Pilchuck Chapter ARS

Like a Prohibition speakeasy, West Seattle's little-known Seola Park Viewpoint keeps the good stuff hidden.

Beyond the grass and blackberries up front, an inconspicuous footpath fringed with native salal winds away from the street. A woodpecker raps on a Douglas fir snag, and a pair of northern flickers chatters overhead. The path leads to a rare urban sight: a grove of Pacific madrona trees, dozens of them, leaning windward over a sandy bluff. Shoes crunch on crisp strips of shed bark, a salty breeze from Puget Sound blows in, and the thirst for urban escape is momentarily quenched. Though a bona fide native, this broadleaf evergreen tree seems like an exotic sideshow in a Northwest landscape dominated by needle-y green conifers. In California the trees are called "madrone" and in British Columbia by their Latin name, "arbutus." They are known for their dark shiny leaves, and for the bonsai'd branches of cliff-hugging specimens, shaped by the wind. Most of all, they are known for colorful, peeling bark that adds spice to our region's mutable blue-greens.

"When the burnt sienna reddish kind of bark is peeling off and you get that pistachio color," rhapsodizes local artist David Harrison, who has painted over 100 pictures of the trees, "that part just kills me." He also likes to capture the branches that "go every which way," and the dried, fallen leaves.

City madronas are reminders of getaways to the San Juan Islands, where there may be more of these trees than people. The name "madrona" is a part of our history, used for a neighborhood, a park, and schools all around Puget Sound. Even the Magnolia neighborhood should have been named for the trees, after a navy geographer in the 1850s spotted (and misidentified) them in that location from a passing ship.

Creature comforts

A madrona tree is abuzz with wildlife throughout the year. Deer eat the creamy spring blossoms, and bees pollinate them. The branches and tree cavities are used as nest sites for a variety of birds, from crows to downy woodpeckers. And orange, puckered autumn berries feed birds and other animals.

Unfortunately, as our city grows denser, madronas have become less common. They have roots that can dig deep — even to bedrock — for water, and therefore often locate themselves on arid bluffs other trees can't claim. These locations also happen to be prime sites for view homes, and for this madronas have often been sacrificed.