Alas
This is a difficult blog to write and maybe it is more like a rant.
Tennessee Valley in Marin County, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is a very popular Sunday destination for people in San Francisco and elsewhere: the trail head is a short trip from San Fran, the path is gently sloping, the valley and hills visually interesting with chaparral, you have a choice of two paths one along the main road and one along a stream, and it all leads to a spectacular beach. It is called Tennessee Beach after the name of a coastal steamer that was wrecked there about a hundred years ago. You can sometimes still see remains of the ship when the currents wash the sand away from the appropriate spot.
At about the half-way point down to the beach the road takes a turn and tucks under a shady spot with a magnificent Monterey Cypress. There was also a very, very beautiful tea rose there – “was” because it was removed in the past two weeks.
“Tea rose” doesn’t do justice to what this plant was. It was first of all a huge plant – the biggest such rose I’d seen, and to my mind a heritage plant. In French they call such plants “eglantine” not “rose”. The flowers were beautifully-shaped. The aroma of the flowers was incredibly strong and luscious. The ridge above Tennessee Valley is one of my regular walks and returning via the valley I would not pass the place without visiting this shrub. And so did many others – there was a beaten path to the plant from the main road.
So why was it removed? Because it was not native? This had better not be the reason, because there is absolutely nothing “natural” about Tennessee Valley. The hills are scarred with roads, paths, signage, remnants of building foundations, water diversions. The land surface is covered with a mix of some native grasses but mostly outcompeted by European grasses. The largest trees are Eucalyptus. The valley was farmed for a period. Maybe some young buck planner or landscape architect or biologist with illusions of a pristine native California habitat and armed with a policy document decided that this colorful, heritage plant irritated just a bit too much and reminded them just a bit too much that the landscape was not what they think it should be.
I could go on and on. This is a terrible loss, in my mind. There hasn’t been a pristine California landscape for thousands of years, even the Native Americans shaped their landscape. And this elegant, hardy, jewel of a plant was a reminder of someone’s care and joy, years ago, when they planted a rosebush at the edge of their home in a then-unnamed valley north of Yerba Buena.
So please forgive the rant. I make certain guesses here about the history of the place and what actually happened and why. I will find out what happened and write about this again. There are in fact important issues here about ecological restoration. Check back here soon.
Posted by geoffreykatz
at 12:01 AM PST
Updated: Friday, 6 February 2009 12:16 PM PST