The Native Trees Campus Tree Tour shown on this page celebrates those trees which grow native in the state of Washington. While not all of them have been included in the original Brockman Memorial Tree Tour, each of these specimens are beautiful examples of Northwest forest beauty, all playing a significant role in maintaining the diversity of our local ecosystems. Some, like the Red Alder and Black Cottonwood, are pioneer species, colonizing disturbed sites and facilitating the growth of later successional species like the Western Hemlock, which needs shade to thrive fully when germinating. Others represent the only members of their family found in Washington, like the Oregon White Oak, the only tree of the Beech family found in Washington and British Columbia.
This tour allows the viewer to appreciate the varied habitats and conditions present in our state, identifies the life histories and adaptations of its various trees, and provides an opportunity to learn a bit more about the connections humans have shared with each. Included in this tour are some of the indigenous names for our native trees written in the Lushootseed dialect, one of the languages of the Coast Salish people who have called the Puget Sound home since time immemorial.
This tour is designed to start at the Burke Museum. It consists of 29 species, including some which are distinctly shrub-like in appearance but can, in the right environment, grow to a significant enough height to be appreciated as trees.
18. Pacific Yew
19. Pacific Dogwood
20. Beaked Hazelnut
21. Bigleaf Maple
22. Pacific Madrone
25. Sitka Spruce
26. Western Redcedar
27. Douglas-Fir
28. Paper Birch
29. Red Elderberry
As caretakes of the land, the native peoples here have engaged in mass scale sustainable management, forming a symbiosis with the land and ensuring its resources would persist for generations. In forming such a relationship with the land these nations have developed a deep fundamental understanding of the trees growing upon it, using the resources to make food, shelter, medicine, and materials. Indigenous peoples of Washington also historically utilized entire ecosystems to their advantage, not picking out individual commodities to the detriment of the forest as western culture does in modern times, but using the diversity to their advantage of both humans, plants, and wildlife. One example of this is the controlled burns used to maintain open oak woodlands. These woodlands support a wide variety of wildlife, and the open deciduous nature of the Oregon White Oak allows for immense diversity in plant community associations as well. This in turn meant bountiful food for humans living near and in this managed landscape. The overall ecosystem was also maintained in good health, as frequent small burn meant that fuel stocks were low and major destructive forest fires far less common. The full extent of human and forest interaction through the ages here is far beyond the ability of this webpage to convey, but we hope that in taking this tour you might learn a bit more about this place and the connections that abound here.
Several notable species are absent, either because they do not grow well in the climate of Seattle or because they are simply too far off of the main campus to be practically reached by a walking tour. Those missing from this tour include the Noble Fir (Abies procera) and Subalpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa), Engelmann Spruce (Picea engelmannii), Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis), Netleaf Hackberry (Celtis reticulata), Seaside Juniper (Juniperus maritima), and the Alpine Larch (Larix lyallii) and Western Larch (Larix occidentalis).