The Vanilla-Scented Pine Tree
Clover Park Technical College has a lot of surprises.
Behind Building 16 (that's the South Side) are a string of interesting trees and shrubs. The evergreen on the far right here has the sort of surprise that sneaks up on you. I was trying to sneak up on the rabbits. As far as they're concerned, I am paparazzi to be avoided. They don't want to answer my 'are you a native or an Eastern Cottontail?'--and they really do not want their picture taken. They won that day. They win on most days. The owls hunt here at night. The rabbits are finely-tuned bundles of nervous system and I am a bipedal slob.
While grumbling to myself I realize I'm standing under a tree and smelling vanilla.
Well, okay then...figure out what this thing is. Let's start with the pine cone, and pull out the faithful copy of POJAR (Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Pojar & Mackinnon, mandatory textbook in Env Sci Tech class, and your almost-indestructible friend) On page 38 we have a match:
Pinus contorta var. contorta. Lodgepole Pine's 'contorted' variation that only grows in a tiiinnny little narrow band along the coast; Beach Pine; Shore Pine; Coast Pine. And, like the PNW coastline, 'contorted' doesn't quite do it justice, but don't take my fjord for it...
On the Counterweight Continent known as Eastern Washington, the size and beauty of the standard lodgepole forests is enough to take your breath away.
Goofball factoid: P. contorta is one of the trees forcibly extradited to the Falklands in yet another determined effort to stop the wind from driving the soldiers crazy. They probably should have checked to see if there was any point by then... People's exhibit A follows from Julian Perriera:
The Falklands might be a little too much for even the Shore Pine, but at least the tree has a lot, and we mean a lot of good company in that respect. It is comfortable with the environmental stresses of salty winds; enough that California uses it for sand dune control.* Straight or twisty, they host a strip mall's equivalent in wildlife species. Tree-nesting birds (like the bleeping Yellowlegs that make a mockery of my birdwatching over at the CPTC Outdoor Lab) rely on them for survival. Many others rely on them for food and shelter and share a love of the seed-rich cones with rodents.
Above: drilling from a bird. I've seen Northern flickers here, so perhaps this is the reason why. They bring the term, 'seasonal localvore' to a form of high art, but in this case they were probably looking for bark-dwelling grubs, bugs, and other ugs.
Above: nest materials are easily collected in the cracks and crevices of these trees. Let's mention the soil-building capacity of pines while we're at it. Just the male cone drop alone can add a quarter-inch of duff a year before it breaks down in the humus.
Below: the sap of the P. contorta made chewing gum. When collected in the spring it made a 'refreshing drink.' Citation: eFlora
UPDATE: Oh, and by the way...these pines are prolific when it comes to giving up the sap.
This lump, bigger than a standard baseball, had schlepped off the tree in front of Building 19 and laid there for goodness knows how long until I bumbled across it.
This small Oregon graperoot (sp. Mahonia) volunteered itself at the base. There's always enough room for one more Mahonia on this campus)
Porcupines and bears love the inner bark, and humans, when they aren't using the tree to craft about a thousand different things...love its warm, vanilla-like scent on a sunny day.
Gorgeous bark. All the aesthetic color palette of a madrone without the bald spots.
Pay attention. You're about to learn a new word that (who knows) could come in handy when precision is demanded:
TWISSLE. A sadly obsolete word that means one of two fruits growing on a single stem. (Also where a single section of a tree branches into two, but here's the visual for a pine cone twissle)
领英推荐
Not only is this an exceptionally beautiful tree, it is a linchpin to the cultural and environmental history of Puget Sound. While reading up on the P. contorta, I lost track of its usefulness. Every single inch of this tree has a value to the Indigenous peoples--and lumber was only a coarse and single portion. From its was enjoyed pitch, glue, waterproofing, rope, dye, turpentine, summer roofing, fishnets and baskets; it made splints for broken bones, and parts of it were brewed for orally-taken medicinal needs.
Post-colonials use the tree for turpentine extraction still, and lumber, but if you'll recall the vanilla scent that got my attention in the first place... Yes. Artificial vanilla extract owes its presence in part to wood pulp with a significant amount of vanillin in it. Vanillins can be found in some surprising places. Please do not use this link below if you consider yourself...sensitive. On the other hand, isn't it better to not be ignorant? Right, Marcy. Go ahead and take the 'blissful' out of 'blissfully ignorant.
Warning: coal tar is not the worst. Oh, no. No, no, no. Not the worst.
...yeah. well. I tried that approach with my family years ago over 'what stork brings us artificial vanilla' and I don't think Mom's forgiven me for the resultant, permanent hit to the grocery budget with the more expensive but pure vanilla bean extract.
Get ready for the fun, now.
Math lives. Fibonacci or Archimedean Sequence Spirals?
Looks enthusiastic yet slightly impure. Fibonacci it is.
With deepest thanks to social media altruists like Tumblr's Botanys***posts and Awkward Botany. (Botany is to science what English is to the world's languages. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know)
And for the really, really hardcore, "I'm going to give my math teacher a migraine" crowd:
I told you to get ready for the fun. I should have told you it was my fun, not necessarily yours.
Anyhoo, this pretty little pine is a great example of what you can expect to get out of a walk at the Lakewood campus of Clover Park Technical College: a lot of in-depth storytelling, history, and some plain strange interesting facts in plain sight. Give me enough time and enough articles and I can start giving Nature Walks--after this Covid stuff has settled, of course. Until then, I'll bravely bear the responsibility of being the Oddball on Campus, squinting up the canopies of trees and taking a lot of notes.
NOTES, HIGH NOTES, and FLORAL NOTES
Rewritingthecollectiveunconscious (though...why??)
Thesmarthappyproject (Oh. That's why)
*Jenny, H.; Arkley, R. J.; Schultz, A. M. 1969. The pygmy forest-podsol
ecosystem and its dune associates of the Mendocino Coast. Madrono. 20:
60-74. [10726]
MBA | IT Communication & Collaboration Systems Administrator | Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
4 年Wow, this brought back memories! My dad taught me you could tell Jefferson (Jeffrey's) PInes by their vanilla scent. He made a tree-sniffer out of me.