Jesús García prunes a quince tree that is being converted to a pear tree by grafting a branch of pear tree onto it. García is an education specialist with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. He is involved in planting heirloom trees at the mission gardens in Tumacácori National Historic Park.

james gregg / Arizona Daily Star

Other articles by Ernesto Portillo:

Community notes Community notes A life story that is worth sharing Neto's Tucson : Oft-deployed parents manage to hold down fort Community notes Taxpayer Watch: East Side property deserves eyesore award They hope food will roll in Ernesto Portillo Jr.: Area's media pioneers still connect over coffeeHorses helped heal the riderHorses helped heal the rider

Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator General
A1 Communications
Cable Techs Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION

Behind the Sosa-Carrillo-Frémont house nestled between the Tucson Convention Center and Music Hall, there's a large fig tree in the backyard of one of Tucson's oldest homes. Jesús García has tasted its fruit and attests to its sweet flavor.

He can also attest to the strong possibility the tree is descended from the original fig trees introduced into the Sonoran Desert by Jesuit explorers more than 300 years ago.

"When you're eating the fruit, you're tasting history," García said.

García, an education specialist with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, is a tree hunter. He has been on the search for fruit trees in Southern Arizona, Northwest Sonora and parts of Baja California — the area first explored in the late 1600s by the Italian-born Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino.

Kino, and later other evangelizing Jesuits, including Ignaz Pfefferkorn, introduced the exotic fruit trees — citrus, pomegranate, grape, olive, peach, apricot, quince, apple and fig.

The cultivation of the trees added to the indigenous agriculture of native plants and fruits that included squash, corn, tepary beans, melons and organ pipe cactus fruit known as pitaya.

The non-native trees became an integral part of the culture and agriculture of O'odham and the mestizo and the European settlers who lived in the Pimería Alta, an area generally stretching from the Río Magdalena in Mexico north to the Gila River, and from the San Pedro River in Cochise County west to the Colorado River.

In an effort to restore these heirloom trees, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is recovering their offspring.

The Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project involves finding the oldest heirloom trees, taking cuttings and planting them. García and Robert Emanuel, formerly of Tucson and now a professor at Oregon State University, initiated the project several years ago.

"These trees are still part of the culture," said García, who spent Friday morning babying some of his discoveries at Desert Survivors Native Plant Nursery on West 22nd Street next to the Santa Cruz River.

The project's goal is to replant the heirloom trees at the mission gardens in Tumacácori National Historic Park, south of Tucson.

Heirloom trees will also be planted in Tucson in the Rio Nuevo gardens of Origins Heritage Park on the west bank of the Santa Cruz, near the nursery.

The fruit trees, some of which have roots in the Mediterranean, North Africa and Middle East, helped sustain the colonial missions, García said. Over time, seeds or offshoots from the trees were planted in the gardens of homes and ranch orchards, providing families with food and income.

García, who gets visibly excited talking about the project, has a personal connection to the heirloom trees. He grew up in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, where Kino died and was buried in 1711.

García ate and transported the fruit of membrillo (Spanish for quince), fig and other trees that came from the orchards in nearby San Ignacio where Kino established a mission.

In Mexico, the orchards are still commercially viable, said García, 40, who immigrated to Arizona as a museum volunteer docent nearly 10 years ago while learning English.

His lifelong love of plants and nature led him to the University of Arizona to earn a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology.

García has found heirloom trees, which are more than 50 years old, in backyards, isolated canyons or near the old missions started by the Jesuits and later maintained by Franciscan missionaries. Word of mouth, mission records and Kino's diaries have led him to rare fruit trees.

In the mountains of Baja California, near Loreto, there is a nearly 300-year-old olive tree, likely to be a mission-era planting. In a Southern Arizona canyon near the turn-of-the century mining camp of Ruby, between Green Valley and Nogales, he found pear and pomegranate trees. In Oracle, there is an old, old quince tree. And alongside the fig tree at the Sosa-Carrillo-Frémont house, there is a white pomegranate, which could be nearly 100 years old, he said.

García and others believe that the heirloom trees come directly from the colonial plantings. But absent expensive and painstaking genetic testing, there's no way to tell for sure.

Still, García believes that the historical record and the natural movement of people and the plants and trees they bring with them are clear indications that Kino's heirloom trees have survived.

And maybe one day the true connection will be made.

"We're very close," he said.

ignore

Neto's Tucson