The Arboretum

A couple of weeks ago we took the kids to the Hoyt Arboretum.  It made me laugh to hear each of the kids accidentally call it the Arburrito.  

It's pretty huge so we only saw a portion of it.

The Arboretum is divided into different sections.  We wanted to see the redwoods so we started on the Fir Trail which took us to the Redwood Trail.

We were all quite excited to see the mix of redwoods which included the Coast Redwood and Giant Sequoia.  It was interesting to us that the redwoods had soft bark, kind of spongy.

The picture above is of a Dawn Redwood which is a very interesting plant.  Metasequoia, it's scientific name, is an ancient tree first thought to have come from the Mesozoic Era and believed extinct until a small stand of trees were discovered in China in the 1940's.  After the war the plant was studied and cones and seedlings were distributed arboretums and universities throughout the world.  Interesting fact from Wikipedia: "Metasequoia has experienced morphological stasis for the past 65 million years, meaning the modern Metasequoia glyptostroboides appears identical to it's late Cretaceous ancestors".  It is considered a mystery that this plant even survived in it's little nook in China considering it wasn't growing in it's ideal environment.  Another interesting fact: it's a redwood that is deciduous, meaning it looses it's needles in the fall! The needles even change color.  Isn't that an interesting tree?

It was at this point on the trail that we got hit with a downpour.  But hey, we are Oregonians now, eh? We just put on our raincoats and trudged on to the Oak Trail.  I had no idea there are so many different looking oak trees!  But no pictures because, you know, it was a downpour.  I didn't want to get my camera wet.  Me and cameras . . . and cell phones . . . we don't have the best track record.  Water, sand, they are dangerous.  I must be careful.

We tried to peek at the oaks through the sheets of rain but didn't glean much and ended up back at the beginning shortly thereafter.  So we decided to go to the zoo since we were quite close.

Oh, uh, by the way, I did drop my cell phone in a puddle in the parking lot when we got back to the car.  But it's okay!