Pacific Wax Myrtle, Morella californica, is one of the coolest trees here in Cascadia, and it’s really unique in this specific part of the world.
If you look on a map at its ‘native distribution’, you’ll see it’s really prominent along the coast from Southern California up through Southern Washington, but not really anywhere else until you get this little peninsula here between Barkley and Clayoqout sound on traditional Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ and Tla-o-qui-aht territory…and no one really knows why.
About 12,000 years ago this area was covered in about a mile thick of ice during recent glaciation which would’ve pushed populations of this species further south, which then spread back up north following the retreat of that ice sheet, but there’s no reason for the birds and other critters who disperse its seeds to have had this gap in distribution. There were also islands of refuge from this glaciation like the Brooks peninsula that weren’t covered in ice, but if Pacific Wax Myrtle had found refuge there then it would still be present, but it’s not there either.
My favourite hypothesis on how this species came to be here on this little peninsula of Vancouver Island and nowhere else for hundreds of kilometres is that it was distributed by another critter - Humans. See, prior to European colonization of these lands, various First Nations along the coast of Cascadia here from CA to AK had a robust trade network along the ocean, and it’s thought that at some point the Wax Myrtle made its way up by hitching a ride, being traded, or gifted from Nations further south.
So when I see this plant, not only am I blown away by its sheer beauty and ability to thrive in these relatively harsh ecosystems compared to those where they originate from, but I am reminded of the beautiful interconnection between different groups of Human and non-Human people across the lands we all share, and how they have ebbed and flowed overtime through various climatic and cultural shifts.
Pretty dang awesome!
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