17 April 03

An Elegy for Walnuts


walnuts.jpg
The Solano County roads department is preparing to take out a row of California black walnuts (Juglans hindsii) along Old Davis Road to make room for bike lanes. It’s a little-traveled road, and I’m not sure that the benefits to the cyclists who use the road (mostly hard-core, with less need of bike lanes) warrant the loss of such a landscape feature.

walnuts1937.jpg
This row of walnuts was well-established in 1937, when the aerial photograph (courtesy of the UC Davis library map collection) at left was taken. Formal roadside avenues of trees are scattered around the lower Putah Creek landscape, one of the most noteworthy being the row of walnuts on Russell Avenue west of Davis.

Juglans hindsii has an interesting history: it is widely naturalized in Northern California, but only two stands of the tree, in Napa and Contra Costa counties, are considered native to their sites. The plantings of the black walnuts provide good wildlife habitat: in this row of trees we’ve seen roosting Swainson’s hawks, and nesting yellow-billed magpies and western kingbirds.

Posted by at 08:07 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. It is true that the walnuts are not very healthy-they long ago succumbed to mistletoe. And we’re assured that valley oaks will be planted along this stretch instead. But it’s nesting season, and apart from anything else you have to be sure you’re not removing nesting birds-we’re not sure the appropriate authorities have checked this. If Swainson’s hawks aren’t nesting in these trees, they certainly use them for roosting…

    Pica    18. April 2003, 04:36    Link

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