Parsons Park

Intersection of Proctor Road and Walnut Road

Parsons Park sits on the site of the former Parsons School. Among the items that you can see at Parsons Park are redwoods, sweet gums, acacias, blackberries, and basalt.

The small triangle of trees directly across Walnut Road is Ethalyn Thomas Park. Although it's not technically part of Parsons Park, it has several interesting features, including various kinds of rocks, redwoods, and a cork oak. Please be careful when crossing Walnut Road.

Parsons Park sits on the site of the old Parsons School

1. Redwood trees. Coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are native California trees. They can grow to be 200–300 feet tall and more, and they grow quite fast: up to 60 feet in only 20 years. Redwoods are conical in shape with horizontal or slightly drooping branches. The roots are wide spread but shallow. The flat leaves are 15–25 mm long and flat, and the cones are 15–32 mm long.

Redwoods reproduce through seeds or by sprouting from the root crown, stump, or a fallen branch. Often a ring of redwoods will indicate where a “mother” tree once was. And a straight line of trees will result from a fallen tree. In Parsons Park, several of the redwoods have sprouts growing at their base.

2. Monterey pine (Pinus radiata). The Monterey pine is a common pine in California. It grows to about 100 feet. Its branches point upward and it has a round top. The bright green needles occur in clusters of three and are 2-4 inches long with a blunt tip. Cones are 3-5 inches long. The dark grey to brown bark is quite fissured. The Monterey pine in California is seriously threatened by an introduced fungal disease called pitch pine canker.

3. Conifers and deciduous trees. Trees have evolved many strategies to survive, and some of these can easily be seen in the park. First, conifers, such as pines, spruces, and redwoods, are all conifers. They do not lose their leaves in the winter. They do not have flowers.

Deciduous trees have flowers and lose their leaves in winter.

4. Deodora (Cedrus deodora). Several trees are near the corner of the park. The deodora is in the cedar family. These are large trees that are shaped like pyramids. The trees grow to about 80 feet. Cones of 3-4 inches are found on the lower branches through the winter months. These trees were originally native to the Himalayas, but now are common decorative trees.

5. Coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis). Several plants are in this corner of the park. Baccharis comes from a Greek word for plants with fragrant roots, and pilularis refers to the sticky resin on its flowers. Coyote brush, a common native California plant, adapts its shape to its environment. Near the seashore, it is low to the ground. In places where it is more protected, coyote brush forms bushes. Its leaves have a waxy coating to reduce water loss, and the coating also protects them from fire. The coyote brush sends out a very large root system to find water.

6. California live oak (Querqus agrifolia). Several trees can be seen along the fenceline. This California native, evergreen tree has a short stout trunk and many crooked branches. It grows to a height of about 80 feet. The acorns have a thin egg shape and are an inch or so long and were preferred by the local Native Americans. They removed the shells and ground the nut into meal. Then they washed them to remove their bitter taste and boiled or baked them for food.

7. Blackberries. Blackberries are called adventitious because the take “advantage” of any opening in the forest. They are among the first plants to appear after a fire or other clearing. Blackberries are members of the genus Rubus, one of the most diverse genera of flowering plants with 12 subgenera and hundreds of species. They have been used for food and medicine for centuries. White or pink flowers grow at the ends of the stems. By late summer, fruit appear as aggregates of drupelets. A drupelet is a small drupe. Each is similar to a plum with a seed in the middle of the flesh and covered with a thin skin.

An old English legend advises that blackberries should not be eaten after Michaelmas, a celebration in late September to celebrate the defeat of the Devil by St. Michael. According to the legend, when the Devil was cast out of heaven, he landed on a blackberry plant and spit on the berries in anger, thus rendering them inedible.

8. Acacia (Acacia sp.). Acacias are in the pea family. The seed pods resemble pea pods. The leaves of acacias are compound pinnate. That means that each leaf contains a large number of smaller leaflets. There are roughly 1300 species worldwide. In the US, the tree is mostly grown as an ornamental. They are sometimes confused with locust or mimosa trees, which have similar features.

9. Tree stump. Tree stumps are fascinating. You can easily see the tree rings, which provide a record of local climate during the life of the tree. Many trees are hundreds of years old, and a few live thousands of years. Thus, the rings provide information that is not available from scientific records.

At the center of a stump is a small core of pith formed when the tree was a sapling. Then comes a cylinder of dark dense wood -- the heartwood -- with annual rings which are often very narrow near the core because as a youngster it grew in the shade of older trees and did not get enough light. Surrounding that is a collar of lighter-colored wood -- the sapwood -- with a smaller number of rings. Beyond that and just inside the rough outer bark is a spongy layer of inner bark called the phloem.

The most important part is hard to see because it is so small. Between the sapwood and the inner bark is a single layer of living cells called the cambium, which has the magical property of producing, each year, a layer of sapwood on the inside and a layer of inner bark on the outside. The wood formed each spring consists of light-colored thin-walled cells. Near the end of summer, the cells are smaller with darker walls. Together, the springwood and summerwood form a ring.

10. Magnolia. The magnolia blooms in early spring before the leaves come out. The flowers grow at the end of the branches. Magnolia flowers evolved a long time ago, and they are similar to the very first flowers. Some of the oldest fossil flowers discovered are similar to magnolia blossoms. They are primitive features for several reasons. They have many stamens and pistils, which are parts of the flower. The stamens are arranged in spiraling rows, and both stamens and pistils are attached to a fingerlike receptacle.

11. Sweet Gum. This deciduous tree (also called liquid amber) is a favorite decorative tree, but it is not native to California. The leaves have five points and turn a beautiful red in the fall.

The seeds are quite distinctive and can often help to identify the tree even when the leaves are absent.

12. Redwood with suckers. Sprouts grow from the base of redwood trees. They also grow from stumps, and in redwood forests, you can usually find circles of redwoods that that have grown up from the remains of the original tree.

13. Basalt stones in drain. The stones in the drain are basalt, a hard gray volcanic rock common to the Bay Area.

14. Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus sp.). Although eucalyptus trees are very common in the Bay Area, they are not a native California plant. They were brought here from Australia in the 19th Century. The reason they were brought over is unclear, but now they are used as windbreaks and as decorative plants. These very tall trees also produce a lot of oil (thus, their distinctive odor) and burn rapidly. The bark is very interesting. It dies annually. In some species, the bark falls off. In others, the bark stays on the tree and dries out.

Castro Valley Educational Foundation

Tax ID# 94-2797523

Parsons Park

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