Trip Report by Nina Shoroplova

We Nature Vancouver members interested in botany met on the Helen Gutteridge Plaza on Saturday, July 18, to look at the trees on the grounds. We saw a lot more than trees. This ninety-year-old municipal building was completed and opened at Cambie Street and 12^th Avenue in November 1936, the city’s golden jubilee year, that is fifty years after Vancouver had been incorporated as a city. And though the handsome building was complete and even the Captain George Vancouver statue had been unveiled in August 1936, the grounds were unkempt. So we know that everything growing and placed on these grounds is younger than ninety years of age.

In 1936, a small English oak, Quercus robur, was planted. It now fully occupies the southwest corner of the grounds. The long peduncles on this species—stalks for flowers and later for fruits—give this tree another common name: pedunculate oak.

In 1937, Helen Gutteridge became the first woman elected to the Vancouver City Council. She brought experience from Great Britain’s suffrage movement and in Vancouver she organized female workers and, later, was part of the beginning of the social housing movement in British Columbia.

In 1973, The Lovers II was located on the west lawn of Vancouver City Hall, and officially approved to be there. It was created by German-Rumanian immigrant Gerhard Juchum, someone who had a truly challenging life, some of which is told here (see https://gerhardjuchumsculptor.org/about_artist.htm). Behind this sculpture is an enormous red oak, Quercus rubra.

In 2000, as part of the new millennium celebrations, a large stone was carved with words and titled, “Sounds We No Longer Hear.” It sits below an English yew, Taxus baccata, and not far away from a huge London planetree, Platanus x hispanica.

In 2009, the Consulate General of Japan celebrated Japan-Canada relations with a plaque—Miles Apart, Minds Together—affixed to a traditional Japanese stone lantern, known as a tōrō. In 2019, the small Japanese garden including the lantern was dedicated to Manzo Nagano, the first Japanese immigrant to come to Vancouver; he arrived in 1877.

In 2015, a western redcedar was planted in the grounds to the north of the building and dedicated to David Suzuki, “for educating and inspiring us to take care of our planet and live here.

In 2026, Vancouver was a host city for FIFA’s (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup games by hosting seven of the games. Even the city hall took part.

So there is much more than a treed path between Cambie Street and Yukon Street. There are

• many weeping beeches, Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’
• a couple of dove trees (also known as handkerchief trees), Davidia involucrata in Cornaceae, the same family as the genus Cornus
• many dogwood trees, Cornus spp.; various species; their leaves have one central and a number of arcuate subveins
• many maple trees: boxelder maple, Acer negundo; Norway maple, Acer platanoides; red maple, Acer rubrum; sycamore maple, Acer pseudoplatanus
• a couple of horsechestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum
• one round Japanese zelkova, Zelkova serrata
• walls and stone barriers growing Boston ivy, Parthenocissus tricuspidata
• street trees of interest all around, including several Magnolia ‘Galaxy’
• a street of Scots elm, Ulmus glabra
• and a tall giant sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, probably a cultivar because it is so slim. It is next to artist Li Feng’s representation of a kapok flower, titled Silk Cotton Flower. This sculpture commemorates the 30th anniversary of the sister city relationship between Vancouver and Guangzhou, China.

So next time you are walking through these city hall grounds, you may see the artwork and nature differently.