Treepedia: A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore 9780691218243

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Treepedia

Treepedia A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore

Joan Maloof Illustrations by Maren Westfall

pRinceTon univeRsiT y pRess Princeton & Oxford

Copyright © 2021 by Joan Maloof Princeton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the progress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to [email protected] Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved ISBN 978-0-691-20875-6 ISBN (e-book) 978-0-691-21824-3 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Editorial: Robert Kirk and Abigail Johnson Production Editorial: Mark Bellis Text and Cover Design: Chris Ferrante Production: Steve Sears Publicity: Matthew Taylor and Kate Farquhar-Thomson Copyeditor: Cathryn Slovensky Cover, endpaper, and text illustrations by Maren Westfall All royalties from this book are donated to

This book has been composed in Plantin, Futura, and Windsor Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper Printed in China 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to the impeccable team at the Old-Growth Forest Network: Susan Barnett, Barbara Bush,William Cook, Lisa Marie Ghezzi, Vanessa Goold, Sarah Horsley, Susan Ives, Richard Marion, Melissa Micriotti, Holiday Phelan-Johnson, Sarah Robb-Grieco, Eleanor Sloan, and the network of people who support our work speaking for the trees.

There is one quality that characterizes all of us who deal with the sciences of the earth and its life—we are never bored. — R ac h e l c a R so n

Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds! — h e nRy Dav iD T h o Re au

Every tree has its own stories to tell. — J oa n M a loo f

Preface Within these pages you will read about some of the most exceptional trees, some of the most exceptional forests, and some of the most exceptional tree advocates on the planet. This book does not contain all the tree species, nor does it contain all there is to know about trees; it simply couldn’t in something this dainty. But no matter how much you know about trees already, I can promise you that you will learn something new here. And if you know next to nothing about trees now? All the better, as these entries will quickly bring you up to speed. So, although this book is not meant to be complete, it is meant to be stimulating. What you are holding is a miniencyclopedia for our times, short and precious tidbits, not to be read in one sitting but to pick up and put down at a moment’s notice—perhaps to be kept within reach in the smallest room in the house.

A

dirondacks A mountainous region in northeastern New York State that is illustrative of the worst that can happen to forested land, and the best. The word  Adirondack comes from a  Mohawk  word meaning “eaters of trees.” The inner bark layer of many trees is edible, and Native Americans would dry strips of this inner bark and pulverize it into a kind of flour, which they used for baking. Native people occupied the Adirondacks region for thousands of years before the European settlers arrived, eating trees and many other plants and animals that shared their ecosystem. After the Revolutionary War, all of the land in New York came under the control of the state, but the state

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sold it off very cheaply—mostly to timber barons who cut all the timber and then abandoned the land without paying taxes on it. The heavy cutting of the original forests continued through the late 1700s and early 1800s. This cutting reduced the soil’s ability to hold water, causing both topsoil erosion and flooding. By 1850 the destruction of the Adirondack forests became a growing concern. In 1857 a popular writer named Samuel Hammond wrote, “Had I my way, I would mark out a circle of a hundred miles in diameter, and throw around it the protecting aegis of the constitution. I would make it a forest forever. It would be a misdemeanor to chop down a tree and a felony to clear an acre within its boundaries.” Hammond’s words struck a chord in many readers, but one man who did something about them was Verplanck Colvin. In 1872 Colvin was granted a $1,000 stipend from the state to survey the Adirondacks. The following year he presented a report to the state legislature, arguing that if the Adirondack watershed was allowed to deteriorate, it would threaten the viability of the Erie Canal, which was then vital to NewYork’s economy. Colvin echoed Hammond’s words, declaring that the entire Adirondack region should be protected by the creation of a state forest preserve. He continued with his surveys, and every year he made a similar plea to the legislature: “Unless the region be preserved essentially in its present wilderness condition, the ruthless burning and destruction of the forest will slowly, year after year, creep onward.” Persuaded by such testimony, the legislature established a Forest Preserve in 1885, stating that it “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands.” At the 1894 Constitutional Convention, this protection was written into the state’s constitution.

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The boundary of the Adirondack Park, shown as a blue line on most maps, encompasses almost 6 million acres, nearly half of which is constitutionally protected to remain “forever wild.” The remaining half of the park is private land, which includes homes, farms, businesses, and camps. Logging is allowed on private lands. These wild lands and private lands are braided together throughout the park. Adirondack Park is now the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States, greater in size than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Park combined. It is a prime example of the good that can be done when governments and individuals work together for preservation. Current estimates are that 300,000 acres of old-growth forest remain in the Adirondacks, and every year visitors come to the park for the clean water, clean air, and towering trees. See also Old Growth. American Chestnut This species was at one time the largest and most plentiful tree in the eastern Appalachian region. Some of the trees were more than seven feet in diameter. In her book about the American chestnut, author Susan Freinkel calls it “the perfect tree.” In addition to its grand size, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was important for the large and nutritious nuts it produced inside spiny husks. Many poor settlers were saved from starvation by these nuts. After most of the wild forests of the United States were cleared, and replanting for shade and beauty began in the cities, the American chestnut was considered too

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American chestnut

large for the “polite” grounds. Instead, the smaller, shrubbier Asian chestnuts were brought in, and with these chestnuts from across the sea came a microscopic fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica). It arrived in New York City in 1904. The sad tale plays out from there with the fungus jumping to the native American chestnuts and eventually killing them all to the ground. As an example, from just one state, the chestnut blight arrived in Georgia in 1924, and by 1930 the blight had killed half the chestnut trees in the state. Both living and dead trees were quickly logged for their timber value. In the few places where the chestnut trees were not cut, they eventually died anyway. The roots frequently sent up hopeful shoots, but by the time the shoots reached seven

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years of age, most of them were reinfected and killed as well. And then more shoots would sprout, and again the fungus would appear. Today some of our original trees are still sending up shoots, but very few of these shoots live to flower and produce nuts. The American Chestnut Foundation is now working to create disease-resistant strains of American chestnut trees and reintroduce them into the landscape. Appleseed, Johnny (1774–1845) Although parts of his life have been fictionalized, Johnny Appleseed was a real person with the given name of John Chapman. At the time when Chapman lived, settlers were allowed to stake a claim on certain allotments if they showed that they had “improved” the land. Planting apple trees for making hard cider was one of the easiest and least expensive ways to make a land claim. But where to get the apple seedlings for planting? That’s where Chapman came in. He collected apple seeds by plucking them from fruits and cider mash, and then germinated the seeds. These sprouts were planted in small fenced-in nurseries that he rented on other people’s properties. Chapman educated the property owners on the care of the seedlings and returned once or twice a year to check on them. In this way he was able to grow apple trees on nineteen different nurseries in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. When the small trees were old enough, he dug them up and transported them, bareroot, in a boat he paddled himself. He sold the trees by the dozen to enterprising settlers along the frontier. The settlers paid six cents each for a small whip. Some apple trees grown from seed produce delicious fruits,

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but most often the apples are small and tart. For cider, or for claims of ownership, the quality of the apples wasn’t that important. Chapman traveled widely, and simply, and shared his faith wherever he went. He was a strong Christian believer. In those days, Native Americans still occupied many of the areas where he traveled; they considered him filled with the spirit, and even hostile tribes left him alone. One of the many stories about him tells of his attendance at an outdoor meeting where a traveling minister was preaching. The minister was extolling on the soul-destroying results of extravagance in food and dress. “Where now is there a man who, like the primitive Christians, is traveling to heaven barefooted and clad in coarse raiment?” He asked so often that finally Chapman held up his dirty bare feet, pointed to his rough cloth garments, and said, “Here is your primitive Christian!” Chapman never married or had a family, and although he lived like a pauper, with bare feet, ragged clothes, and a metal pot on his head, he practiced generosity toward others—including animals. When he died, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he owned 1,200 acres that he left to his sister. Many memorials have been created in his honor. At Urbana University in Ohio, there is a Johnny Appleseed museum where the courtyard hosts seedlings planted from the last-known surviving apple tree planted by Chapman. Arbor Day A special day for planting and celebrating trees. Although Arbor Day is most frequently celebrated in April, it may be celebrated on different dates in different places

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because the optimal date for planting varies depending on the local climate; for instance, in Alabama it is celebrated in February, and in Vermont it is celebrated in May. In 1805 a Spanish priest initiated the first modern celebration of tree planting, called the fiesta de arbol. The idea for an American Arbor Day began when J. Sterling Morton moved from wooded Michigan to unwooded Nebraska in 1854. Morton was a big promoter of tree planting in Nebraska. His promoReady to plant tions were helped by the fact that he was a newspaper editor and could use the paper as a platform to share his ideas. Under Morton’s direction the first Arbor Day was celebrated on April 10, 1872, and it is claimed that Nebraskans planted 1 million trees on that day. At that time Nebraska was not yet a state. In 1885, after Nebraska gained statehood, the state officially declared Morton’s birthday, April 22, as Arbor Day. The idea spread and soon other states adopted Arbor Day. Children planting trees on school grounds has been a central focus of Arbor Day since it was first celebrated. In 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation to the schoolchildren of the United States. In that speech he said, “When you help to preserve our forests or to plant new ones you are

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acting the part of good citizens.” The idea of an Arbor Day spread quickly around the world, and today it is celebrated by more than forty-three nations. See also Roosevelt, Theodore. Arborist A person who specializes in the care of trees. Generally, arborists work on trees in urban or suburban settings. One of the most common tasks required of arborists is pruning. Other tasks are insect and disease identification, applications of chemical treatments, soil amendments, and determination of hazard status. Some arborists have the skill to climb trees using ropes, while other arborists work from bucket trucks. The tree care industry is the fourth deadliest occupation in the United States—the most common reason for death is falling out of a tree. It is estimated that a tree care worker dies every three days. Some arborists will remove living trees if the property owner no longer wants them, but other arborists have decided that they will no longer remove living trees without a compelling reason. See also Sillett, Steve. Ash Trees with compound leaves that somewhat resemble hickory trees, but instead of producing nuts, ash seeds are enclosed in single wings that are carried by the wind. The ash genus (Fraxinus) occurs across much of North America, Europe, and Asia. American ash trees have colorful common names: blue ash, black ash, green ash, red ash, white ash, and even pumpkin ash. The white ash (Fraxinus americana) is famous for being

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Ash

the choicest wood for making baseball bats, though these days most bats are aluminum, and only the major league players are required to use wooden bats. In 2008 a number of major league players switched to maple bats because they were lighter, but there was a problem with the maple bats sometimes shattering into pieces. Ash is also used for making some musical instruments, such as Bruce Springsteen’s Telecaster shown on the Born to Run album cover, so if you enjoy singing along to “Thunder Road,” you have a tree to thank.

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Tannins are astringent chemical compounds produced by most plants to repel grazers. Plants with high tannin levels are avoided by grazing animals and insects, because the tannins can negatively affect digestion. Tannins are also toxic to some microorganisms. Ash is unique in having leaves that are very low in tannins. One study showed that leaves fallen from green ash trees into wetlands were an important food source for wood frog tadpoles, while other high-tannin leaves were not eaten by the young frogs. Although the lack of tannins is beneficial in this case, they may also be the reason why ash trees are attractive to the invasive emerald ash borer (EAB), an insect that is killing these trees by the millions. See also Emerald Ash Borer. Aspen Common name for a white-barked tree in the Poplar genus. Unlike the white birch with its papery bark, aspen trees have tight, smooth bark that doesn’t peel. These trees are widespread across the cooler parts of North America—all through Canada, the Great Lakes region, New England, and in the mountains of the western United States. Aspen (Populus tremuloides) gets its species name from the way the leaves tremble in the slightest breeze, and because of that trait, they are frequently called “quaking aspen.” The unique movement is due to the leaf stem, or petiole, having a flattened shape instead of the more typical round shape. Aspen are deciduous trees, often the most abundant deciduous trees among the evergreens in mountainous areas. Their roots spread underground, and young trees in a grove are shoots from this colonial root. As a result,

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all the trees in a grove usually have the same genetic makeup. Hence, the whole grove could be considered a single organism. In the fall the aspen leaves turn yellow, but because of genetic variation, each grove exhibits a slight color variation, as well as a variation in the timing of the color change and subsequent leaf drop. One of the most beautiful sights in nature is a Rocky Mountain hillside in the fall with areas of dark green from the conifers, and large patches of color ranging from pale green to deep yellow from each aspen colony. During that season it is easy to understand that each grove is actually one organism. The stems that we call “trees,” which arise from the colonial root, may live for a hundred years and then die, but the root is still alive and continues to produce new shoots during all that time, as it will into the future. Because of this growth habit an aspen organism may be considered ancient, even if there are no ancient trees in the grove. Some of these clonal colonies have been living for thousands of years, and one in Utah, named Pando, is purported to be 80,000 years old. Because the roots continue to enlarge the colony every year, Pando now covers 106 acres. And if one were to weigh this entire organism of “trees” and roots, the result would be the single most massive living organism known on Earth. See also CMT.

B

aobab The camel of the tree world. Baobab trees (genus Adansonia) grow in dry areas and are able to store water in their massive trunks. Photographer Beth Moon points out how the trees often resemble waterholding containers such as teapots, vases, or pitchers.

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all the trees in a grove usually have the same genetic makeup. Hence, the whole grove could be considered a single organism. In the fall the aspen leaves turn yellow, but because of genetic variation, each grove exhibits a slight color variation, as well as a variation in the timing of the color change and subsequent leaf drop. One of the most beautiful sights in nature is a Rocky Mountain hillside in the fall with areas of dark green from the conifers, and large patches of color ranging from pale green to deep yellow from each aspen colony. During that season it is easy to understand that each grove is actually one organism. The stems that we call “trees,” which arise from the colonial root, may live for a hundred years and then die, but the root is still alive and continues to produce new shoots during all that time, as it will into the future. Because of this growth habit an aspen organism may be considered ancient, even if there are no ancient trees in the grove. Some of these clonal colonies have been living for thousands of years, and one in Utah, named Pando, is purported to be 80,000 years old. Because the roots continue to enlarge the colony every year, Pando now covers 106 acres. And if one were to weigh this entire organism of “trees” and roots, the result would be the single most massive living organism known on Earth. See also CMT.

B

aobab The camel of the tree world. Baobab trees (genus Adansonia) grow in dry areas and are able to store water in their massive trunks. Photographer Beth Moon points out how the trees often resemble waterholding containers such as teapots, vases, or pitchers.

