maisanoNO@SPAMmindspring.com (Ray) wrote:
>Does anyone know of a website or guide to
>the locations used in filming Vertigo? We're
>planning a trip to the SF area and I thought it
>might be cool to visit some of them.
This is a fun website with a lot of San Francisco "insider" info
(including film locations): http://www.mistersf.com
Coincidentally, this was in the newspaper today:
Living Large in Muir Woods
A sense of history among the redwoods
- Geoffrey Coffey
The trappings of prosperity pursued by contemporary city dwellers
emphasize the appeal of "living large," hinting that the ends of
financial aggrandizement will justify any means. But in the Bay Area, we
also enjoy a wealth of nearby natural resources that remind us of just
how small any one person is in the grander scheme of Earth. These two
sides of the spectrum curve back on each other to meet in the old-growth
redwood forest of Muir Woods, only 15 miles north of San Francisco's
Financial District, yet rooted in a time that predates our mercantile
madness by millions of years.
Here the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), the tallest species of
tree in the world, grows to heights of 250 feet and dwarfs the oak, bay,
madrone and Douglas fir that usually dominate the canopy of Northern
California forests. Walking among these giants, one feels the hushed
weight of history, a sense of being watched over by elders. In fact,
many of the specimens here were already reaching for the clouds when
Columbus set sail - the mature trees of Cathedral and Bohemian groves
average between 600 and 800 years old, with the oldest at least 1,100
years old. But even these are young for a redwood, which can live to
more than 2,200 years and grow to more than 350 feet tall.
First-time visitors to Muir Woods often crane their necks and stare
upward like tourists in downtown Manhattan, spellbound at the spectacle
of the skyscraping trees. But don't forget to look down - the understory
deserves its share of attention too, especially now at the beginning of
the year when some of our greatest botanical treasures come into bloom.
For example, the slinkpod or fetid adder's tongue (Scoliopus bigelovii)
emerges from underground in the wet weeks of late January, a low-growing
foil to the redwoods' dizzying heights. This member of the lily family
features a single pair of clasped basal leaves sheathing two or three
flower stems per plant, each with an unusual yellowish-green blossom
mottled in stripes of purple and brown. The long, narrow petals and high
tri-forked style give this flower the appearance of an orchid, while its
elusive tendency accounts for the homage it receives from native plant
fanciers. After the flower is pollinated, the stem will gently keel over
to deposit the seed pod on the forest floor, hence the cognomen
"slinkpod" and the source of the generic name (Scoliopus means "crooked
foot" in Greek).
Also in the lily family, two species of Trillium (T. ovatum and T.
chloropetalum) grace these woods every February. The former has a white
blossom aging to pink, while the latter can be yellow to dark purple
with a sweet roselike or spicy scent. Arising from a rhizome, each
delicate three- petaled flower is subtended by a whorl of three leaves
on a single stem, like a delicate ballerina nodding over a green tutu.
Difficult in the garden and demanding great patience from the commercial
grower (plants grown from seed can require seven years before blooming),
the trillium commands top dollar and stands among the most prized jewels
in horticulture.
For a great groundcover in sunless yards, look no further than redwood
sorrel (Oxalis oregana), a cloverlike perennial that grows throughout
these woods and is just coming into flower. Unlike its cousin Oxalis
pes-caprae, the pernicious urban weed from South Africa, redwood sorrel
occurs naturally in moist conifer forests throughout Northern California
and the Pacific Northwest, an ecologically friendly addition to any
planned landscape in the Bay Area. Here in Muir Woods, the delicate
leaves and white-to-pink blossoms create a soft horizontal texture that
balances the soaring vertical lines of the trees, an effect that also
works well in the garden.
A single redwood may evoke gasps of historic vertigo (the oldest living
specimens today were saplings before the birth of Christ), but the
species itself provides even greater perspective, a glimpse back to the
age of dinosaurs. In the late Jurassic period, a variety of redwoodlike
trees covered most of the Northern Hemisphere. Climate changes over the
subsequent 140 million years slowly winnowed their ranks until now only
two species remain, both confined to narrow ranges: the coast redwood in
a thin and discontinuous 500-mile strip along the Pacific from southern
Oregon to Monterey, and the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in
small groves on the western flanks of the High Sierra.
But where the vagaries of nature have acted at the glacial speed of
evolution, the greed of mankind morbidly accelerated the decline of the
trees. Old-growth redwood forests, estimated to have covered 2 million
acres in the early 19th century, now have been reduced by more than 97
percent. Loggers viewed those vast stands of timber as an infinite,
inexhaustible supply, and quickly set off down the path that would prove
their assumptions wrong. The 295 acres of Muir Woods encompass the last
remaining old-growth redwood forest in the Bay Area, and one of the few
remaining in the world.
These ancient trees offer silent yet powerful testimony to the value of
natural conservation, and today this forest bears the name of our
greatest conservationist - but John Muir actually had nothing to do with
the process that spared these trees from the saw. This remote region
along Redwood Creek on the southeast corner of Mount Tam was initially
passed over by the logging companies because of its inaccessibility and
the steepness of the surrounding valley slopes, rendering the quick
extraction of wood infeasible.
The parcel was purchased in 1905 by Congressman William Kent and his
wife, Elizabeth Thatcher Kent, who rightly noted the implicit value of
an uncut old- growth forest. They maintained their commitment to protect
these trees even after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when the
rebuilding effort created enormous demand for lumber. In 1907, the
Tamalpais Land and Water Company announced its intention to dam the
creek at today's park entrance and flood the valley, but the Kents
thwarted this development too by donating the land to the federal
government.
Teddy Roosevelt declared the park a national monument the following
year, and wanted to name it for William Kent, but the congressman
insisted on a more appropriate moniker. John Muir later told him, "This
is the best tree-lover's monument ... in all the forests of the world.
You have done me great honor, and I am proud of it."
We should all take pride in Kent's heroic gesture of a century ago and
aspire to similar heights of selfless integrity. A walk among the
redwoods can make a man feel very small, yes, but the simple act of
saving them can increase his stature a hundredfold. Living large,
indeed.
Writer and landscape consultant Geoffrey Coffey is planting seeds for
the 43rd century. Find his work online at www.geoffreycoffey.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/19/HOG3IBC63A1.DTL
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