher Education in FEB 2018:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The...
PS: I purchased this title directly from the publisher, Heyday Books (https://heydaybooks.com/). I'd rather spend a few dollars more directly supporting the source, than toss it into Bezos's bloated coffers. Maybe with some thought and empathy, you will too.
February 24, 2019
If like me you have just spent a few decades preoccupied with California botany, geography and agriculture, you will find this book meaningful. The four-part structure of the book is an interesting way to present the state’s vast floral diversity: redwoods, eucalyptus, citrus and palms. I like that he also gives a nod to other important species such as peppers, oaks and Monterey cypresses. But beyond that, this book is really a history of California - a massive undertaking told from the perspective of trees and horticulture. It’s also a mountain of fascinating, well-researched material, covering such areas as California’s role in the genesis of modern land management, forest management, agribusiness and urban landscaping. The author provides a refreshingly original examination of native vs. non-native plants. At times it seems bizarre the way he continually connects his discussion of trees to racism, but that’s also very informative. The last section is a bit of a downer, as he explains, in great detail, everything wrong with Southern California - environmentally and otherwise. But it’s not the author’s fault that Los Angeles is an urban monstrosity, he’s just the messenger. And all in all he pulls off what he sets out to do - a history of California from the viewpoint of trees and horticulture. This is a big, heartfelt work - a labor of love by a committed scholar. As an east coaster who moved west, I appreciate his transnational perspective.
August 20, 2019
Has some good parts on logging history and I enjoyed the parts on oranges and eucalyptus trees. Liked the cultural costs chapter of the orange section- managing orange groves and smudge pots was a precursor to managing auto pollution. A tax on pollution or cap and trade never would have worked given the lack of enforcement. It had to be a technological standard to manage the smudge.
Sad learning about Converse Basin, the grove of giant sequoias that was hacked for logging and mostly wasted. The early waste for both redwood and sequoia logging makes sense but is disappointing. But it matches other fuel and resource stories where we get more and more efficient with the resource over time even through it may be economically efficient at the time.
Sad learning about Converse Basin, the grove of giant sequoias that was hacked for logging and mostly wasted. The early waste for both redwood and sequoia logging makes sense but is disappointing. But it matches other fuel and resource stories where we get more and more efficient with the resource over time even through it may be economically efficient at the time.
November 20, 2020
This is basically a history of redwoods, eucalyptus, citrus and palm trees in California. There's some related history of the trees generally, of town policies and state politics regarding trees, and the colonists who brought them or sold them. There's stories of overuse, overselling, water theft, and acknowledgements of historical racism. There's stories of LA rivers, Hollywood celebrities and Victorian plant fashions. It's a bit dry and I was a little sad it didn't have more about other trees, like the ficus' that are mentioned as Midwestern style street trees in a brief aside, but I feel happy with my increased knowledge of American California's notable tree species.
February 21, 2024
This is a wondrous wandering book. The stories of four type of tree species (redwood, eucalyptus, citrus, and palms) are told through the lens of California developments. There are pack full of surprising details:
- Redwoods were once thought to be so abundant that the flutes used for transporting redwood lumber were also made of redwood
- Eucalyptus were once planted because some merchants wanted to benefit from the expected hardwood famine
- Citrus industry brought more wealth than gold
and much more. I was thoroughly stunned by nuanced opinions from social, cultural, economic, and aesthetic perspectives changing through time, and many of them still resonate today.
- Redwoods were once thought to be so abundant that the flutes used for transporting redwood lumber were also made of redwood
- Eucalyptus were once planted because some merchants wanted to benefit from the expected hardwood famine
- Citrus industry brought more wealth than gold
and much more. I was thoroughly stunned by nuanced opinions from social, cultural, economic, and aesthetic perspectives changing through time, and many of them still resonate today.
July 27, 2020
This starts strong, but my enthusiasm flagged. It's exhaustive, thus exhausting, and though it's chock-full o' facts, it's just too much detail for a popular history. Recommended for researchers or serious California history nerds.
I should warn you that there are some seriously sad passages herein, especially in the redwood section, so maybe don't undertake this book if you're depressed. Consider this a trigger warning.
I should warn you that there are some seriously sad passages herein, especially in the redwood section, so maybe don't undertake this book if you're depressed. Consider this a trigger warning.
May 14, 2022
A blend of human and natural history, this book tells the story of California through four iconic trees: redwood and sequoia, eucalyptus, citrus, and palms. As a native southern Californian, I am familiar with all these trees but I learned so much from this book and will look at every gum, orange and palm with new appreciation. Highly recommended for anyone interested in California history, culture and/or nature.
July 21, 2024
Loved this book, but they did absolutely no coaching of the audiobook reader on how to pronounce some KEY terms and phrases in the context of California, tisk tisk!
Mostly locations, but here are some noteworthy examples:
San LOOOOEEEE Obispo???
San Gay bree AHL??
Naranja as naranYA?
Valencia as valensha?
Took me out of it forreal. Everything else was spectacular though, gonna keep thinking about this lovely book. Really, really gonna keep thinking about the tree conservation movement—specifically of redwoods—was suuuuper intertwined with the white supremacy eugenics movement. 😅
Mostly locations, but here are some noteworthy examples:
San LOOOOEEEE Obispo???
San Gay bree AHL??
Naranja as naranYA?
Valencia as valensha?
Took me out of it forreal. Everything else was spectacular though, gonna keep thinking about this lovely book. Really, really gonna keep thinking about the tree conservation movement—specifically of redwoods—was suuuuper intertwined with the white supremacy eugenics movement. 😅
August 6, 2019
This fascinating book gives an excellent history of how humans used and abused California’s native trees, as well as planted imported trees in the hopes of making money. It is a long book but for folks like me, obsessed with trees, it is utterly compelling.
January 9, 2022
Incredible! The writing of this book is exemplary. I cannot write more great accolades for its depth and thorough Californian history. I loved every deep dive into the who, what, when, where and how of tree history. Well done.
December 28, 2017
Kinda slow, but beautiful. Meditative hyper-specific history.
April 14, 2018
Great history of the trees, interesting stories I never knew. Only read the citrus and eucalyptus sections, will have to go back and read the others
December 10, 2018
California history through its trees
A look at four tree species and their relationship to the span of California’s recorded history. Some chapters could be more concise.
A look at four tree species and their relationship to the span of California’s recorded history. Some chapters could be more concise.
April 13, 2020
Redwoods, Eucalyptus, Citrus, Palms.
January 9, 2022
4 iconic California trees but only one is a native. Fascinating history about how and why those other 3 were planted and what they meant in the California psyche. A great read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews