British Columbia

I think it's a common municipal bylaw for communities on Vancouver Island that every second business has be named "Arbutus" something.

But seriously, it's a really neat tree, plus the wood is a gorgeous red. An uncle made a crib out of an arbutus on his property that got felled. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's not a very straight tree though, so I don't know of any large commercial use, so no Arbutus panelling, floors, banisters, etc. unless you happen to know someone with the ability to do it from scratch.

They look great, especially when mature. They still make a bit of a mess, since they shed their bark rather than their leaves. I guess it's also a pretty weird tree.

Here is also an easier read: https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/library/documents/treebook/arbutus.htm

I'm still trying to figure out lemmy! I originally had the above linked and then decided to include a picture but apparently that overrides the link. Also TIL that the site doesn't grab images from links like R3dd!t does.

Somehow lived in Vancouver my whole life and never knew what an Arbutus tree looked like.

Beautiful trees. We have them down here in Washington as well, though here we call them Pacific madrone. Native Americans used to use the bark as a tea which was supposed to help with things like stomach upset.

They are so beautiful! I’m very thankful that I was introduced to these trees when I moved to BC.