The Gallant Arbutus

Article © Andrew Scott
Image © Harry Hill

If you search for the word "arbutus" in the Vancouver Public Library's computer system, the screen brings up, not a single horticultural title or nature guide, but several slim volumes of poetry. "God, when He made thee, beauteous tree, exhausted Nature's alchemy," gushed John Hosie in his 1929 chapbook, The Arbutus Tree. Even Bret Harte, noted US author of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and other short story classics, succumbed to poetic rapture when faced with the arbutus. "Never tree like thee arrayed," he wrote, "O thou gallant of the glade!"

Canada's only native broadleaf evergreen tree (known as madrone in the US) seems to exert some weird power over the creative mind. I was leafing through a recent Heffel Gallery catalogue when a 1947 W. P. Weston oil, "Arbutus Shedding Bark," caught my eye. Today, large canvases by this accomplished Vancouver artist, who died in 1967, can sell for up to $40,000. Weston loved to portray robust, solitary trees set against backdrops of muscular mountainside. The outstretched branches of the arbutus, flesh-coloured and almost human, appear in a number of his paintings.

Those sinuous, peeling limbs, I suspect, are the tree's main attraction for most people. In early morning or evening sunlight, arbutus trunks glow with primordial energy. Their colours are surreal: the young bark chartreuse, the old bark russet, the bare wood tanned and smooth as a youthful sunbather. John Hosie saw "polished pillars . . . of bronze o'erlaid with cinnabar."

Father Juan Crespi, chronicler of a Spanish expedition to Monterey Bay in California, named this species "madroño" in 1769, after its resemblance to the Mediterranean madroño or strawberry tree. (Arbutus is Latin for strawberry tree.) Archibald Menzies, naturalist on Captain Vancouver's 1792 voyage to the Pacific Northwest, made the first botanical description. In his honour, the tree was given the scientific name Arbutus menziesii.

There is no finer camping spot than a level arbutus grove. Auburn boughs reach toward the dappled light that filters through the tight canopy of thick, leathery foliage. Yellowing leaves and papery tendrils of bark crackle and snap underfoot. In late spring, creamy, urn-shaped blossoms, scented like buckwheat honey, litter the forest floor. In summer, new leaves form and old ones fall to the ground. In fall, robins and varied thrushes crash through the branches to feed on bright red and orange berries, a mealy fruit also loved by mice and deer. Often perched on rocky, unhospitable bluffs, rarely found more than a few kilometres from the sea, the arbutus is to BC's south coast what the sugar maple is to Quebec: an icon, a local lifeform that expresses perfectly the spirit of the land.

Related to rhododendrons, blueberries, heather and salal, arbutus is the largest member of the heath family (Ericaceae). How large? If height is the crucial criterion, then a 31.7-metre monster on Thetis Island appears to hold the current title. (A Seattle arbutus forty metres tall, now gone, has been recorded.) Thetis can be reached by ferry from Chemainus on Vancouver Island, so off I went to see the Big Tree. Islanders directed me to a curve on Foster Point Road where the behemoth stood alone, its mossy base festooned with fresh young fronds of licorice fern and loops of honeysuckle.

It was a shock to me to see an arbutus with a trunk five metres in circumference-as thick as an old-growth fir or cedar. However, if a stalwart stem is what defines bigness, then a Humbolt County, California, giant with a circumference of 10.36 metres has more than twice the girth of the Thetis tree. Even a 5.03-metre ancient on Savary Island outcompasses the Foster Point specimen by one slim centimetre. An arbutus on Esquimalt Lagoon, meanwhile, appears to have no rivals with its 23.8-metre crown spread.

But electing any particular arbutus as BC champion can be a controversial business. There are many contenders, even on Thetis Island. My Clam Bay Bed and Breakfast hostess, Donna Kaiser, thought her neighbour's tree might be a candidate. She also sent me across the island to historic Overbury Farm, now a resort, where owner Norm Kasting kindly showed me his huge arbutus. And he knew of an even bigger one, he claimed, on the nearby property of a friend of his. To me, none seemed to rival the monster I'd inspected earlier.