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Baobab

One tree in South Africa, named the Glencoe Baobab, reached 154 feet in circumference, although the trunk has since split, making another tree the champion at 112 feet around. In addition to being very wide, baobab trees can live to be very ancient. The oldest documented baobab lived for 2,450 years before it died in 2011. Although this is not as long as bristlecone pine trees can live, the pines are conifers and the baobabs are flowering plants; therefore, baobabs hold the record as the longest living flowering plants (but see the section on Aspen for another claim to this title). There are nine different species of Adansonia, all called baobabs. Six species are native to Madagascar, two

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species are native to mainland Africa, and one species is native to Australia. Their fruit is large, almost coconut size, with a hard shell and a fuzzy coating. Inside the fruit the seeds are surrounded by a white, powdery substance that is a popular snack of the local people where it grows. In 2008 European Union regulators approved baobab as a food ingredient, and since then imported powdered baobab fruit has been increasingly showing up in packaged snack foods and beverages. Keep an eye out for it. In the book The Little Prince by Antoine de SaintExupéry, the prince spends a great deal of time pulling out baobab seedlings to prevent them from taking over his tiny planet. But these days, on Planet Earth, the real concern is that the baobabs are dying off as a result of drought caused by climate change. See also Aspen; Champion. Beech A tree species with smooth gray bark. Globally there are ten species of beech (Fagus), but the two most numerous and most important species are American beech (Fagus grandifolia), which occurs in the entire eastern portion of the United States and into Canada, and European beech (Fagus sylvatica), the most common hardwood tree in north-central Europe. As beech trees grow larger, the lateral roots create bulges in the tree’s base. The combination of the smooth gray trunk and the bulges at the base gives the beech tree the appearance of an elephant’s leg and toes. The poet Joyce Kilmer saw this meeting of tree and soil somewhat differently; he wrote, “A tree whose hungry mouth is prest / Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast.” So

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whether one compares the tree with an animal leg or vegetable lips, the fact remains that these lateral roots spread below ground far beyond the diameter of the crown. In a healthy beech forest, the lateral roots branch numerous times and connect with other beech roots, other plant roots, and also with mycorrhizal fungi. The continually growing feeder roots that branch off the lateral roots are an underground food source for countless soil-living organisms. The roots also exude a chemical that triggers germination of beech drop seeds. Beech drops (Epifagus virginiana) are small brownish flowering plants that never photosynthesize. They depend entirely on beech roots and cannot exist without them. Other organisms depend on beech trees too. Many caterpillars, soon to become butterflies, feed on beech leaves. Beechnuts are an important food for bears, and humans have also depended upon beechnuts for sustenance. See also Kilmer, Joyce; Mycorrhizae; Beech Bark Disease.

Beech

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Beech Bark Disease Beech bark disease is currently affecting many beech trees throughout the eastern United States, Canada, and Europe. The disease starts with a tiny white, woolly, flightless insect called beech scale (Cryptococcus fagisuga). All of these scale insects are female and reproduce by parthenogenesis—a form of reproduction that does not need a male for fertilization. The newborn scale insects crawl around the beech trees and eventually insert their needlelike mouthparts into the tree and start withdrawing fluid. The small wounds created by the scale insects allow fungal spores to enter the tree and begin growing. The fungus that enters is Neonectria, which is not the sort of fungus that creates mushrooms but instead invades the tissues in trees and feeds off the living cells. This fungal growth creates dead areas called cankers. When the cankers spread to the point that they encircle the whole trunk, the tree may die from not being able to transport fluids. Large, old trees are most susceptible to the disease. The process may take a long time to kill a tree, and many trees documented with the disease decades ago are still alive. Once a large tree does die, it sends up suckers from the roots for the next three to four years. In this way the original tree lives on genetically, though this genetic stock is also susceptible to the disease, and in time the shoots will become diseased too. The scale insect was documented in Europe prior to the mid-1800s and was introduced to Nova Scotia in the late 1800s. That is where and when beech bark disease had its origin in North America. It has been spreading south and west since then and is still spreading across

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the United States. Fortunately, there is a wide range of susceptibility in beech stands, and some beech are resistant, so we may yet be able to enjoy some large beech trees. Białowieża Forest The last large old-growth forest left in Europe. The Białowieża Forest, which straddles the border between Poland and Belarus, has received international recognition, including being dedicated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The forest is home to many rare plants and animals, including European bison (reintroduced), wolves, rare woodpeckers, owls, and warblers. Tree species in the forest include huge English oaks, hornbeams, and spruce. Despite the uniqueness and international recognition of the forest, in March 2016, the Polish minister of the environment, Jan Szyszko (a former forestry professor), announced that he was going to triple the logging in the forest. His claim was that the European spruce bark beetle was spreading and killing trees and those trees should be removed and the forest should be thinned. Meanwhile, ecologists who opposed the cutting of this ancient, natural forest claimed that beetle outbreaks were a common occurrence over the thousands of years of the forest’s existence, and there was no scientific evidence that logging and thinning would help the forest. Polish environmental organizations alerted the citizens, and more than 120,000 Polish citizens signed a petition to their government to halt the logging. However, Szyszko remained in favor of continued logging. In June 2016, the European Commission stepped in and started proceedings against the

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Polish government. The European Parliament and the UN both condemned the cutting, and in July 2017 the European Commission imposed a ban on the cutting. Szyszko ignored the ban until the court announced fines of more than $100,000 a day if the cutting continued. By November the cutting stopped, and early in 2018 Szyszko was dismissed from his post. This is just the latest story about a forest with a long and colorful history. Its ownership has changed from Polish to Russian to German and then back to Polish and Belarusian. In 1915, during World War I, Germans seized the area. During the three years of their occupation, they laid railroad tracks through the forest, built mills to cut timber, and hunted the wild animals. In February 1919, the Polish army recaptured the area, but the last bison had been shot just a month earlier. In 1921 the core of the forest was declared a national reserve. In 1929 reintroduction of the bison began. Today the core of the forest is a national park, declared so in 1932. In this core is the oldest, most untouched forest. Tourists visiting the area must be accompanied by an official guide, and they are limited to a maximum group size of twenty. Tours can be taken by foot, bike, or horse-drawn carriage. Approximately 150,000 tourists visit the Polish national park each year, about 10 percent of them from other countries. The Polish minister of the environment from 1995–99 doubled the size of the park to its current 26,000-acre size. But 84 percent of the forest is still outside of the park. Opinion polls show that more than 80 percent of the Polish public want the entire forest to be a national park. See also Old Growth.

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Birch A genus of shrubs and trees (Betula) containing species that are frequently described with color-related epithets such as white birch, yellow birch, gray birch, or black birch. These descriptors come from the color of the bark. The bark of the birch is more variable than its leaves. The leaves are generally ovals coming to a point, with feather-like veins and saw-toothed edges. The birches are distributed across the entire northern part of the globe, with a dozen species in North America and fifty species across Asia and Europe. Most of the birches are small, short-lived trees, but some species, such as the yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) of the northeastern United States, may live for more than 300 years, attaining heights of a hundred feet. A carbonated beverage called “birch beer” can be made from either the tree’s bark or from the sap. When made from bark, the bark is distilled to collect the flavored oil, and then that oil is added to the beverage. When made from sap, yellow birch or black birch (Betula lenta) trees are tapped like a maple tree and the sap is then boiled Yellow birch bark down to make a concen-

