Madrone 101

First Nations names: qaanlhp (Hul’q’umi’num) , x̱ax̱a’nal’a̱ms, (Kwak̓wala), kʷum kʷumay (Northern Salishan) , kwémkwém-ay (she shashishalhem), ḰEḰEIȽĆ (WSANEĆ), qʷuƛ̓əc, qʷuqʷuƛəc (S. Lushootseed). The trees features prominently in the origin story of the WSANEĆ people.

Family: Ericaceae also known as the heath or heather family, a robust family of flowering plants sometimes known to grow in tough conditions.

Genus: Arbutus is a genus of twelve species. Pacific madrone is the largest of the genus, and all species have characteristic flaky bark and red berries.

Species: menziesii is the Latinized name for the Scottish naturalist, Archibald Menzies, who collected plants during colonizing explorations in the Pacific Northwest with the Vancouver Expeditions. It was Frederick Traugott Pursh who named the tree in honor of Menzies in his 1814 work, Flora Americae Septentrionalis; or, A systematic arrangement and description of the plants of North America. That is why one will often see author abbreviation Pursh after the botanical name Arbutus menziesii Pursh as a "tag" or citation of the botanical naming.

Pronunciation: ar-BU-tus men-ZEE-see-i

Common name: madrone or madrona, comes from madroño after the Arbutus unedo or strawberry tree commonly found in Europe. Folks in Canada tend to use the name arbutus as the common name. The first European note of madrone was in the diary Missionary Juan Crespi during the Portolá expedition of 1769-1770 in the Californias.

The madrone range is the area where the species can be found. Common understanding of the madrone range is that it is relatively abundant along the jagged West coast of North America from southern British Columbia to Central California, although there are small populatations on the leading (North) and trailing (South) and edges of the range in Southern California as well as on the west slopes of the Sierra Nevada, Pacific Coast Range mountains. Most maps show a snapshot of the where the species is present in time and space although other maps may include areas where trees or communities may migrate with changing environmental conditions such as climate change.