A Fun Day

And some sun today too, even though it was rather cool...36F this morning when I woke up!

I went to the Hoyt Arboretum this morning for a class/tour called "Living Fossils at Hoyt Arboretum". Generally, the term "living fossil" refers to those taxa (organisms of a named lineage) that are alive today, and have been documented in the fossil record for an unusually long timespan, with seemingly little change over time. The arboretum has several such trees, some thought to have been extinct, known only from the fossil record, and then re-discovered by scientists. You may know some of them - I'll use the common names so they might make sense to you:

Monkey Puzzle Tree
Cathaya Tree
Cryptomeria or Japanese Fir
Chinese Fir
Common Horsetail
Gingko
Dawn Redwood
Umbrella Pine
Coffin Tree
Wollemia Pine (thought to be extinct and currently critically endangered - fewer than 60 adult trees are known of).

It was fascinating walking around with Mandy Tu, the Plant Taxonomist and Herbarium Curator at the Arboretum. So knowledgeable and fascinating!

The blip is a shot looking down into the north side of the arboretum from the roadway just as the sun broke through the clouds. Quintessential Portland with the evergreens and clouds hanging low into the trees. The arboretum is at quite a high elevation, ranging from 650-900 feet. The weather is often quite cool up there, with more snow than we get on the valley floor (where city center is).