Maytenus boaria mayten tree

Maytenus boaria in Centennial Green, in front of Green Library’s Bing Wing. Sairus Patel, 3 Dec 2017

Branchlets of Maytenus boaria in front of Green Library’s Bing Wing. Note the alternate simple leaves, distinguishing it from the pinnate leaves of the Peruvian pepper tree. Sairus Patel, 3 Dec 2017

Small groups of this elegant tree grow on Lomita Mall in front of Green Library, on either side of Centennial Fountain. Rather dramatically drooping branchlets lead campus visitors to mistake them for weeping willows. Maytens don’t grow as large, however, and are evergreen.

Cattle so love the leaves in its native range of central Chile and adjacent Argentina, said Juan Ignacio Molina in his 1782 description of the species, that they prefer it to any other available fodder; thus the species name boaria, meaning of or for cattle. Bovines would have completely devoured the species, he adds, if some of the trees weren’t out of nibbling reach on cliffs! Locally, observe the deer pruning effect on our foothills’ blue and valley oaks, the undersides of their crowns a telltale fixed distance from the sloping ground beneath.

Delicate small finely toothed leaves, about 1–2 inches long, stick out at right angles from the branchlets, as do the leaves of lemon bottlebrush (Melaleuca citrinus). Note how they are arranged in a pleasing spiral down the branch, affording a consistent look when viewed from any angle. The pendulous effect of the branchlets varies in the wild. Cultivar ‘Green Showers’, introduced by the Saratoga Horticultural Foundation from a UC Davis Arboretum selection, ensures you get this charming effect, and with larger leaves arranged more densely along the branchlets to boot.

Inconspicuous greenish-yellow flowers in spring develop into tiny green capsules that split in late fall to reveal one, sometimes two, ⅛-inch seeds covered in a bright vermilion aril. Evident in the split capsules and bright seeds is the family similarity with Japanese spindle tree (Euonymus japonicus), campus’s only other member of the staff-tree family.

Several maytens are arranged along the west side of Hoover Tower. Two remain of a group in the park on Alvarado Row opposite Pine Hill Road; the dark checkered bark of the larger is reminiscent of evergreen pear (Prunus kawakamii). An old neglected tree was reported to have stood on Sand Hill Road just east of San Francisquito Creek, the former location of Antonio Buelna’s adobe, the first structure built on the Rancho San Francisquito grant of 1839.