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Cedar Breaks: What's in a Name?

2022-09-01T09:30:00+00:00

Cedar Breaks National Monument - located just south of Parowan in Iron County - is a natural amphitheater that stretches across 3 miles and has a depth of over 2,000 feet. The rock formations found here are similar to those in Bryce Canyon National Park but are more eroded. The meadowed rim of the amphitheater blooms each spring with Colorado columbine, scarlet paintbrush, orange sneezeweed, prairie smoke, yellow evening primrose, plantainleaf buttercup, and two species of penstemon among many other wildflowers. Visitors will frequently spot mule deer and porcupines, but will even more frequently see marmots, golden-mantled ground squirrels, pocket gophers, violet-green swallows, and ravens. The monument is home to several tree species, like bristlecone pine, subalpine firs, aspen, and limber pine among others, but one tree species is unexpectedly absent – cedars.

Originally called un-cap-i-un-ump or “circle of painted cliffs” by the native Paiutes, the monument lies within the traditional homeland of the Southern Paiutes, an area that spans across southern Utah, Nevada, and northern Arizona. Within the monument itself, archeologists have documented sites of ancestral natives dating back more than 10,000 years. It wasn’t until 1919, when the first automobile reached Cedar Breaks, that settlers of European heritage found substantial interest in the area. Shortly after the first machine-made venture into the area, a road was constructed that connected Cedar Breaks to the east side of Zion National Park, making it more accessible and therefore more popular. In the 1930s, visitation increased dramatically after advertisements were made showcasing the soon-to-be national monument – one of which read, “…countless grotesque and magnificent geological forms, caused by water erosion, anointed with all colors of the spectrum…”

Then, on August 22, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt officialized the area’s status as a US National Monument, christened with its longstanding misnomer, Cedar Breaks National Monument. While the monument certainly is a break, the word early pioneers used to describe what we now refer to as badlands, there were no cedars in Utah until they were introduced by new settlers. What the early pioneers mistook for cedars were actually Utah junipers, or juniperus osteosperma, of the cypress family. Utah junipers are found throughout most of Utah and are very drought, cold, and heat resistant. They’re hardy and they can tolerate a variety of soil conditions, even doing well in dry, rocky locations. They can be recognized by their small scale-shaped leaves and their gray bark. Although the Utah juniper does well in most growing conditions throughout the state, they haven’t become very popular for home landscaping. However, their hardiness makes them the perfect candidate for xeriscaping and water-wise gardening on properties with plenty of sun.

While its name might technically be a bit dishonest, don’t let that deter you from visiting Cedar Breaks National Monument. In the summer heat, its high elevation and its trees (although not cedar) provide a cool getaway. Besides, as Shakespeare put it, “what’s in a name?”

To learn more about trees in Utah, click here.

Close-up of a Utah juniper's branches

Historic Trees: Provo’s One-of-a-Kind Ulmus Americana

2022-09-15T10:00:00+00:00

On the ground of the historic Utah County Courthouse, there’s a tree unlike any other in the world, an individual that stands out among an already-rare species.

The Ulmus Americana, also known as the American Elm or Water Elm, is a species of elm native to the Americas, naturally occurring in a region that encompasses almost the entirety of the eastern half of the United States. Although it’s a hardy tree that can withstand temperatures both high and low (as low as even -44’F), the species is currently listed as endangered. Due to logging and the spread of Dutch elm disease (DED), the majority of the population has been wiped out. Fortunately, progress has been made in developing practices to prevent the spread of DED to clustered and individual elms, including a vaccine. Researchers have also begun developing hybrid cultivars that are resistant to DED. While the Ulmus Americana population might not ever return to what it once was, their future is looking more stable. These innovations in tree protection will help our community protect one of Utah’s great treasures – the wholly unique Ulmus Americana on the grounds of the Utah County Courthouse in Provo. While the Ulmus Americana is already rare, this individual tree in Provo possesses qualities that are entirely unique to itself.

Shortly after the completion of the Utah County Courthouse in 1926, two county employees, Roni Christopherson and Elmer Pulley, were tasked with purchasing trees to be planted on the courthouse grounds. In their search for the right trees, Roni and Elmer went all the way up to a nursery in Ogden, where the owner gifted this special tree to the pair. Although the identity of the nursery owner is unknown, Roni and Elmer took note of his description of the tree’s origin – he had created the tree through experimentation, grafting budding willow trees to the body of an Ulmus Americana and in the end creating a lone, entirely unique tree that he called a Weeping American Elm. While technically an Ulmus Americana, this particular tree grows in a fashion that no other does. Its branches spread out into a twisting tabletop – sort of like a skinny octopus doing a headstand – and they’re so heavy they have to be supported by metal beams to protect them from their own weight. Throughout its 96-year history, the county has done all it can to keep this unique, beautiful tree healthy and kempt for generations well into the future to enjoy.