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trated flavoring for the drink. All woody parts of these trees contain the scent of wintergreen, and breaking a twig and smelling it is one way to identify them. It was once called “oil of wintergreen” and was a popular flavoring. Many birch trees were harvested for their bark, but now that the oil can be manufactured synthetically, the birch trees are abundant once again. Bodhi Tree The tree where the Buddha became enlightened. About 2,600 years ago, young prince Siddhartha Gautama was contemplating the suffering that seemed to be a part of the human condition. He arrived at Bodh Gaya, Bihar, in northern India, and sat at the base of a fig tree near the river. There he sat in meditation for three days and three nights and became enlightened. He saw clearly that the root cause of human suffering was desire, and that it was possible to put an end to desire. From that day forward he became known as the Buddha, his teachings became the basis of Buddhism, and the tree became known as the Bodhi tree. The tree he sat under is commonly called a “peepul” tree, a type of fig appropriately named Ficus religiosa. Buddha spent the first week after his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. The second week Buddha just stood and stared at the tree. It wasn’t until the fifth week that he began answering questions about his experience. Today a Ficus religiosa tree still grows in that very spot—claimed to be a descendent of the original tree—and many people go on pilgrimage to visit this Bodhi tree. Not all Ficus religiosa trees are Bodhi trees. A tree must be a descendent of the original Bodhi tree to claim

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Buddha under the Bodhi tree

this moniker. A branch of the original tree was rooted in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, 2,308 years ago, and it is known as Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi; it is the oldest known human-planted tree in the world. Another Bodhi tree, planted in 1913, grows at the Foster Botanical Gardens in Honolulu, Hawaii. See also Fig. Braun, E. Lucy (1889–1971) In 1950 E. Lucy Braun published her now classic book, Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America. To research this book Braun traveled all through the eastern United

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States with her sister Annette Braun. The girls were born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and their strict parents taught them all about nature, particularly plants, from an early age. Neither girl ever married but instead dedicated themselves to learning all they could about the natural world and helping each other in their studies. In 1911 Annette Braun became the first female PhD graduate from the University of Cincinnati; her sister, Lucy Braun, was the second (or the sixth, there are conflicting stories) in 1914. Lucy studied the plants in the forest and determined the range and types of various forest plant communities. Some trees were likely to be found in association with each other, she explained, because of the underlying geology. While Lucy was collecting plants, Annette was collecting moths, which she illustrated with detailed pen and ink drawings. She eventually became a world expert in the smallest moths and named 340 new species. The sisters lived together their entire lives. Both started out teaching but eventually left it to continue their travels and studies, unimpeded by class schedules. They spent most of their time in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and logged 65,000 miles of travel throughout the East, but their journeys were not limited to the eastern deciduous forests, as they made thirteen trips to the western United States as well. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Lucy Braun was a sweet old spinster. Stories are told of her strong will and fiery tongue. One former student, Lucile Durrell, says that when adult groups went on field trips, “one would eat where Lucy wanted to eat, one would rest where Lucy wanted to rest, and she was always in complete charge.” Durrell says Braun was determined that no

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prescribed burning would ever touch the prairie patches in Adams County, Ohio, because she thought the rocky soil was too shallow to withstand burning. When one professor asked about the management of the preserves, Braun “launched into a heated attack on the practice of burning. . . . It was indeed a scorching reply.” In 1950 Lucy was elected as the president of the Ecological Society of America—the first female to hold that position. She was more than an excellent botanist; she also spoke out for preservation. One special area in Ohio came to Lucy Braun’s attention in the early 1920s: the calcium-containing bedrock there encouraged abundant, and rare, wildflower displays. She lobbied to have the area, now called the Edge of Appalachia, protected. Finally, in 1959, the Nature Conservancy purchased fortytwo acres to create a protected preserve. Over the years the preserve has been continually added to, thanks to generous donations, and today the Edge of Appalachia is made up of eleven preserves encompassing 20,000 acres. There were other places where she advocated for preservation unsuccessfully. In 1935 she gave a talk to the Garden Club of Kentucky and described her explorations: “Down in the southern part of Perry County, on Lynn Fork of Leatherwood Creek, is one of the most beautiful tracts of virgin forest I have ever seen. . . . We walked through untouched forest, following a faint trail which led to the Big Poplar, a gigantic tulip tree nearly twenty-four feet in circumference. It took five people with arms outstretched to reach around the tree. The gigantic trunk towered upward, unbranched, to such heights that it was impossible to distinguish the leaves of the crown. Nowhere east of California have I seen

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such a gigantic tree. And this was only one of many large trees. . . . Nothing had been disturbed; the luxuriance of the undergrowth is beyond description. There is a wealth of herbaceous plants and beautiful wildflowers everywhere. . . . Nowhere, not even in the Great Smoky Mountains, have I seen a more beautiful forest or larger trees. Let us work together to save this area.” Her impassioned talk marked the founding of Save Kentucky’s Primeval Forest League. The forest she so colorfully described was cut in 1937, two years after her speech. Although Braun has been gone for fifty years, her legacy lives on. For instance, during her summers exploring Kentucky, she and her sister stayed at the Pine Mountain Settlement School. Braun became friends with the women who worked in leadership roles there and shared her knowledge of forest plants with them. One generation taught the next, and after Braun died, one of these women taught the names of the plants to new school employee Connie Fearington. Fearington in turn taught her daughter, Sunshine Brosi. Brosi is now a botany professor who is teaching a whole new generation of students to appreciate the forests and the wild plants they contain. Bullhorn Acacia This small tree, native to Mexico and Central America, has a most interesting relationship with ants. The bullhorn acacia (genus Vachellia) provides both food and lodging for the small ants, which, in turn, protect the tree from grazing animals of all kinds. Two types of ant food are provided by the tree: a small protein-rich nodule that grows on the tip of the leaflets and sugar-rich

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Bullhorn acacia

nectar from small glands on the leaf stalks. The lodging is provided by hollow thorns that grow in pairs at the base of the leaves (the “bullhorns”). A queen acacia ant nibbles a small hole into the thorn and crawls inside to lay her first brood of fifteen to twenty eggs. When these worker ants hatch, they leave the thorn just long enough to collect the food provided by the plant. When the colony grows to 150 ants, occupying many thorns, the colony begins patrolling the plant and attacking anything feeding on the plant from crickets to goats. The ants have a painful sting, and they can emit an alarm chemical that causes a swarm of ants to rush to the plant’s defense. The result is that the plant is

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protected from being eaten. The ants also “garden” the area around the base of the acacia, removing seedlings that could grow to compete with their tree. In an interesting ecological twist, the only known plant-eating spider is found on the bullhorn acacia too. The jumping spider Bagheera kiplingi, like the ants, feeds on the nodules that grow on the tips of the leaflets. The spider’s sharp vision and dexterity enable it to avoid the ants. It is likely that the plant-ant mutualism evolved first and the spider is a more recent interloper in that relationship. Burl A rounded outgrowth on a tree, most often occurring on the trunk. A burl is covered with bark, but beneath the bark the growth pattern is highly irregular. As Donald Culross Peattie writes in his colorful description of black ash tree burls, they “look like contour maps of mountainous country, like displays of the aurora borealis, like a dark and riffling tide sweeping over clear white sands.” No two burls are alike, and many different types of tree species can produce burls. In the Victorian era walnut burl wood was popular for

Burl

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making dressers. These days most solid burl furniture is made from redwood. Burls may also be thinly sliced to produce veneer. There are many mysteries and unanswered questions surrounding what causes burls. Very little research has been done on it. The most common explanation is that something causes an injury to the tree, and then the tree responds with uncontrolled growth from the vascular cambium (the row of cells just under the bark that normally create the annual ring in a regular pattern). The initiating injury might come from mechanical damage, insects, bacteria, or fungi. No one has yet been able to cultivate burls. See also Meristem.

