The trees of Newport Beach, California - their graceful shapes, and the lovely negative spaces contained within their bare branches and high-domed canopies - are spectacular, no doubt about it.
Newport Beach is an upscale but (it has to be said) physically charmless town in a gorgeous position adjoining beach, harbour and bay in southern California. Apart from many lovely maritime views, it has little of beauty to offer, being mostly encased in concrete. But along its highways and side-streets, scattered across its vast acres of mall and parking lot, are many large and stunning trees.
I know that they are not native species, which are to be preferred ecologically of course, but they are beautiful, so I hope that they are not too rapacious, and make their due contribution to diversity by sustaining colonies of birds and insects, as they should.
Here is a sampling, from a walk around town this sunny Monday morning, the last in January.
The trunks are also interesting
And quite often the roots are too:
But when it comes to the interior space of trees, this is my favourite:
And for those of you uncertain of your geography, Newport Beach is right here, in Orange County (right hand map), which is in southern California (as shown on the left),
Below that is an ariel view of the town (in the distance). In the foreground is part of Corona Del Mar, famed as the former residence of the great John Wayne. The pic shows clearly how built-up the whole area is (with the exception of a few bluffs), and the the trees with which its residential areas are so luxuriantly planted.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via WikipediYou may enjoy another short photo essay: The Trees of Orange County, and perhaps even Five Things I Like about Newport Beach (and three things not so much)