Everyone I talked to, however, agreed on one thing: that their trees were declining in health. "Five different stem, leaf and twig pathogens are attacking the arbutus," says Victoria arborist Don Bottrell, "as well as two species-specific insects. It's a very serious problem." In BC, the species is fighting a losing battle with human agencies over available coastal habitat. Recent unusually wet winters have encouraged the growth of an insidious root rot. Many trees were also stressed during the cold, dry winter of 1989-1990, leaving them susceptible to infection by fungi. The fungi spread by means of airborne spores and raise large cankers on stems and branches, which then die back, turning a burnt-looking black before finally fading to grey. Pruning and fungicides can reduce the area of infection, but often, the tree is killed.

Over the long term, arbutus could disappear from the northernmost parts of its range, where environmental pressures are greatest. Seattle's arbutus, for instance, have been seriously affected, and a grassroots replanting project is trying to help the trees get re-established. Arbutus are delicate and difficult to transplant, though. "They require fast-draining mineral soil," explains Harry Hill of the Native Plant Society of BC. "They don't like soil that's too rich or moist. We've had success growing them from seed and planting them in soil that's gritty or sandy." Their root systems are especially fragile, says Hill; if disturbed, rot can quickly set in.

Arbutus is very particular about where it calls home. In BC, its range is mostly restricted to the shorelines of Juan de Fuca and Georgia straits as far north as Quadra Island and Discovery Passage. (A few isolated pockets thrive on the west coast of Vancouver Island, at the heads of Nootka and Barkley sounds.) The arbutus is found south to California's San Diego County. A few pioneers may have even made it across the border into Mexico. It has - for now, anyway - one of the longest north-south ranges of any North American tree: over two thousand kilometres.

In Oregon and California, where the species seems fairly pathogen-resistant, arbutus is sometimes harvested for commercial purposes. The wood itself-fine-textured, dense, with a straight or slightly wavy grain-makes beautiful flooring, panelling and furniture. Young wood, which smells like watermelon when freshly split, is light pink; with age it darkens to dusty rose and, finally, to a rich cherry colour. Sculptors and model builders use arbutus on occasion and describe it as strong and brittle, tough on tools because of its hardness but able to take a smooth, polished finish. It reacts to changes in humidity and must be dried with care in order to avoid cracking and warping. Arbutus burns hot and slow and makes excellent firewood, though putting this noble species to such mundane use seems criminal.

Aboriginal people revere arbutus. In their fine guide, Plants of Coastal British Columbia, Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon tell us the Saanich used its bark and leaves as cold and stomach remedies, in a tuberculosis medicine and for contraception. The bark was also used to colour food. According to a Straits Salish legend, the survivors of a great flood tied their canoe to an arbutus atop Mount Newton near Sidney. To this day, as a mark of gratitude, the Saanich do not use arbutus as firewood. Victoria poet Richard Olafson's In Arbutus Light refers to another native legend, where the tree's "webbed roots hold the splintered earth together." If the arbutus should disappear, the myth warns-whether from fungal infection, habitat loss or some other cause-the planet would fly apart and be utterly destroyed.

Former Western Living editor Andrew Scott has 25 years of experience as a journalist. He has worked for the Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail, published Alaska Airlines Magazine and written over 600 entries for the Encyclopedia of British Columbia. He writes a monthly column about the BC coast for the Georgia Straight and is author of two books - The Promise of Paradise: Utopian Communities in BC (1997) and Secret Coastline: Journeys and Discoveries along BC's Shores (2000). A third book, on BC artist/adventurer Stewart Marshall, is scheduled for Fall, 2003. Scott lives in Halfmoon Bay and edits the newsletter of the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association.