Arboretum Diary

"for the colors and lines and expression of this divine landscape-countenance are so burned into mind and heart they surely can never grow dim" Muir, from "First Summer in the Sierras"







4/28


No more than three hours of sunshine predicted in the morning here will bring the hungry trail walker into the canopy of the oak savannah at the Grady Tract.  This is the Arboretum's outpost, and not yet, as far as I have seen, crowded as Longenecker or Curtis might be on nice days.  The entrance at Evjue pines affords a quick entrance into woods away from the noise of the belt line highway and then continues to reveal more authentic depths as the West Knoll rolls out something like a transported swatch of African Savannah; the eye tracks this flat pasture seeking out large mammals that aren't bound to be there, but instead settles on a loud beaked turkey crossing the path and then ducking into the oak thicket.  The Greene Prairie opens up and again tricks the eye into thinking that this might very well be an ancient remnant of years past, but it, like the restored savannahs, are not. Instead the hard handiwork of Greene who had meticulously researched species from other native

prairie habitats and replanted them here years ago by hand.  Marsh and sedge grasses open to taller stalks of goldenrod or even further down, aspen.  Geese bob up and down over the more substantial rolls of grasses as the boardwalks barely stay afloat over the shallow drain of water.  On all four sides, it's hard to imagine, suburbs, city streets, business and highways. The red winged blackbird chortles its own logic, the goldfinches spray across the wispy brush and a crane might elegantly cross the sky in the distance, he too fooled that this isn't a city scene.  The founders of the Arboretum wanted to recreate native habitat before the pioneers reached here and began upturn land for the sake of farming; as they preserved the habitats, they preserved time in a way.  Where ground species meet birds above in the trees, we get some idea as to the panorama of centuries ago.