William Palmer of Hollywood donated a 22-foot-tall tree to Pepperdine's Malibu campus. The coral tree had been marked for removal by developers building an apartment complex in Hollywood, but Palmer heard about the Trees for Pepperdine Malibu effort and offered it to the new campus.¹

Moving the twelve-ton giant proved tricky.² The first plan was to put it on a truck and crawl through the city late at night, but the State Division of Highways deemed the disruption to traffic unacceptable at any hour. Alternative plans included helicopters and barges, but they all proved too expensive or just impractical.¹

Ultimately, with the help of governor Ronald Reagan (a friend of president William Banowsky),³ permission came to move it by truck just two hours before the deadline.¹ The journey began at 11pm and ended at 7am the next day. The truck had to stop at every power line along the way to ensure it would fit under. The closest call was at a pedestrian bridge on PCH, where the tree just scraped through. The parade, including several California Highway Patrolmen and two State Department of Highways officials, arrived to the Malibu campus at 7am, where the tree was unloaded near the Seaver Drive entrance.¹ It guarded the entrance for at least two decades.³

The tree was of the species Erythrina crista-galli, a cousin to the coral trees (Erythrina caffra) now familiar on campus. Though the species is common in Argentina, where it is the national tree, Palmer's was thought to be one of only three specimens in Los Angeles.⁴