C

acao The tree that produces the beans used to make chocolate. Cacao trees (Theobroma cacao) are small understory trees that grow in tropical regions. They evolved on the eastern slopes of the South American Andes, and early on they were spread by humans in a range from southern Mexico, through Central America, and into the Amazon basin area of South America. There are now 25 million acres in cacao production all over the tropical areas of the earth, including the African continent, where the majority of the beans are grown. Cacao trees have large, unlobed leaves (somewhat resembling avocado leaves) and produce large, colorful fruit pods. Unlike most fruits, the oblong pods grow directly from the trunk or main branches. Inside the rind of the fruit are forty to fifty large brown seeds surrounded by a sweet white pulp. The pulp may be eaten fresh or used to produce a fermented drink, but it is the beans

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making dressers. These days most solid burl furniture is made from redwood. Burls may also be thinly sliced to produce veneer. There are many mysteries and unanswered questions surrounding what causes burls. Very little research has been done on it. The most common explanation is that something causes an injury to the tree, and then the tree responds with uncontrolled growth from the vascular cambium (the row of cells just under the bark that normally create the annual ring in a regular pattern). The initiating injury might come from mechanical damage, insects, bacteria, or fungi. No one has yet been able to cultivate burls. See also Meristem.

C

acao The tree that produces the beans used to make chocolate. Cacao trees (Theobroma cacao) are small understory trees that grow in tropical regions. They evolved on the eastern slopes of the South American Andes, and early on they were spread by humans in a range from southern Mexico, through Central America, and into the Amazon basin area of South America. There are now 25 million acres in cacao production all over the tropical areas of the earth, including the African continent, where the majority of the beans are grown. Cacao trees have large, unlobed leaves (somewhat resembling avocado leaves) and produce large, colorful fruit pods. Unlike most fruits, the oblong pods grow directly from the trunk or main branches. Inside the rind of the fruit are forty to fifty large brown seeds surrounded by a sweet white pulp. The pulp may be eaten fresh or used to produce a fermented drink, but it is the beans

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that have made this plant so well loved—for they are the source of the chocolate flavor. When making chocolate, the pulp is allowed to ferment on the beans to improve the flavor. After fermentation the beans are dried to prepare them for shipment. When the beans have reached their destination, they are roasted and then cracked and deshelled. The resulting inner bean can be ground into a paste or pressed to produce cocoa butter and cocoa powder. The many variations in this process result in Cacao pod different types of chocolate. There are ten genetically distinct, and named, variations of the cocoa tree. All of these variations in beans and processing result in the nuances of chocolate that are prized by connoisseurs. The T. cacao tree has been cultivated by humans for almost 4,000 years. There is evidence that beverages were made from cacao as early as 1700 bce. Chocolate, from the cacao tree, seems to have an attraction we cannot escape. Author James Patterson says, “if these scientists had been using their brilliance for good . . . no one would be hungry; no one would be ill; all buildings would be earthquake-, bomb-, and flood-proof; and the world’s entire economy would have collapsed and been replaced by one based on the value of chocolate.” Did he know that from 700–1600 ce, in the Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mesoamerica, cacao beans were

28

c aR bon se q ue sT R aT i o n

used as currency? One bean equaled one avocado or tomato, three beans equaled an egg, and one hundred beans equaled a turkey. Carbon Sequestration When you look into a forest and see all the brown matter of trunks and branches, what you are seeing is primarily atmospheric carbon solidified. Air and water, in the presence of sunlight, are the raw ingredients for photosynthesis—a world-changing biochemical process whereby plants, and some microorganisms, can make their own food. In this process the carbon dioxide from the air is stored in compounds such as sugar, starch, or cellulose. These molecules are then used for energy or to build the plant. When plant-building molecules are created, the carbon formerly in the atmosphere is trapped or “sequestered” in the plant. Trees can grow very large and hold these carbon-containing molecules for many years. The carbon will not be freed to its formerly airy existence until the woody plant is burned or rots. Carbon dioxide can be a limiting factor in the rate of photosynthesis, and as the carbon levels have gone up in the atmosphere, so has the rate of photosynthesis, but not fast enough to keep pace with the extra carbon that is being emitted through the burning of fossil fuels—plant-sequestered carbon from long, long ago. Land plants now absorb about 30 percent of our extra carbon emissions. The larger and older a tree gets, the more carbon it can sequester each year. Old-growth coast redwood forests store more carbon per acre than any other forest type on earth. See also Leverett, Robert; Sequoioideae.

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Catface A scar in the trunk of a tree where the bark was removed and callus tissue forms to try and repair the damage. The term originated from the pattern of the cuts made in bark to collect turpentine. The earliest turpentine collection in the states was from the pitch pines in New England, but after the Revolutionary War, in 1776, turpentine production shifted to the longleaf pine forests of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida. Pine tree bark was slashed in a V shape, and the sap that dripped from the bottom of the V onto a tin pan was collected for distilling into turpentine. After the first cut stopped dripping, more bark was removed from the upper part of the V, widening the scar and resulting in more fluid. Repeated removal of the bark up the trunk resulted in a scar that might be ten feet high by two feet wide. The repeated V-shaped slashes gouged the wood beneath the bark, resulting in a whisker-like appearance—hence the term “catface.” Most of this work was done by slaves or prisoners, and next to cotton and rice, turpentine became one of the largest exports from the South. The peak of domestic turpentine production was in the 1830s. During this era in Florida, turpentine production was second only to citrus in economic importance. Most of the trees used in turpentine production eventually died as a result of the process and were cut for boards. In approximately two generations—from 1870 until 1930—almost all of the original stands of longleaf pine in the South, once covering 130 million acres, were destroyed, and the turpentine industry disappeared too. On occasion a tree is still found with a catface.

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Today the term is used for any scarring on a trunk. One common cause of scarring is low-intensity ground fires. The fires are hottest near the ground, on the uphill side, where needles and twigs have built up next to the base of the trunk. These fires damage the ring of cambium under the bark, causing a scar. The fire scars are triangular with the widest part near ground level. The tree will attempt to seal the scar, but frequently a new fire occurs before the damaged area is sealed off. One old forester from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan says that they also used the term “catface” to refer to trees damaged by the new Caterpillar tractors. In the days of horse-logging, operators would be careful not to bang into standing trees when they skidded logs out because it would be hard on the horses, but in the days of heavy equipment logging, both machinery and logs would frequently scrape against standing trees and leave scars. See also CMT; Pine. Cedar A word in the common names of many trees. Some trees containing this name are closely related, and others are not. For instance, eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) is a cypress, not a true cedar. And in the ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest of the United States or in British Columbia, Canada, the trees that awe with their size and complexity are the western redcedars (Thuja plicata), also not true cedars. It would be more correct to call both of these trees “cypress” since that is the plant family they are in. (It is a very large family that includes redwoods, sequoia, bald cypress, and juniper.)

