The trees loom five stories over the quiet residential street, their thick, interlocking branches forming a sweeping canopy over handsome, custom houses, their trunk bases as wide as SUVs and their tangled surface roots as thick as fire hoses.
So unexpected and exotic that they attract horticultural tourists, the Moreton Bay fig trees (Ficus macrophylla) of La Mesa Drive in Santa Monica are a triumph of urban adaptation. They were planted under the mistaken assumption they were magnolias. All 112 along the seven-block stretch, as well as two cousins, the rustyleaf figs (Ficus rubiginosa), are natives of a rain-forest climate. But they have found a way to thrive, under the watchful eye of homeowners.
"The funny thing is they should never have been planted here," says Walt Warriner, Santa Monica's community forester and public landscape superintendent. "They don't have enough room or water, so they've had to create their own microclimate."
"This is the only residential street in the city that's lined with these types of trees," says Peter Nelson, who has owned a home on La Mesa for 30 years. "They are extraordinary in their visual impact. They are majestic and divine, and have made this street a God-given place made by man's mistake."
When the young trees were planted during the 1920s, they were thought to be better-behaving magnolias, which have similar-looking leaves. The trees were even identified as magnolias in 1936 blueprints by acclaimed architect Paul Williams, who designed a Georgian house on the street.
"I don't know if it was an afterthought or just serendipity that they are Moreton Bay figs and not magnolias," says homeowner Patti O'Neill, who has lived in the Williams-designed house for 18 years. "I don't care. I'm just grateful that they're here. It's just like art -- sometimes it's a happy mistake."
Happenstance has been a part of the Moreton Bay fig tree's strange history in Southern California. In 1875, the trees were shipped to San Pedro and given to anyone who came to the dock, according to newspaper reports kept by the Santa Monica Historical Society Museum. The saplings were scattered around the arid chaparral, and despite their craving for water and territory, some flourished.
One was planted in 1875 on grounds now occupied by St. John's Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. Today its canopy envelops the church, office building and lawn and extends to the middle of National Boulevard. The largest Moreton Bay fig in the state was planted in 1877 on the corner of Chapala and Montecito streets in Santa Barbara.
