My Town Monday: Moreton Fig Tree

Near the north end of the San Diego Natural History Museum, you will find an incredibly large tree. By incredibly large, I mean 78 feet high, 123 feet wide, and with a trunk girth of 486 inches!! At least, that's what it measured in 1996.

The Moreton Fig tree, an East Australian native, was planted from a five-gallon container in 1914. Many trees were planted in Balboa Park around this time to prepare for the 1915 Panama-California International Exposition.

Here is an example of a Moreton Fig tree and its roots. This isn't the tree in Balboa Park, though.

When I first moved to San Diego, you could actually climb on the aerial or surface roots and sit under the tree for a picnic. However, all this foot traffic began to damage the roots and affect the health of the tree. In 1989, a fence was built around the tree, which has completely recovered and is doing very well now, thankyouverymuch. People do still picnic under the tree.


The Moreton Fig tree and the fig wasp share an interesting relationship. The tree is only pollinated by the fig wasp. And the fig wasp can only reproduce in fig flowers. In this complicated world of dating and courtship and global warming, this doesn't seem wise!

In Balboa Park, you will find other smaller Morteon Bay Figs along with 32 other kinds of fig trees. Here's the link to a previous My Town Monday post I did on Balboa Park

In the interests of fair reporting, I must tell you that the famous Santa Barbara Moreton Bay Fig tree has a wider canopy than ours. However, the tree is shorter. The two trees are listed as CO-CHAMPIONS in the California Registry of Big Trees. No, I am not making this up!

The largest Moreton Fig tree in the world is located on a cattle farm near Egg-rock in Queensland, Australia. It measured ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-ONE FEET in 2006!

Here's the address for the San Diego tree:
Moreton Bay Fig Tree
Village Place
San Diego, Ca 92101

And the phone number:
Ha! Gotcha! (But the address is real.)

Our regular head honcho Travis Erwin is moving. Although he still managed to post a My Town Monday! Jenn Jilks is pinch-hitting for Travis, and she'll have all our links. Thanks Jenn!

Sources:
http://entertainment.signonsandiego.com/places/moreton-bay-fig-tree/
http://www.sdnhm.org/fieldguide/plants/moreton.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Bay_Fig

My Town Monday: Balboa Park, San Diego

National Historic Landmark House of Hospitality (with the Visitors Center inside)


How Balboa Park describes itself: "the nation's largest urban cultural park."

Just minutes from downtown San Diego, Balboa Park is made up of about 1200 acres. It's home to fifteen museums, the world-famous San Diego Zoo, the Old Gobe Theatre, a junior theatre, a puppet theatre, the Spreckels Organ Pavilion outdoor stage, eight amazing gardens, the Spanish Village Art Center(35 art studios and over 50 artists working on site), picnic areas, canyon hiking trails, three leash-free dog parks, a golf course, restaurants. And more.

California Tower


Admittance to Balboa Park is free. So is parking. El Prado is the main road through the park. It's pedestrian only. Admission to the various museums and the zoo can kind of add up. So, you might want to check out the seven-day Passport and the Zoo/Passport Combo. There's also Free Tuesdays where a different museum is free each Tuesday. Although, um, forget about this in the summer; Free Tuesdays are way crowded. You might want to contact the Balboa Park Visitors' Center:
(619) 239-0512, 1549 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego, California, 92101.

What else can I tell you? Wear comfortable shoes. LOTS of walking. Basically, Balboa Park is pretty much on every visitors' to-do list. It's an experience, a urban cultural park.

Child #4 and I were at Balboa Park this weekend for the Brownie bridging ceremony. This is when Brownies from all over the county come to walk across the bridge, which symbolizes their advancement from one level of Brownies to the next. My little Brownie has been promoted from a brown to a green vest. Congrats to Child #4. And congrats to me for FINALLY getting all those badges sewn on.



They close the bridge to traffic for an hour to let HORDES of brownies, their leaders, their families hoof it across the bridge.

What was on the other side of the bridge, you ask? Live music, arts & crafts, face painting AND SAN DIEGO GAS & ELECTRIC! What was SDG&E doing at the other side of a Brownie bridge, you ask? They had a booth where you could trade in your light bulbs for their energy-efficient cousins. How very Californian.

And here's a particularly special troop.


(From: http://www.balboapark.org, http://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation/parks/balboa)


My Town Monday comes to us via Travis Erwin. Thanks, Travis! Click on his site to read his post about, uh, deep-fried calf personal parts. AND to find links to the other participants.

AND I STARTED THIS BLOG ONE YEAR + ONE DAY AGO!