Coquille Myrtle Grove Honored, April 1

Oregon Travel Experience (OTE) and its volunteer Oregon Heritage Tree Committee invite the public to participate in the 2015 Statewide Heritage Tree Dedication and the Maynard Drawson Memorial Award ceremony. The free event will b e held on April 10, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. at the Oregon Department of Forestry’s (ODF) Salem headquarters at 2600 State St., Building C. This year, the Class of 2015 Heritage Trees holds a tree-lover’s surprise—bonus trees. Groves (or groups of trees) are eligible to achieve heritage status as are individual trees. The latest inductees—the Coquille Myrtle Grove and the T. J. Howell Brewer Spruce—are fine examples of how trees are connected to Oregon history, culture, events and people. Speakers at the event will include OTE Executive Director Nancy DeSouza, Oregon State University’s College of Forestry/Urban Forestry Paul Ries, Chair of the Oregon Heritage Tree Committee Roger Brandt, and Oregon Garden Club’s Marcia Whitelock. Students of all ages are encouraged to attend. Highly prized–the honorees: The Coquille Myrtle Grove possesses strong ties to Oregon’s Coos County and its early pioneer families. The grove sits on a preserved section of an 1859 Donation Land Claim that belonged to Dr. Henry Hermann. The homestead was sold in 1925 to the Leroy Strong family, whose son Reese studied horticulture at Oregon State University and stayed on to manage the land. Early in the 1940s the Oregon chapter of the National Council of State Garden Clubs undertook a much publicized endeavor to “Save the Myrtlewoods.” The club’s goal was to collect enough donations to preserve a large section of the homestead’s myrtlewood trees for public enjoyment. The chapter ultimately raised enough money to purchase seven acres, and the tract was donated to the State of Oregon for a new state park. Without the intervention of the women of the Oregon Garden Club, it is unlikely that this enchanting wayside park and its shady grove of myrtle trees would exist today. Coquille Myrtle Grove State Park and its 2015 honored trees are located on Hwy 242, near Powers. The T.J. Howell Brewer Spruce Tree represents a small population of Brewer spruce that survived the 2002 Biscuit Fire in the Siskiyou National Forest. The species was discovered by one of our state’s earliest pioneer botanists, Thomas Jefferson Howell, and was the last tree species to be discovered in America.