June 19th - Torrey Pines

Old cone of Torrey Pine

We have a two bedroom suite at the Residence Inn By Marriott, a motel conveniently located off Gilman Drive, La Jolla and not too far from the Los Angeles to San Diego freeway. We spend today at Seaworld but before we head down to Mission Bay we go to see the famous Torrey Pines.

On the coast between La Jolla and Del Mar to the north there is high ground overlooking an estuary and on this headland there is a grove of one of the rarest pines in the world, the Torrey Pine Pinus torreyana.

The headland was a prominent feature known to the earliest Spanish explorers as Punto de los Arboles or "Point of Trees" a landmark for sailors navigating off this coast. Trees on this coast are rare and have been so since before the time of arrival of the Spanish. In 1850 the botanist Charles Parry recognized this pine as unique and named it after his friend John Torrey, also a botanist. Parry was concerned about protecting these trees and urged that they be saved from extinction. The authorities were in agreement and by 1885 there was a bounty on anyone caught vandalizing a Torrey Pine. By 1899 the San Diego City Council passed an ordinance that set aside 369 acres to be used as a Public Park.
The newspaperwoman and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps donated more land and was instrumental in raising public concern about protecting the trees. She contributed significantly to the establishment of the reserve as seen today. The Torrey Pines State Reserve now covers about 2000 acres including the coastal marshes and some additional groves of pine present on high ground to the north of the estuary, although this smaller area is now completely surrounded by habitation. The splendid Adobe lodge (now the Visitors Centre) was originally built with support from Ellen Scipps to accommodate a restaurant and it was a popular feature in the Park during the 1930s. An unexpected bird seen scurrying away from us as we walked to the Visitors Center was a Roadrunner!

Useful booklet

A very helpful booklet 'Torrey Pines State Reserve' is published by the Torrey Pines Association, La Jolla, California, 108pp [ISBN 0-9629917-0-8]. I bought the 3rd and latest edition which was first published in 1991. However, the following notes are taken from the Park website and expand on some of the background fact mentioned above.

Visitor Center

In 1922 the building which is now the Ranger Station and Visitor Center was built. It was commissioned by Ellen Browning Scripps and probably designed by H.L.Jackson. Architects Richard S. Requa and Herbert Lewis Jackson developed modern methods of using an ancient building material, adobe blocks. Requa and Jackson did the original work for the Santa Fe Land Company, as subsidiary of a well-known railroad. They designed the Rancho Santa Fe Inn, the first school, and the original post office in Rancho Sant Fe. They worked out methods of protecting earth walls from rain, capillary moisture, and (I hope) earthquakes. They were leading exponents of the mission revival style which was so popular before World War II.

The building was called Torrey Pines Lodge. It was a restaurant with stumpy tables, chintz curtains, lampshades made of Torrey Pine needles, and a jukebox. It may have been a real lodge. I have seen a picture which seemed to show three small, primitive motel buildings near where the flagpole is today. The lodge was in a handy spot. The road up the hill where joggers and bikers torture themselves was pretty rough going for a Model T. By the time you got to the top, your car needed water and you needed a beer. Guy Fleming's daughter, Mrs. Margaret Allen, liked to tell how she and her brothers would play near the road. A Model T would snuff out on the steepest part of the hill. They would yell at the driver to turn around and back up the hill. Southern California drivers were not used to such steep hills. The Model T didn't have a fuel pump. The tank was placed so that if it was half empty, the gravity system didn't get the gas to the carburetor.

Visitors center (Lodge) Torrey Pines State Reserve
View northwards from the loookout near the Visitors Center.
Los Penasquitos Marsh Natural Reserve below
Groves of Torrey Pines growing on the northern headland.

The canyons near the lodge contain some of the densest groves remaining today. The following are some additional notes taken from the website:

Naming of the Torrey Pine

Because groves of trees were not common along the Southern California coast, early Spanish explorers (1500-1700 AD) referred to this area as Punto de Los Arboles, which literally means "Point of Trees." They used this area both as a landmark and as a warning that they were too close to the shore in the fog. In 1769, the Portola-Serra Sacred Expedition passed through nearby Sorrento Valley on its way from San Diego to colonize Monterey and establish missions along the way. The trail they used is referred to as El Camino Real. The trees themselves were referred to as Soledad Pines (Solitary Pines) by the first Americans to visit the area. The name remained until 1850.

