Textures

I am fortunate to live near the Botanical Garden at the University of California, Berkeley, and love to visit there at any time of the year. I usually take my camera with me, because I know that there will always be something that catches my eye. It is February, so there aren’t a lot of things blooming now, but the shapes and textures of the plants are what attract me.

For example, here’s the peeling bark on the Betula Utilis, a member of the Betulaceae family, a birch from Bhutan.

And then there’s the branches of a Eucalyptus Kybeanesis, a member of the Myrtaceae family, from New South Wales, Australia. One branch looks like a hippopotamus,

Another branch seems to have a cyclone carved into it.

While the garden is meant to be a museum of wild-collected plants (many of which are endangered in the wild and find safe harbor here), it also has some horticultural varieties, like this member of the Rhododendron family, called “Scott’s Valentine” whose buds are almost architectural.

Here a member of the Cannabaceae family, Celtics Tetrandra, from Yunan province, China, seems to have bark that has been troweled on in swirls.

And this member of the Rosaceae family, Stravanvaesia Davidiana, from China could almost convince you that square sections of bark have been cut and pasted on.

The bark on this member of the Sapindaceae family, Acer Monspessulanum, a Montpellier Maple from France, also caught my eye,

One of my favorite trees in the garden is a European White Birch from Spain, a member of the Betulaceae family, Betula Pendula and it always causes me to stop and admire it.

The garden also has some “Monkey Puzzle” trees, Araucaria Araucana, from Chile. It is an endangered tree, and, sadly, some of the specimens in the garden seem to be sick and dying. You want to know how it got its common name? It is said that a noted British barrister, Charles Austin, remarked “It would puzzle a monkey to climb that!”

And this day, I was in the garden at the end of the day, and was rewarded with an approaching sunset from the garden of old roses near the top of the garden, looking out towards the Golden Gate Bridge.