Relics in the Botanical Garden
Golden Gate Park is filled with hidden treasures, not least the 55-acre botanical garden, formerly known as the Strybing Arboretum. It opened in 1940 off 9th Avenue, and was laid out largely by that portly and imperious superintendent of the park, that genius, John McLaren, who’d begun his career anchoring dunes on the estuary along Scotland’s River Forth. In San Francisco, he set out the dimensions of the park, and to protect it from the ocean, he used whatever he could find in the way of city debris to build the berm that’s now the Great Highway.
Whether you care about horticulture, the arboretum is nearly a sacred space. It’s filled with meadows, glades, and winding paths running through a succession of gardens. In one area, you’ll find one of the largest collections of magnolias in the world. In another—the California native garden—are species from the state’s different landscapes: meadowfoam from the arroyos, dutchman’s pipe from the woodlands, and matilija poppies from the chaparrals of southern California. And then there’s a Mesoamerican cloud forest with tree daisies and fuchsias. All told, there are some 8,000 plant species.
Info
Address 1199 9th Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94122, www.sfbotanicalgarden.org | Public Transport Bus: 44, 71, 71L (9th Ave & Lincoln Way stop) | Tip The Botanical Garden is a perfect place to bring a picnic and a blanket and just enjoy.
Throughout the arboretum are beautifully cut stones, which are among the 1000 taken from Santa Maria de Ovila, a Spanish monastery built 90 miles northeast of Madrid in 1181. In 1835, the Spanish government confiscated the property, along with 900 other monasteries, and sold them to private owners, who often used them as barns. In 1930, William Randolph Hearst, the American publisher, brought the stones from Santa Maria de Ovila to California where he hoped to use them to build yet another castle after San Simeon, at a property up the coast called Wyntoon. But the Depression intervened, and in 1941, the city acquired the stones. Now they stand—some still with markings by medieval stonemasons—like quiet odes to Ozymandias.
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