The first modern account of the Torrey pine occurred with the renaming of the tree in 1850. It was "officially" discovered by Dr. Charles Christopher Parry. This was the year that California became a State of the Union. Parry was in San Diego as botanist for the US - Mexico Boundary Survey. The purpose of the survey was to determine the boundaries between Mexico and California. Parry was a medical doctor with an interest in botany: specifically, why plants grew where they did and how Indians used plants. This area and the Torrey Pine tree were brought to his attention by entomologist Dr. John Le Conte. Parry named the tree for his friend and colleague, Dr. John Torrey, of New York. Torrey was one of the leading botanists of his time. He had co-authored A Flora of North America, and was the sole author of A Flora of New York State. Unfortunately, Torrey never came here. But Parry did send him samples of seeds, branches, and cones. (Judy Schulman)

Protecting the Pines

In 1883, Parry re-visited the area. Surprised at the lack of protection for the trees, he wrote a historical and scientific account of the pine emphasizing the need to protect the tree from extermination. This was presented to the San Diego Society of Natural History.

The first source of protection came in 1885 from the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. They posted signs citing a reward of $100 for the apprehension of anyone vandalizing a Torrey pine tree.

This attempt to protect the trees was reinforced by botanist J. G. Lemmon of the newly formed California State Board of Forestry. In 1888, he suggested that appropriate legislation be mandated to protect the tree. That same year, the mystique of the tree was enhanced by botanist T. S. Brandagee's discovery of Torrey pines on Santa Rosa Island. Several theories have been set forth trying to explain the two stands of trees some 175 miles apart. These include that trees were planted there from bird droppings; that earthquakes moved landmasses over long periods of time due to plate tectonics; and that the trees were once more widely spread along the Southern California coast.

In 1890, some pueblo lands in San Diego were leased for cattle and sheep grazing. This was in spite of early warnings for preservation. In order to clear the land, trees were cut and hauled away to be used for firewood. The present Torrey Pines area was included in this lease. (Judy Schulman)

Establishment of Park

Persuaded by city father George Marston, botanists David Cleveland and Belie Angler, the City Council in 1899 passed an ordinance to set aside 364 acres of pueblo lands as a public park. Unfortunately, the ordinance made no provisions for protecting the tree.

After the turn of the century, the lands surrounding the park were in danger of being commercially sold. Between 1908 and 1911, newspaper woman and philanthropist, Ellen Browning Scripps, acquired two additional pueblo lots and willed them to the people of San Diego. This added to the park the area of North Grove and the estuary. By the time she died in 1932, Miss Scripps had contributed greatly not only to the establishment of our park, but also to the Natural History Museum, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Zoo, the La Jolla Childrens' Pool, and the Scripps Clinic and Research facility.

Representing the San Diego Society of Natural History and the San Diego Floral Association, Guy Fleming and Ralph Sumner visited the park in 1916 to conduct botanical studies. Their report of damage caused by picnickers and campers resulted in public support for the preservation of the area. The movement was spearheaded by Miss Scripps.

In 1921, Miss Scripps and the City Park Commission appointed Guy Fleming as the first custodian of the park. A former naturalist and landscaper, he later went on to become the District Superintendent for the State Park System in Southern California.

In 1922, Miss Scripps retained Ralph Cornell, a well known landscape architect, to suggest a long term plan for the park. His three-part plan called for restrictions against changing the original landscape or introducing plants or features not indigenous to the area or over-cultivating the Torrey pine to the exclusion of open spaces. (Judy Schulman)

Torrey Pines Lodge Built

Also in 1922, Ellen Browning Scripps financed the construction of Torrey Pines Lodge. The architects were Richard Requa and H. L. Jackson. They applied modern methods to the use of adobe bricks. These modern methods were said to protect the earth walls from rain, capillary moisture, and earthquakes. The lodge was styled after the Hopi Indian houses of the Arizona desert. According to one newspaper article, Indian crews were brought over from Arizona to insure exactness of the construction. Requa was one of the leading exponents of the Mission Revival style. Later he became the Director of Architecture for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition at Balboa Park.

