The Madrones

Of the handful of madrones only two or three have found a place in gardens; the others deserve attention.
The name madroño was long used in Spain for the strawberry tree, a plant of the maquis, thickets, and rocky regions. When Father Juan Crespi first encountered our native west coast tree in 1769 he was the chronicler of the Portola expedition. He identified many madroños at the “lost bay” of Monterey. We know this tree as the madrone (Arbutus menziesii). The old Latin name Arbutus denotes “strawberry tree” and, according to Horace “idle men delight to lie under this tree.” Our native is found from British Columbia to San Diego County, California, and into the mountains of northern Baja California. It is also present in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada from Tuolumne through Shasta counties in California. This is the most massive and tallest growing of the madrones.

Always different throughout the year, either in bark, flowers, fruit or foliage, the coast madrone is a star at any season. In the fall, before the rains start, the bark is a matte gray-green with tessalations of brown where old bark has peeled. All winter the shining evergreen leaves with their white undersurfac...