On the British Columbia West Coast, the Salish First Nation honors the Arbutus Tree as their Tree of Knowledge because it knows how to find the sun.

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ARBUTUS. This tree is easily my favorite tree. It has so many unique and special qualities. A magnificent yet fiercely rugged tree, Arbutus shows its fullest beauty while clinging to rocky bluffs and crags overlooking the ocean. It can be over one hundred feet tall and giants can be as wide as ten feet in diameter. These beauties can live to 500 years.

Arbutus trees have the ability to survive the harshest climates close to the sea: wet and windy with snow in the winter and dry parched in the hot coastal summers of the Pacific northwest sun belt. They can grow on bluffs where there is very little soil and survive droughts in several ways. One is by creating burls that store water for release when needed. In fact, burls can grow not only on the base of the tree near the ground but higher up the tree as well! They also survive the worst of droughts by letting a branch or part of a branch slowly die off or even a portion of the main trunk so that the tree can live. That way they can survive when all others would die. You can see these dead branches on many trees.

Arbutus, also known as Madrone or Madrona, technically known as Arbutus Menziesii, makes its crooked shapes because of how it has to cling to the rough terrain, rocks and fissures and also how it searches for sunlight bending around other trees for optimum light exposure. They grow horizontally and every which way!

Here is an amazing feature: their leaves are unique in Canada. Arbutus is the only deciduous tree (ones with leaves) that does not loose its leaves in the winter! It is like an evergreen tree with leaves instead of needles, unlike the evergreen trees such as pines and spruces. What happens is that in the early summer, new leaves grow and the old ones then fall off but the tree is never ever naked! It always has leaves.

In the early spring they form bountiful white blossoms (unless it is surviving a harsh previous summers dry spell) that makes Arbutus even more spectacular. And oh what a delicious perfumed scent they release! In the summer, the reddish brown bark sheds its skin just like a snake! The bark is thin and smooth, peeling in thin flakes or strips to expose younger, smooth, yellowish green bark underneath that turns reddish in the colder winter. The new bark is as smooth as a babys bottom! In the fall and into the winter, clusters of orange red berries feed the birds and deer.

Perhaps my favorite quality of the Arbutus tree is the vast array of shapes and contours they can take. They can grow tall and straight in open groves with good soil and lots of sunlight but everywhere else they take on dramatic postures that vary from tree to tree especially on bluffs and exposed areas overlooking the ocean. In fact they usually grow within 5 km (3 miles) of the sea, but rarely have I seen any beyond that limit.

Another fascinating characteristic of the tree that helps it survive is that it can rejuvenate and re-grow even after falling down! New shoots sprout up from the base. Cut a branch off and it will sprout a new baby limb! They are tough trees and the wood can be the hardest of hard woods. One danger is that the new shoots leaves are delicious for deer but the sprouting limbs do seem to be able to keep ahead of the nibbling!

Another special feature of Arbutus trees comes to light only in the rain. When the bark gets wet, it glistens and shimmers as though recently waxed to a high sheen. The smooth bark makes the water on it dance with glee! So even in the most miserable weather of the wet coast, Arbutus brings joy to the beholder.

In summary, the Arbutus tree captures the imagination and shows so many unique characteristics as to make it the winner as my favorite tree. To top off this achievement, the wood inside is so spectacular as to also be my favorite wood in the whole wide world!