The Lodge was completed in February, 1923, and used as a restaurant. Both tour buses and locals out for a Sunday drive made it a regular stop. Our current display area was the main dining room. People also ate out on the front terrace. The ranger office was the kitchen and food storage area. The slide room and the docent lounge were the living room and bedroom of the Burkholders, the first restaurant proprietors. The Resource Ecologist's office was the waitresses' bunkroom. (Judy Schulman)

Expansion of the Park

In 1924, the city council added other pueblo lands to the park. This addition was the result of a request for expansion by the City Park Commission and interested civic groups. The park now included almost 1,000 acres of cliffs, canyons, mesas, and beach. Between 1928 and 1930, the League To Save Torrey Pines fought and won against a proposed cliff road above the beach. The purpose of the road was to eliminate curves and grades in the old road. The opponents felt that the road would not only destroy a section of the park but would also be costly to build. One of the reasons the League was so against this new road was that it called for using landfill in the canyons so that the road could go across them.

With the advent of W.W.II, the Army leased 750 acres of Torrey Pines Mesa from the City of San Diego to be used for training purposes. Camp Callan then came into being as an anti-aircraft artillery replacement training center. It extended from the southernmost boundaries of Torrey Pines Park towards the Muir Campus of UCSD. In return for an occupational permit to use the lower portion of the park, the military had to guarantee that no part of the park would be damaged. The park itself was kept open to the public. The camp opened during January, 1941, and closed November, 1945. The buildings were torn down and used for lumber to build homes for veterans.

A special city election in 1956 resulted in giving the nearly 1,000 acre park to the State of California. About 100 acres were appropriated for the construction of a public golf course. The State Park became official in 1959.

Torrey Pines State Reserve Extension was acquired in 1970 after six years of effort. Starting in 1964, local conservation groups (Torrey Pines Association, the Sierra Club, the Citizens Coordinate) became concerned with bulldozing of Torrey pines on the north side of Los Penasquitos lagoon to make roads for residential developments. In addition to support from local civic, social, and school groups, there was a lot of national media attention. The acquisition added about 197 acres and 1500 trees. Plants in the Extension not found in the main part of the Reserve include the coastal blue lilac and the scarlet larkspur. (Judy Schulman)

Map showing the relative position of the northern addition to the main park

Map of the main areas surrounding the Lodge.

The park extends southwards some distance but mostly occurs as a coastal strip towards its southern limit. The following text is also extracted from the Torrey Pines website based on text taken from Nature Notes by Hank Nichol.

Torrey pine trees is[are] the rarest native pine in the United States. If you take the Torrey pine growing in one small grove on Santa Rosa Island as being distinct, that tree could possibly be the rarest pine of all. The Torrey pine is two trees. The subspecies growing on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Santa Barbara is obviously different. The island tree, Pinus torreyana insularis, grows shorter, broader, and bushier. It could actually be used as a shade tree. Our local tree gives only sparse shade. Insularis bark is thicker and scalier. Its cones are rounder. However, many botanists think that Pinus dalatensis is the rarest pine in the world. This tree grows on two hills near Dalat, Vietnam, and it was discovered only in 1960. Another candidate for rarest is Pinus rzedowskii. It is a white pine which was discovered in Michoacan in 1968. It is named for Dr. Jersy Rzedowski, a professor of botany at, would you believe, the University of Mexico? Then there's the Pinus maximartinezii. This five-needled piñon has the largest seeds of any known pine. It was discovered in Zacatecas by Professor Rzedowski in 1963. He named it for his friend, Dr. Maximo Martinez, also of the University of Mexico. There could be other species of pine out there waiting to be discovered.

Five needles is a common characteristic of white pines. Some old books list the Torrey pine among the white pines because it is five-needled. The piñons were put in with the yellow pines because they don't have five needles (one of them does, but it wasn't discovered till later). But the Torrey pine is not a white pine, and the piñons are not yellow pines. The designations "white" and "yellow" have to do with the color of the wood. The terms are inaccurate, unscientific, and make botanist see red. Pines with one vascular bundle running through the needle are called "haploxylon". (These are the whites). Those with two vascular bundles are "diploxylon" (yellow, if you must). The Torrey pine has two. Only a few other diploxylon pines are five-needled. The others, including the beautiful Montezuma pine, are all relatives, and all are from Mexico and/or Guatemala.

