Torrey pines against an evening sky
Torrey Pines State Reserve · 7 March 2026
Torrey pines on the bluff above the Pacific, each tree shaped almost entirely by wind rather than by any pruning. The crown grows out and downwind rather than up, since a shoot pushed skyward into the salt-laden onshore gusts is the one least likely to survive.
Torreys can live several hundred years under this kind of stress, growing barely at all in poor years and putting on a short flush whenever a wet winter allows it. This bluff and one island are the only places on earth they grow wild.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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