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None of the true cedars are native to North America. Examples of true cedars that you may be familiar with are the feathery deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) or the great cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), with needles in spiral clusters. These are true cedars. The fragrant, insect-repelling properties of the true cedars have been appreciated for thousands of years. The New World trees were casually, and mistakenly, called cedars because they, too, had aromatic qualities. Think of the smell of hamster bedding from the pet store, or pencil shavings. The oldest known piece of Western literature is the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was etched on stone tablets by 1700 bce, an era when events documented in the Hebrew Bible were taking place. Both the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible discuss the logging of cedar forests. The Epic of Gilgamesh is set in the “cradle of civilization”: the Tigris-Euphrates River valley. In that tale the cultured, but ego-filled, Gilgamesh teams with mountain man Enkidu to accomplish a mutual goal: material wealth. The wealth was to be gained by cutting large, old cedar timbers that were to be used to build palaces and temples. But in olden times the forests were thought to be protected by gods, or by mortals who were empowered by the gods. According to the epic, the cedars of Lebanon were protected by Humbaba, a frightening hulklike being. To cut the cedars Gilgamesh and Enkidu first had to kill Humbaba. The epic tells the story of their preparation for battle and their travels to the forest. It tells of their arrival at the forest and their amazement and awe at seeing the magnificent trees.

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The shade of the evergreens was cooling and comforting. It filled them with happiness. The undergrowth was full and tangled. The sweet smell of pine and cedar was intoxicating to them. The sound of strange birds and creatures filled them with wonder. Humbaba tried to talk them out of cutting the forest. He said: Most of what is important and necessary on the earth is encoded in this old forest. That is why the Gods love cedar incense. . . . This forest has been here since before there were people on earth. . . . The Gods sent me here in their wisdom. They know that people are greedy and shortsighted. They will cut down the entire forest to get rich and the wealth of Lebanon and Syria will be depleted. It will take only a few years after I am dead and these trees shall all be gone. There will be no more Cedars in the land of the Cedar. Gilgamesh and Enkidu then killed Humbaba and began cutting the great forest. In the Bible, an angel appeared to David, the king of Israel, and instructed him to build an altar. David decided that the altar should be a large and lavish place, and he began collecting cedar logs “beyond number.” But before he could complete the “house for the name of the Lord,” David became old and ill. He appointed his son Solomon to succeed him as king of Israel, and Solomon continued construction on the temple. But Israel did not have enough cedars left. The remaining old-growth cedar forests were in the land where Hiram

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was king. So Hiram and Solomon struck a deal. “I have heard the message which you sent me,” said Hiram. “I will do what you desire concerning the cedar and cypress timber. My servants will bring them down from Lebanon to the sea; and I will make them into rafts to go by sea to the place where you direct me, and I will have them broken up there, and you shall carry them away.” Lebanon once had more than 200,000 acres of cedar forest, and now there are not even 5,000 acres left. See also Cypress. Champion A term used to denote the largest living examples of each tree species. As Charles Darwin noted in his classic text, On the Origin of Species, there is individual variation within every species. Therefore, as a result of the genetic differences of individuals, as well as differences in environmental factors where individuals are located, there is, somewhere, a size champion for each species on Earth—the largest living specimen of that particular species. Humans seem especially interested in finding the largest of each tree species. The National Register of Big Trees in the United States began in 1940. It is managed by the American Forests organization (formerly known as the American Forestry Association). Champions are determined by a point system. Points are determined by adding three values together: trunk circumference (in inches), height (in feet), and onequarter average crown spread (in feet). The circumference, height, and crown points are added together to get a total point score. The tree with the most points of each species is considered the national champion.

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Because trees continually grow, and eventually die, the list of big trees is always in flux. Although this measuring system seems simple, there are endless variations in tree shapes and many variations in how to determine these three numbers. Finding the height of a tree is the most problematic. In the past many used a clinometer to find the angle to the top once the distance from the trunk was known. In the 1990s, however, infrared range finders became available, and a few people developed a more precise way of measuring tree heights called the “sine method.” This new method is now the preferred way to measure national champions. See also Leverett, Robert T. Cherry A small tree with white or pink flowers that produces a black or red fruit with a hard pit in the center. Henry David Thoreau remarked on this pit in his essay “The Succession of Forest Trees”: “See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it—in the very midst of a tempting pericarp, so that the creature that must devour this must commonly take the stone also into its mouth or bill. If you ever ate a cherry, and did not make two bites of it, you must have perceived it—right in the centre of the luscious morsel, a large earthy residuum left on the tongue.” Because this pit (which encloses the seed) is so hard, cherries are called “stone fruit.” Other stone fruits—all in the genus Prunus—are plums, peaches, and apricots. Cherry fruits have been consumed by humans since prehistoric times. The indigenous range of the sweet

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cherry extends through most of Europe, western Asia, and parts of northern Africa. North America has its native cherry trees too, such as pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), and black cherry (Prunus serotina). The flesh of all types of cherries is safe to eat, though the wild types are apt to make one pucker. The pits should not be eaten in large quantities because they contain compounds that can be converted into cyanide. For many people cherry blossoms are a fragile and fleeting beauty to behold and appreciate. In Japan the blossoms are called sakura and the gatherings held to celebrate the blossoms are called hanami. Thousands of people fill the parks and gather on blankets to eat and drink under the blooming trees. These celebrations go on past dark, and lanterns are hung in the trees to light both the trees and the people below. In 1885, American citizen Eliza Scidmore witnessed the lovely trees and the celebrations in Japan. When she returned to the states, she approached officials with the idea of planting flowering cherry trees in Washington, DC. Her suggestion was ignored, so she raised the funds to purchase and plant the trees herself and, in 1909, approached First Lady Helen Taft with her idea. Taft agreed to the plan, and soon afterward Japan donated 2,000 cherry trees to the First Lady. The trees were shipped from Japan to Seattle and from there began a twenty-sevenday trip to Washington, DC. When the trees arrived in Washington, a Department of Agriculture employee declared that they were infested and diseased, and ordered them to be destroyed. This could have been the end of the story, but two years later the mayor of Tokyo gifted

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an additional 3,000 trees to the US government. These healthy trees were planted, along with 3,800 more that were donated in 1965. Today, the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC, draws more than a million people from all over the world. Cherry leaves are an important food source for many types of caterpillars. In the eastern United States the most noticeable of these caterpillars is the eastern tent caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum). While many caterpillars lead solitary lives, the eastern tent caterpillar is highly social. Eggs are laid in a large mass by the female moth, and as soon as the tiny caterpillars hatch, they begin working together to construct a white silken tent. They may even join up with caterpillars from a different egg mass. In the same way that spiders produce and

Tent caterpillar nest in a cherry tree

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control the silk used for their webs, these caterpillars extrude silken fibers from special orifices near their rear end. The young caterpillars build the tent so that the largest side faces the sun, and this orientation creates a warm space for the young caterpillars to rest during chilly spring weather. Three times a day the caterpillars venture out as a group to enlarge their tent and feed on leaves. If an individual caterpillar finds a good source of food, it will leave a silken scent trail to guide others to the location. While many humans are repulsed by the sight of the hairy caterpillars and their webs, most trees recover quickly from the leaf chewing, and many species of birds take advantage of the meal that the caterpillars provide. Christmas Tree Not a specific species of tree, but any evergreen tree brought inside to be decorated for the Christmas season. The tradition of bringing evergreen boughs inside during the shortest days of winter predates historic records. The greenery was brought inside for different reasons depending on the region and its cultural traditions. In some areas, greens were brought inside to promote health and ward off the evil spirits that caused sickness, while in other regions the indoor greens were a reminder that outdoor fields and forests would—in a type of resurrection—be green again soon. It is likely that the tradition of indoor winter greens transitioned naturally into the installation of evergreen boughs and trees for the Christmas celebration, especially in the Baltic region. German Protestants of the 1600s were especially known for erecting and decorating trees indoors for Christmas. From there the tradition spread through royal