Pine trees do not have flowers. This has been explained forcefully to me on several occasions. Pines have "strobili" which serve the same purpose. You can call them "flowers" if you want to. I do. The Torrey pine blooms early, usually in February, sometimes in January. The female blossom forms high in the tree. It looks like a miniature red cone. Flowers of other species of pines may be blue or purple. The separate male blossom grows in a lower branch. It sheds its light pollen which floats in a yellow fog. This coats the conelet, which then tries to grow into a real cone. There are many more of these than the tree can possibly support. Some will abort this year. Some will abort next year. Some of them will never grow at all. In most species of pine the cones mature in two years. The Torrey pine takes three. Only one other pine that I know of is this slow. That is Pinus pseudostrobus of southern Mexico and Guatemala. This "false white pine" also has five needles. Some think that it, or one of its variations, the Oaxaca Pine, is the direct ancestor of the Torrey, the Montezuma, the Digger, and the Coulter pines.

The seeds of the Torrey pine are edible nuts. These are larger than those of all but one rare piñon. They are also much harder. You could break your teeth trying to eat them. The same could be said for the nuts of the Coulter and Digger pines. The Italian and Swiss stone pines are named for their edible stones. You could say that all pine seeds are edible, but many of them are too small for humans to bother with.

The Torrey pine cone drops most of its seeds during the autumn of its third season. The cone will stay on the tree, and some of the seeds will stay in the cone until it falls in two, three, or ten years. There are two seeds under each scale of a cone. An average cone of a Torrey pine will have about 100 seeds. The giant Coulter pine cone can have twice that many. Pines have winged seeds. The purpose of a wing is to carry the seed away with the wind. A Torrey pine has a very large seed with a very small wing. The only utility I can see in this is that the wing is like the fins on a bomb. It may aim the seed straight down and help it spear through the duff and into the soil. It seems as though a lot of Torrey pines are planted by scrub jays. A jay with a full crop buries a seed for later. The bird brain forgets where he hid it. If the seed avoids the attention of rodents, it could possibly germinate.

A six-inch Torrey pine seedling can have a taproot two or three feet long. This will grow down rapidly, then branch out when it reaches bedrock. The roots will go anywhere they can find a little water and a little nutrient. By the time a tree is 40 feet high it may have roots reaching out 200 feet. We usually think of tree roots as preventing erosion. Sometime roots can cause erosion. A tree can give the appearance of growing out of solid rock. Its roots have followed a crack. If the fissure is near a cliff, the growing, swelling root system flakes off the edge and causes a minor landslide. You can see these mats of roots in many places along the cliffs. A slide can cause an occasional upside-down Torrey pine. One of these can sometimes remain alive for many years.

You may read or hear stories of a vast forest of Torrey pines growing from Ensenada to Santa Barbara. Once I read of a fossilized bundle of Torrey pine needles found in Oregon. Personally I think anyone would have a very hard time proving that the local Torrey pine, Pinus torreyana torreyana ever grew any further away than La Jolla or Solana Beach. Naturally, that is. You can plant a Torrey pine anywhere. In any reasonable climate it will grow.

What is special about a Torrey pine? It's not the rarest pine in the world. The Dalat pine is. It isn't even the rarest tree in California. That's the Monterey cypress. The Torrey pine doesn't grow to a great size like a redwood. It doesn't grow to a great age like a bristlecone pine. It isn't known for excellent lumber like a sugar pine. Torrey pine wood is brittle, rots easily, and doesn't even make a good fire. The Torrey pine doesn't even have the dubious distinction of being endangered. So, "what's special about a Torrey pine?" The Torrey pines along the sea cliffs suffer from persistent drought. Their roots are growing in poor sand which can hardly be called "soil". The trees are blasted by storms and cooked in the sun. Some trees die, but the species lives stubbornly on. some trees, like some people, develop character during hard times. That's what I think is special about the Torrey pine..., character!

Bunches of Torrey Pine needles
James viewing Torrey Pines from the lookout
Torrey Pine cones

In the evening we returned to the beach at the foot of the Reserve. I walked part way up the hill to view the pines in the late afternnon light. We headed into Del Mar for an excellent dinner at a roadside restaurant in the high
Street.

Northern slopes of the main reserve. Pines on top.
Erosion of sediments reveal marine deposites

Ancient Torrey Pines on the slopes
Frisbies on the beach below the Torrey Pines Reserve