Sermons in Stones

I was just on retreat at Villa Maria del Mar for two days. It is in Santa Cruz, on a cliff right on the beach. When I texted my daughter to say that I had gone tidepooling that morning before breakfast, she asked if I had drawn any critters from the tidepools for her. I hadn’t brought either my sketchbook or my camera down to the pools, but this morning I took a photo of some of the seaweed that I love on this beach, and decided to draw it as my “leaf” today.

I looked up seaweed to see if it actually has leaves, and no, the part that looks rather like a leaf is called the blade, or lamina, and its function isn’t photosynthesis, as in vascular plants. Its functions make it just as important to the seaweed as leaves are to a tree on land, though: buoyancy and reproduction.

The camphor tree was introduced to California (and numerous other states) from East Asia, where some of us have encountered it in the movie My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki. Satsuki and Mei’s father says he decided to buy the house when he saw the enormous camphor tree close by, and when Mei investigates the tree more closely, it leads to the clearing where she meets Totoro. Miyazaki’s portrayal of the tree, like the family’s bows to it, is reverential.

Camphor trees can grow to be hundreds of years old and are massive, and when one 700-year-old individual was to be cut down to make room to expand a train station near Osaka, people protested and the expansion was redesigned to be built around it. One would hope humans would treat all 700-year-old or even 200-year-old trees this way, but alas, it is newsworthy when we do.

As you can tell by the genus name, C. camphora is closely related to the trees from which cinnamon is harvested. It is a different species, but both have intensely aromatic oils. The next time I smell camphor, I’m going to consider whether it has any similarity to cinnamon.

Also known as California bay, Oregon myrtle, or pepperwood. Broadleaved trees tend to be deciduous, but the laurel is evergreen.

Arizona madrone, to be precise: Arbutus arizonica. The colors, which ranged through magenta, orange, and green, were tempting, but I’ll have many other days for drawing leaves with this coloration.

I’ll be drawing numerous members of the genus Quercus, I think, and this is the first. It looks more like a willow leaf to my layperson’s eye: untoothed, long and ovoid and slender. But it’s an oak. This is the underside, and that’s what the name refers to; the tops of the leaves are a rich green.

I fell right into bed without drawing yesterday, distracted by the happy, rare event of having friends stay in the house. But it is a quiet day with a work-free Sunday to follow, so I can do a second drawing today.