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families with connections to Germany. In the 1800s illustrations of royal families admiring their adorned trees spread the practice even more. In the United States, Christmas trees were rare in the 1830s, but by 1890 they were very common. Now the tradition of putting up decorated Christmas trees has spread all across the globe. Even the Vatican boasts a Christmas tree. There is an active Christmas tree–growing industry that occupies a million acres of land in the United States alone. Many types of conifers are grown to be cut and sold for indoor decoration; the best-selling trees are Scotch pine, Douglas-fir, Fraser fir, balsam fir, and white pine. The National Christmas Tree Association formed in 1955. Members of this group compete regionally for the opportunity to then compete nationally, and ultimately to win the honor of providing a tree for the White House. The winning grower is declared Grand Champion. White House staff then visits the grower’s farm to select the ideal tree. When the tree arrives in Washington, it is presented to the First Lady for installation in the Blue Room of the White House. See also Douglas-fir. CMT Shorthand for “culturally modified trees.” Humans have always created art and messages with natural materials. Some of the materials, like rock, are very longlasting, and thus we have petroglyphs that are more than 10,000 years old. If there was any art carved on trees that long ago, we have no record of it, since those trees are long deceased. On some of our oldest trees, however, we have records of people who lived hundreds of

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years before us. Some of the modifications are just the result of bark and wood being collected for practical reasons: perhaps the outer bark was used for weaving, or the inner bark was processed to be used as a food or a medicine, or large strips of bark were used to build shelters. Bark would be collected by cutting a horizontal line in the tree and then prying the bark away from the tree until it could be grasped at the bottom and pulled upward, resulting in the removal of a long strip of bark and inner cambium. A tree would frequently heal from this injury, but a scar would be left for the rest of its life. The date of the debarking can be determined using dendrochronological methods. Many of these trees have been logged without a thought, but in recent decades trees with these scars have been recognized as culturally modified trees and preserved as historical artifacts. Some believe that Native people modified trees by bending and tying selected saplings to force deformed growth, or by cutting the tops out of young trees and forcing a lateral branch to become dominant. As these manipulated saplings grew, they would serve as directional markers, known as “trail marker trees.” But this idea is controversial, and most researchers have found no documentation to support it. The carving of names and images into the bark of trees is another way they can be modified. These bark carvings are called arborglyphs. This is not just a practice of contemporary times, but indigenous people, such as the Moriori in New Zealand and the Chumash in the central and southern coastal regions of California, carved images in bark as well. Some of the more interesting carvings are those done by the Irish and Basque

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Arborglyph

sheepherders from the late 1800s to the late 1960s. Most of the sheepherders immigrated to the United States with the promise of a job awaiting them. When they arrived for duty they were led out to a remote location to guard a flock of sheep day and night. It was lonely work with no entertainment available. Some of the men started carving messages and images (frequently of women) into the white bark of the aspen trees. A shallow cut this year would heal with a raised gray scar the next year, bringing out the design more and more as the tree aged. These sheepherder arborglyphs are found

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throughout the west, and are now considered a cultural resource. Many of the carved trees have reached the end of their life span and have fallen to the ground. “I am not coming back here,” declares a carving on a sun-bleached log near a Montana lake, “except to fish, maybe.” Aspen trees are not long-lived, so these messages of loneliness and longing are rapidly disappearing. Although lovers have been carving their initials in trees since the time of Shakespeare, and possibly before, it is now frowned upon. Small initials are unlikely to kill a tree, but they are still wounds. Another consideration is that some people find these marks distasteful and hence their aesthetic appreciation of the tree is impaired. See also Dendrochronology; Aspen. Coppicing In England, hazel, hornbeam, maple, willow, ash, and oak were routinely cut to the ground, and the young shoots that grew after the cutting were harvested on a rotating basis. This is called coppicing. There is evidence that humans have been coppicing trees for 6,000 years, well before the time of iron tools. The young shoots were easy to handle for making baskets, fences, or walkways, or for supporting new vegetable plantings. Shoots were also used to make charcoal. Some of the stumps (called “stools”) of these trees are very wide, as the shoots have been harvested off of them for centuries. One benefit of coppicing is the fast regrowth of wood of a very manageable size. Another benefit is that no replanting is needed and the soil is left relatively undisturbed. See also Epicormic Branching; Willow.

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Cultivar All living species exhibit variety. Humans have capitalized on this variety by selecting and breeding plants that have unique characteristics. The result of this breeding, selection, and subsequent propagation is called a “cultivar,” and whoever develops it has the right to name it and even patent it. The new cultivar may be something spontaneously arising (such as a genetic mutation), but it must occur in a cultivated area for it to qualify. The International Organization for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is the organization that oversees these regulations. One may be awarded a Plant Variety Protection certificate if the novel plant is propagated by seed or tuber, or a patent if the plant is propagated through cloning. These certificates are good for twenty-five years in the case of trees, and during that time the certificate holder has complete control over reproduction and distribution of the new cultivar. Some plant breeders have become wealthy from developing popular new cultivars. The word “cultivar” was first put into use in 1923, and reached acceptance across the globe by 1960. If you buy a tree from a nursery, you will know that it is a cultivar because the name will be bounded by single quotation marks. For instance, Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’ is a cultivar of the Callery pear, an Asian species. The story of that infamous cultivar is illustrative of how good intentions can go awry. The Bradford pear’s story begins in the pear orchards of Oregon, which were suffering from a devastating bacterial disease known as fire blight. One plant scientist noticed that the Callery pears, imported in

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1908, were resistant to fire blight. He started experimenting with using the Asian rootstock to strengthen the orchard trees. In 1916 plant explorers were sent to China to collect seeds from the native source of the Callery pear, hoping for greater variation to use in the experiments. The seeds that came from those expeditions were planted in test gardens in the USDA stations in Oregon and Maryland. In the 1950s, one of the horticulturalists at the Maryland station noticed how attractive the trees were. One tree in particular had no thorns (like the rest of them did), had a lovely compact shape, was free of pests and diseases, and was tolerant of all types of soil conditions. That UDSA employee, John Creech, decided to propagate the tree and name it after the former head of the station, Frederick Bradford. He released his new cultivar to the nursery trade in 1960. Because this was a government-produced cultivar, no one had to pay for the right to propagate it. Plant nurseries propagated the tree in great numbers, and it quickly became popular with landscape architects and homeowners. At first the tree seemed ideal: it was self-sterile (so did not produce any fruit), bloomed in early spring when flowers were most welcome, had lovely autumn coloration, and stayed relatively small and symmetric. It wasn’t until a decade or two later that problems were noticed. The first problem was that the upright and compact shape was created by branches that grew at tight angles to the trunk, and because tightangled branching is weaker than wide-angled branching, the Bradford pears would frequently break apart in storms. But this problem paled in comparison to the second problem: although the flowers of the Bradford

