Aliso Tree — Los Angeles, rooted in history.
Before the LA riots; before the internment of Japanese-Americans and the massacre of Chinese-Americans; before Slavery; before this land was ever conquered by Spain, Mexico, or the U. S.; before the genocide of Native Americans… millennia after the first humans arrived on the scene, overkilling large mammals to extinction… by the river, within the community of Yang-Na, a sapling sprouted. The sycamore would grow to become a 400-year-old local landmark, called, "El Aliso." Here, a French cooper hybridized the mission grapevine with cuttings from Bordeaux, and together with the terroir, cultivated a vineyard which gave birth to California's wine industry. Indigenous villages and immigrant orchards prepared the ground for what followed: a German brewery; a boxing arena; a mule market; an Edison Electric power station; an artist colony; a gym for indoor rock-climbing; the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States… While the Aliso Tree is no longer standing, it continues to stand for Los Angeles, rooted in history.
"Down at home the rumbling of cars and wagons, the noisy scramble of men, the infinite discordances of civilization leave little room for thoughts that are higher than a sky-scraper or bigger than an income. Up here one sits and walks with Nature. He is part of her quiet and unhurried life, and sees her vast order go serenely on. The life history of a decaying tree is appealing in its slow tragedy; the crumbling rocks that time has chiseled to strange forms have almost a human interest."
"California may be the golden state but it is also a garden state. Innumerable gardens have been made since the Europeans first came, starting with the Franciscan missionaries. The gold rush was the defining period, leading to immense expenditures by newly rich miners."
"Leaving out of consideration the more exact methods of classification employed by algologists, algae may be divided into their four great botanical sub-classes on the basis of color, although this method of identification is not always correct. The blue-green or purple sea-weeds are all small — mostly microscopic — with two genera consisting of fine, hair-like, filamentous plants. The grass-green algae are among the most widely diffused of plant forms, being found everywhere between tide marks, floating on the surface of the deep sea, covering damp earth, walls, palings and tree trunks, sticking to the surface of leaves in damp forests and existing in every brook, river, ditch, pond or casual pool of rain water. Many are microscopic in size, but others are quite large, resembling grass, leaves, mushrooms and a multitude of other common land plants."
Aliso Tree — Los Angeles, rooted in history. 