Quail Botanical Gardens Conserves Rare Specimens

When Ruth Baird Larabee owned this land in the ‘30s, it was known as “El Rancho de las Flores”--Ranch of the Flowers. Larabee, who collected plants from all over the world, deeded 25 acres of her Encinitas estate to San Diego County in 1957. Within a few years, it became known as Quail Botanical Gardens, and it is now administered as a unit of the County Parks and Recreation Department.

The exotic species cultivated by Larabee have been joined by a wildly diverse collection of native, rare and unusual plants that flourish in the canyons and hillsides of the garden. Bamboo, palms, cycads, aloes and hibiscus thrive in the mild, frost-free coastal environment.

It’s a great place for a walk, whether on a self-guided saunter or a Saturday-morning docent-led tour. A stroll through the Quail Gardens introduces visitors to several distinctive environments. Lush tropical ferns, bromeliads and ornamental palms line the pools and streams below the Mildred Macpherson Waterfall; more than 70 species of fuchsias bloom vividly in the European-style Old Fashioned Garden; enormous staghorn ferns decorate the formal Walled Garden. Other features include a fragrant herb garden, an extensive desert garden, a subtropical fruit garden and a nature trail through a native plant community.

The intent of Quail Botanical Gardens is not only to provide a place of beauty and botanical information for weary city dwellers, but to conserve rare, threatened and endangered plant species. After all, as docent Nils Lunnerdal notes: “The Earth’s only source of oxygen comes from plants. It’s important that we preserve them in all their many forms.”

The garden follows the conservation guidelines developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, a strategy that mandates institutions to design their research and collections to complement, rather than duplicate, one another.

Following this strategy, the garden has become world-renowned for its bamboo; its collection is said to be the largest in the United States and the most diverse in the world. Visitors will note more than 25 species of bamboo trees ranging from 10 to 25 feet high. Although bamboo may seem to be among the most ubiquitous of plants, there is still a great deal to be learned about it. Botanists working in Colombia and Ecuador have recently discovered 35 new species of bamboo.

Gilbert Voss, curator of the garden and a director of the American Bamboo Society, states: “We have a great interest in bamboo because of its beauty and utility. Bamboo is frequently used in construction in Third World countries. It’s used instead of steel bars to reinforce concrete and it’s used as irrigation pipes in East Africa. There are species in Latin America’s cloud forests and rain forests that may become extinct before we even know anything about them.”

Bamboo, which may carry certain tropical rusts that can attack economically important grain crops, especially corn and wheat, must be quarantined in a federally approved greenhouse for one year before it may be cultivated in America.

Quail Botanical Gardens is the site of one of only four of such greenhouses in the country. Once the quarantine period is over, the specimens are then distributed to institutions throughout the nation. Three dozen species are in quarantine at the garden; one will soon be readied for transport to the National Arboretum in Washington.

The ongoing conservation work at Quail Gardens goes far beyond tending various types of plants. Thanks to government funding and a conservation grant from the Institute of Museum Services, Voss and his assistants are pursuing computerized botanical record-keeping. Seated behind a massive Autocad system, they monitor and research virtually every environmental variable of each bamboo, cycad and palm found in the garden. Their database will eventually be used by other institutions throughout the world.

This extensive, eclectic garden still reflects the original owner’s passion for plants native to far-flung locales. Many of the specimens in the collection have intriguing origins. The dawn cypress, once thought to be extinct, was found by a botanist in a remote section of China; it was brought to America and set in place at the garden by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The dragon palm, native to the Canary Islands, is the source of the rich red-brown dye used to color Stradivarius violins, and among the philodendron collection are the 12 original species first brought to America from Brazil half a century ago. They are the ancestors of every philodendron now cultivated in the United States. Well-informed docents lead tours through the garden every Saturday at 10 a.m.

Quail Botanical Gardens is located at 230 Quail Gardens Drive, Encinitas. From Interstate 5, drive east on Encinitas Boulevard one-half mile to Quail Gardens Drive. Turn north and go one-quarter mile to the main entrance. Hours are 8-5 daily including holidays; admission is free; parking is $1 per car. For more information call (619) 436-3036.