Historic Trees: The London Planetrees in Santa Clara

2022-09-22T10:00:00+00:00

The need to plant trees was immediately clear to the early settlers of Santa Clara in Washington County. Seeking to expand their community’s pool of shade, the settlers would transplant Fremont Cottonwood saplings from the banks of the Santa Clara River to the streets of their little town. With saplings readily available nearby that could easily be moved and then grew rapidly when in place, Santa Clara’s Main Street quickly became a shady haven. However, the settlers would later discover their tree of choice was not the best choice. The cottonwoods, removed from the nourishing riverside, struggled to survive and proved to be hazardous.

The hazardous nature of these struggling cottonwoods peaked in August of 1939, when the worst gale force winds in the town’s history shattered windows, lifted roofs, and tore trees from the ground. When the windstorm struck Santa Clara, Josephine Graf was out walking with her granddaughter, Loretta Frei, down Santa Clara Drive. Overpowered by the storm and unable to make it to shelter, Josephine shielded her granddaughter from the whirling debris, including a large cottonwood branch that had broken off a nearby tree, which struck Josephine’s neck, leading to her death.

Josephine Graf’s death united the small town of Santa Clara. Seeing what harm the brittle cottonwoods could do, they came together to remove and replace them with trees that would fare better and prove to be less hazardous in the community’s dry climate, eventually agreeing London Planetrees were the best option. The project began in the early 1940s and was completed through volunteer labor from the townspeople, who removed the cottonwoods and their stumps using axes, shovels, and their bare hands. Sylvan Graf, a relative of Josephine, volunteered to truck new trees in from San Diego. His job already required him to haul cattle from the locale to Nevada and California, so he would do that and return with a truckload of London Planetrees. With interruptions due to the onset of World War II and the strenuous nature of the work, the project took 8 years to complete. Once all the trees were planted, volunteers continued to nurture them for several years by hauling buckets of water to them until they were mature enough to survive off groundwater.

In the following decades, travelers passing through town on the old Highway 91 were amazed by the town’s greenery, often describing it as a desert oasis. The London Planetrees in Santa Clara remain as a stunning fixture and as a reminder of the town’s historic unity.

Historic Trees: The Rare Northern Utah Hybrid Oak

2022-09-08T10:00:00+00:00

In 1954, Rudy Drobnick, a graduate student studying under the famous Utah botanist, Dr. Walter Cottam, was hiking on the west side of the Oquirrh Mountains when he noticed the grove of oaks he was passing through had distinct features, different from others in the area and any he had seen before. Moving forward in his studies with the possibility that he had found a new oak in mind, he shifted the focus of his thesis to this potentially groundbreaking discovery. Through his field research, Drobnick discovered a few additional isolated groups of this distinct oak, including one on the University of Utah grounds nearby what would later become Cottam’s Oak Grove, where Dr. Walter Cottam stationed a tree nursery where he recreated the conditions that would reproduce and confirm Drobnick’s discovery of rare, hybridized oaks.

These hybrids are a product of a historic natural process that took place 5,000 to 7,000 years ago – a time when Utah and the Great Basin region was wetter and hotter. During this time, the habitat zones of the northern quercus gambelii (Gambel or scrub oak) and southern quercus turbinella (sonoran scrub oak or canyon live oak) briefly overlapped. The two species met in the brief intersection of their habitable zones and hybridized, creating the unique gambelii x turbinella hybrid. Cottam recreated this process by pollinating q. gambelli starts with the pollen from q. turbinella on a site similar to locations where the hybrid is found in the wild. This grove of human-produced hybrids is now known as the Cottam Oak Grove and is located in what is now Red Butte Garden & Arboretum. Through this experiment, Cottam was able to effectively prove that hybridization between the two species is possible when conditions are right, confirming their suspected history. This discovery drew biologists from all over the world – they had to see the hybrid oaks.

Now, the hybrid oaks in the wild stand as “living fossils,” providing us with evidence of Utah’s climate past and Cottam’s Oak Grove stands as a relic of Utah’s contributions to the world of science and our community’s ardent engagement with the natural world around us.