Visiting the Santa Fe Moon Tree (Shallow Thoughts)

Visiting the Santa Fe Moon Tree

The Radiolab podcast (or actually, their "Terrestrials" spinoff for kids) recently had an episode about Moon Trees.

Stuart ‘Smokey’ Roosa went to the moon (well, at least to lunar orbit) in 1971 as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 14. He was an ex-firefighter, ex-smoke jumper, and he loved trees. So for the small personal item that astronauts are allowed to carry on missions, he brought along a canister of 500 tree seeds of various types. After almost getting destroyed (listen to the episode for more detail on Stu and his seeds), the seeds ended up back on earth, where they were planted in a variety of locations, from the White House lawn to private yards.

And then ... everyone forgot about them for a while, until their rediscovery by a third grader (again, listen to the episode, it's a great story). More recently, Natalie Middleton wrote an article about Moon Trees, including a map of the currently known moon trees.

I checked the map to see if there were any in New Mexico. There's one in Silver City, a sycamore, and some day I'll get down there to visit — but wonder of wonders, there's also a Douglas fir Moon Tree in Santa Fe! It's at the Roundhouse (the state capitol). I had to go see it.

I marked the mapped point in OsmAnd, and when I got to the Roundhouse, I proceeded to the point I'd marked, and looked around. There was a very picturesque small twisted juniper, pictured at left, and several larger trees, some sort of cypress, I think, with shaggy bark and curiously hard spherical cones; but nothing that looked like a Douglas fir.

Then Dave got the bright idea of going inside and asking. There's an information desk staffed with helpful, friendly people. Three of them came out to show us the moon tree; they all knew about it since it's one of the things visitors ask about. It's not at all where the map indicated, but another quarter of the way around the building, and it's the middle of a group of three trees (which I think are all Douglas firs, but I'm not sure because the cones are how I know to identify Douglas firs, and there weren't any cones in evidence).

We even got to talk to Raphael Drhett Baca, the Building Superintendant, who told us more about the moon tree. For instance, it apparently used to have a plaque, but the plaque disappeared long ago, so there's no longer anything identifying the tree as a moon tree.

There are some other interesting trees on the grounds too, like two different trios of giant sequoias. Sequoias aren't native to New Mexico, of course, but they can live here. They tend not to get very tall here because when they do, they get struck by lightning (at least, so I've read; I didn't hear that from the Roundhouse folks). But these looked healthy enough. Actually healthier than the moon tree and its two companions, which were looking a little scraggly. (The Douglas fir at my house also looks a bit scraggly, but I've always assumed that's because we don't water it and there hasn't been much rain lately; the trees at the Roundhouse get watered regularly, so maybe it's normal for Doug firs to look like that.)

Anyway, seeing the moon tree was exciting, and I was happy to learn about the sequoias too. I'd like to take more time some day and learn about some of the other interesting trees at the Roundhouse, including those odd cypresses.