Fort Matanzas Red Cedar and a Settler's Garden

The Historic Tree Grove at MOSI offers a unique timeline of America's history as it was viewed by silent witnesses, trees. Our 17 trees planted in the grove in 1996 are all seedlings of trees that witnessed amazing historic events or were associated with famous historical people. Imagine the sycamore that grew from seeds that went to the moon, a pine that watched a battle of the American Civil War, the sweet gum that saw the flight of the first airplane. What wonders those trees witnessed and those same trees still live long after the events of history have passed. We can still lay our hands on their bark, sit beneath their boughs and take a few minutes out to learn and converse about great deeds and fantastic people which shaped our world.

The tree first on the timeline in the Historic Tree Grove is the Fort Matanzas Red Cedar, a tree that watched as Florida was settled and tamed.

Fort Matanzas
245 French Huguenots were stranded in an inlet just south of the new village of St Augustine and were massacred among the dunes by Spanish forces led by Menendez in 1565. The inlet was named Matanzas which is the Spanish term for “slaughter”. This incident initiated Spanish control of Florida for some 235 years. Long the site of wooden watchtowers, Ft Matanzas began construction in 1740 to guard access to this unprotected inlet that could allow pirates or foreign forces to reach the now well established city of St Augustine.

The Fort at Matanzas still stands on Rattlesnake Island amidst a lush preserve of barrier island ecosystem. The preserve boardwalk is a great walk if you are ever in the St Augustine area and there are some great bits of nature just waiting to be visited and photographed. (My better half snapped some great shots of purple spiderwort flowers growing along a path there!)

Fort Matanzas is host to many live oaks of over 150 years of age and also boasts a red cedar tree that is over 260 years old. Our red cedar is a seedling from that amazing tree at Ft Matanzas.

Learn more about Ft Matanzas at the National Park Service website

Next time you are at MOSI, drop by the Historic Tree Grove and take a few minutes out to wonder: What would it have been to live in wild Florida in those early years of settlement? War, piracy, wild life threats, poorly growing crops, famine, hurricanes and fear of attack were constant themes in the ever changing and politically charged landscape of the early centuries of Florida's inhabiting by non-native settlers. To settle on this peninsula even now is to accept an entirely different set of plants and animals and a climate like no other in this country. Imagine Florida before air conditioning, refrigeration and modern travel.


The Fort Matanzas Red Cedar is a very tall, conical evergreen tree that stands at the entrance to the Historic Tree Grove.

For my butterfly enthusiasts, Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is a host plant for the Sweedner's Hairstreak butterfly. You knew I would sneak a butterfly in here somewhere!

A Garden for Settlers

To capture part of the importance of Ft. Matanzas and the St. Augustine area, we chose to plant a garden of Florida native plants that would have been useful to early settlers. During day 2 of the Fiskars Project Orange thumb planting we installed this lovely garden at the foot of a gorgeous red cedar tree.

• Wild Coffee (Psychotria nervosa) is a shiny and textured-leafed plant with bright red berries. It has been reported that early Florida settlers used this plant to make a substitue type of coffee drink.


• Coontie (Zamia) has a fern-like appearance and is a living fossil plant native to Florida. Also known as Indian Breadroot, the starchy tuber of this plant is poisonous if not properly prepared but can be used to produce a type of flour that was used by Native Americans and Florida Pioneers.


• Blanket Flower (Gaillardia puchella) is a Florida native wildflower that thrives in the sandy soils of the peninsula. Blanket flower was an easy and beautiful garden flower of early settlers planted around homes to ward of malaria.


• Beach Sunflower (Helianthus debilis) is another Florida native wildflower and member of the sunflower family also planted around settlers homes.

In the future I'd like to add some tobacco, cotton, sunchoke and datil peppers (as a nod to the Minorcans)

Photo credits for Ft. Matanzas: L. Chandler -- NPS Photo