Torrey Pines: The Rarest Pine in North America
Near La Jolla, California
On the windswept bluffs at the north edge of La Jolla grows one of the rarest trees in North America, the Torrey pine. This gnarled, wind-bent pine, which carries its long needles in bundles of five, grows wild in only two places on Earth, here along the coast of San Diego County and on Santa Rosa Island off Santa Barbara. That is it.
It was named in eighteen fifty by the botanist Charles Christopher Parry, who honored his mentor, the great New York botanist John Torrey. Recognizing how fragile and unusual this little forest was, the City of San Diego set aside about three hundred sixty acres as a public park in eighteen ninety-nine. Then Ellen Browning Scripps, whose name follows you all over this village, bought up neighboring land that was slated for development and donated it to round out the reserve.
Today the protected area covers more than two thousand acres. The trees remain under pressure from drought, fire, bark beetles, and air pollution, which is why the reserve asks visitors to stay on the trails. It is not just a park with a nice view.
It is a refuge for a species that exists almost nowhere else.
