WinsomeWorks
Mar-18-2011, 12:32 PM
I'm not sure this is the place to put this thread. Please move if necessary. Last June, I photographed a humongous and amazing tree in Balboa Park, San Diego. The light was dying and so were my batteries and flash and stamina (at the end of a long day at the zoo)... so my photos are nothing to write home about! However, I'd still love to get an I.D. on the genus & species of this tree. There are a couple places I may submit a photo or two, if I can get them edited well enough. I have a call in to the park, but it may be awhile til I hear back. So just wondering if any of you Californians know this tree, or if any tree specialists out there can help me name it. Here's a link to a gallery where I put a few of the photos for now: http://www.winsomeworks.com/Portfolio/San-Diego-Area-CA-Portfolio/13722225_JSYyV#1220250520_QzBzG Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the foliage. The last shot in that gallery is a shot of a tree right near this one which I'm pretty sure is the same species, just a younger version. That shot does include some foliage. The only guesses I have so far are a Kapok tree or a Moreton Bay Fig.
The tree had a label sign by it, but of course I thought I'd remember it. The problems I'm having with identifying it are partly due to the fact that there is one really famous tree in Balboa Park, and all links point to that tree. Also, anyone I asked about it thought that was the one I meant. This particular tree that I'm IDing is huge as well, but it's not one you'd see on a casual stroll through the park. It was down in a ravine near the International houses, where there is a walkway made of boards. The roots appeared to ooze down the bank, and you can see in the photos how tall the roots are... the girl in the photo I linked is my teenage daughter, and she's over 5' ; when we were there, we felt like Alice in Wonderland! If anyone lives near that area of the park & walks through there, I could probably explain to you how to find that tree. Ok, well, thanks-- if I can figure out how to post photos in a thread again, maybe I should do that. Well, after all that, I guess you can all tell I'm really crazy about trees. :wink Another problem I ran into when trying to find a similar tree online, is that it seems these types of trees change appearance drastically depending how old they are. [Wow-- I may have just answered my own question, presuming this person has the tree labeled correctly. I can't believe it, but I just found a shot of the same exact tree's roots, from the same angle and an almost identical crop to one of my first shot in that gallery I posted! Here it is: http://www.123rf.com/photo_6836521_the-tangled-roots-of-a-ficus-macrophylla-known-as-the-moreton-bay-fig-that-is-a-large-evergreen-bany.html He does have it labeled as a Moreton Bay Fig, or Ficus Macrophylla. Crazy.]
The tree had a label sign by it, but of course I thought I'd remember it. The problems I'm having with identifying it are partly due to the fact that there is one really famous tree in Balboa Park, and all links point to that tree. Also, anyone I asked about it thought that was the one I meant. This particular tree that I'm IDing is huge as well, but it's not one you'd see on a casual stroll through the park. It was down in a ravine near the International houses, where there is a walkway made of boards. The roots appeared to ooze down the bank, and you can see in the photos how tall the roots are... the girl in the photo I linked is my teenage daughter, and she's over 5' ; when we were there, we felt like Alice in Wonderland! If anyone lives near that area of the park & walks through there, I could probably explain to you how to find that tree. Ok, well, thanks-- if I can figure out how to post photos in a thread again, maybe I should do that. Well, after all that, I guess you can all tell I'm really crazy about trees. :wink Another problem I ran into when trying to find a similar tree online, is that it seems these types of trees change appearance drastically depending how old they are. [Wow-- I may have just answered my own question, presuming this person has the tree labeled correctly. I can't believe it, but I just found a shot of the same exact tree's roots, from the same angle and an almost identical crop to one of my first shot in that gallery I posted! Here it is: http://www.123rf.com/photo_6836521_the-tangled-roots-of-a-ficus-macrophylla-known-as-the-moreton-bay-fig-that-is-a-large-evergreen-bany.html He does have it labeled as a Moreton Bay Fig, or Ficus Macrophylla. Crazy.]