Popular trees pack in a lot of history

A COUPLE of weeks ago I wrote about Monkey Puzzle trees, mentioning that the man responsible for introducing them to these islands was Archibald Menzies, a Scottish medical doctor and botanist.

In fact the story is that in 1795 he was invited out to dinner by the Governor of Chile while his ship, aptly named Discovery, was docked in Valparaiso.

He was offered some unfamiliar nuts with his dessert and stealthily put a few of them in his pocket. He germinated them on the long sea voyage back to London and arrived home with five young Monkey Puzzles.

The Discovery was sent by the British government on a long, slow trip around the world with the aim of finding new products and assessing whether far-flung parts of the Empire were suitable for colonisation.

As naturalist and ship’s surgeon Menzies was a key person on board and he took his duties very seriously.

The introduction of the Monkey Puzzle may not have been of huge significance but some of the trees he discovered earlier in the voyage were very important.

In 1792 and 1793 the Discovery cruised along the Pacific coast of North America. From Southern Alaska down to Northern California there is a coastal strip which has high rainfall and a lot of fog.

It’s also home to some of the world’s finest tree species. And most of these thrive very well in Ireland, which is also on the western edge of a continent and damp.

Common

The commonest tree in Ireland today is the Sitka Spruce. Nowadays it’s virtually the only conifer species planted for commercial forestry. Menzies discovered it growing in Puget Sound in 1792.

He described it and brought back herbarium specimens but no seeds or living plants. It wasn’t until 1832 that the first seeds arrived in England, brought back by a great tree collector of the next generation, David Douglas.

Initially the trees were only planted as ornamental specimens on large estates. This was because young trees cost three guineas each, which was a lot of money in the 1830s. It was only towards the end of the 1800s that the potential of the species started to be exploited in commercial plantations and it took a long while for them to become popular with foresters.

In 1827 David Douglas had introduced the Douglas Fir, which was very popular with foresters up until quite recently and is still occasionally planted. The tree is, of course, named after Douglas, but its botanical name is Pseudotsuga menziesii because it was Menzies who had first discovered it back in 1793.

Douglas Firs growing in western Canada were probably the tallest trees in the world in Victorian and Edwardian times. Unfortunately, all the tallest ones were felled by loggers and today the tallest trees in the world are coastal redwoods growing in northern California. And, you’ve probably guessed this, the coastal redwood was also discovered and described by Menzies during the voyage of the Discovery.

Lodgepole pine was another of his discoveries. This species grows very well in Ireland, particularly on peaty soils, and has even naturalised itself on some cutaway bogs. It was once quite popular as a forestry species, but this popularity has waned because it doesn’t tend to produce good quality, straight timber.

The foresters might have guessed this earlier if they’d checked its botanical name, which is Pinus contorta. And Menzies didn’t restrict himself to large trees.

He discovered the Chilean fire bush, which is a popular Irish garden shrub, though many failed to survive the last two winters. There’s a Menzies’ wallflower, a Banksia menziesii, the Oregon grape or Mahonia, the California poppy, flowering currant and many, many more.

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