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cultivar are self-sterile, any other Callery pear can fertilize them. Unfortunately, other cultivars were being released, and some of the wild rootstock was blooming too, and the bees were carrying pollen here and there. So, the Bradfords set fruit, and the birds ate the fruit, and they carried the seeds to the hedgerows and woodlots. And now the Callery pear is a highly invasive species, brightening highway roadsides in the spring but causing huge problems for natural areas managers. Although they are generally called Bradford pears, most of these wild ones are something else. And the name of the cultivar, once an honor, has now become cringe-worthy. This story is not meant to deter anyone from planting a cultivar. There should be no problems from the planting of a Dutch elm disease-resistant American elm (Ulmus americana ‘New Harmony’), or a brightly colored sugar maple (Acer saccharum ‘Bonfire’), or hundreds of other cultivars. Cypress The common name for a family of trees so encompassing and important that many of its members are covered in detail in other sections of this book. The junipers, the so-called redcedars, the redwoods, Fitzroya, and bald cypress are all in this family—the Cupressaceae. The family has a worldwide distribution, from the Arctic to the Sahara Desert, and it contains more than 130 different species. Some of the species include the word “cypress” in their common name, such as Monterey cypress (Hesperocyparis macrocarpa), but most others do not. The majority of the members of this family are evergreen

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trees and shrubs, but some, such as the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), drop their feathery leaves in winter. This family of trees could be called the “most superlative” of all tree families. It contains the tallest trees (coast redwoods), the largest trees by volume (sequoias), the widest trees by girth (Montezuma cypress), the widest tree distribution (Juniperus communis), the oldest tree in South America (Fitzroya), and the oldest tree in eastern North America (bald cypress). It also contains one of the top-selling plants in the world—the Leyland cypress. The Leyland cypress (Cupressus × leylandii) is actually a hybrid between the beautiful Monterey cypress, native to the central coast of California, and the Nootka cypress (also called yellow cedar), which is native to a region farther north, running from the Alaskan Panhandle, along the British Columbia coast, and into Northern California. Ordinarily these large evergreen trees would not crossbreed since their ranges do not overlap, but when the trees were planted side by side on an estate in Wales in the 1800s, the pollen of one reached the ovules of the other and the resulting seeds grew into the now well-known Leyland cypress. The trees were eventually noticed by nurserymen, who started propagating the fast-growing trees and offering them for sale throughout Great Britain starting in 1926. In a similar story to that of the Bradford pear, what was once considered a landscaper’s dream eventually became a nightmare. The problem was that the trees were too successful. They grew so tall, so fast, that they overshadowed neighboring properties. Arguments arose between neighbors, and in one case in Wales, a man was shot to death over a Leyland cypress hedge dispute. After

Native range of western redcedar

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that they became known as the “hedges from hell.” In 2005 the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (also known as the “leylandii law”) was introduced in Wales and England, enabling local authorities to settle disputes over hedges. It was estimated that in that year there were 17,000 official complaints involving the hedges. In the United States Leyland cypress hedges are still being planted, and many improved cultivars have been developed; however, in warm regions the trees have a short life span, as a fungus causing cypress canker has become an increasing problem. See also Cedar; Cultivar; Fitzroya; Juniper; Sequoioideae.

D

avis, Mary Byrd (1936–2011) She compiled the first inventory of old-growth forest sites in the eastern United States. The first edition of Davis’s Old Growth in the East: A Survey was published in 1993; before that time no one had a clear idea of where, and how much, eastern old-growth forest remained. The survey was the idea of Earth First! leader Dave Foreman, and John Davis, Mary’s son. They selected Mary Byrd Davis to create the survey not because she was an expert on forest ecology, but because she had proven her research skills on other projects, such as her publications about the French nuclear industry. The survey was a major accomplishment. As Bob Leverett says, “I have long admired how she assembled the multitude of sources of information stretching from Maine to Florida. Brother, did she have to deal with some big egos. Few people could do what she did. I certainly could have not.”

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that they became known as the “hedges from hell.” In 2005 the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (also known as the “leylandii law”) was introduced in Wales and England, enabling local authorities to settle disputes over hedges. It was estimated that in that year there were 17,000 official complaints involving the hedges. In the United States Leyland cypress hedges are still being planted, and many improved cultivars have been developed; however, in warm regions the trees have a short life span, as a fungus causing cypress canker has become an increasing problem. See also Cedar; Cultivar; Fitzroya; Juniper; Sequoioideae.

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avis, Mary Byrd (1936–2011) She compiled the first inventory of old-growth forest sites in the eastern United States. The first edition of Davis’s Old Growth in the East: A Survey was published in 1993; before that time no one had a clear idea of where, and how much, eastern old-growth forest remained. The survey was the idea of Earth First! leader Dave Foreman, and John Davis, Mary’s son. They selected Mary Byrd Davis to create the survey not because she was an expert on forest ecology, but because she had proven her research skills on other projects, such as her publications about the French nuclear industry. The survey was a major accomplishment. As Bob Leverett says, “I have long admired how she assembled the multitude of sources of information stretching from Maine to Florida. Brother, did she have to deal with some big egos. Few people could do what she did. I certainly could have not.”

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In addition to compiling the Survey, Davis edited the anthology Eastern Old-Growth Forests: Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery (1996). She was also a cofounder of the Wild Earth journal (1991–2004), a conservation quarterly that drew attention to all remaining oldgrowth forests across the United States, and the need to protect them. I was a reader of that journal and was strongly influenced by its message, as were many others. Davis has passed on, but her research is still useful and appreciated. See also Leverett, Robert T.; Old Growth. Dendrochronology The science of not only counting tree rings and measuring their width but also dating them to the exact year they were formed. In places with marked seasonality, such as the temperate forests, the early spring wood growth is lighter in color and more porous; later in the summer the wood is darker and denser. The result is the tree ring pattern we are familiar with. In 1737 French scientists discovered that an extremely hard winter in 1709 produced a darker tree ring than the other years. Hence, this ring of 1709 became a reference point, and the science of dendrochronology was birthed. Dating tree rings this way leads to information about the climate, and changes in the climate, where the trees stood. It also provides information about how often fires came through the forest and how severe those fires were. Because trees from the same region have experienced roughly the same weather events, they develop the same patterns of ring widths (e.g., wider in wet years and smaller in dry years). In this way a chronology can

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Tree rings

be built, pointing a particular pattern to a particular decade. Correlating a particular pattern with a known event is called “crossdating and matching.” A crossdated chronology for tree rings of oak and pine in central Europe extends back almost 12,500 years. The majority of this ancient chronology comes from trees that were growing on floodplains and then became buried under mud when the stream banks collapsed during a flooding event. In the anaerobic environment underwater, the trees did not rot but became almost fossilized. Individual trees were themselves only a few hundred years old,

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but there were so many of them, over such a long period of time, that the record is incredibly long. For the more recent part of the chronology, living trees, timbers from old buildings, and wood from archaeological excavations were used. Another chronology has been derived from the bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) trees in the western United States. The region where these trees grow is dry and cool, so dead trees do not rot but stay intact on the ground. As a result, this long record of tree ring patterns has been derived from both standing live trees and dead wood on the ground. As an example of how this information can be used, dendrochronologist Neil Pederson determined that a wooden beam, exposed when the World Trade Center came down, was from a ship built near Philadelphia in 1770. David Stahle (fondly called the “Lord of the Rings” by some of his colleagues) is the director of the Tree-Ring Laboratory at the University of Arkansas where he is using tree ring data to discover how rainfall patterns have been changing across the earth. See also Ents; Meristem; Pine. Douglas-fir When the man who saved Muir Woods passed away, a plaque was installed next to his favorite tree in that iconic California forest. The plaque was not placed next to one of the towering redwood trees but by a Douglasfir, or “Doug-fir,” as it is known to its close acquaintances. Although this tree of the western United States is an evergreen and produces cones, like fir trees, it is not a fir but a part of the pine family. The confusion

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Douglas-fir cone

is understandable, however, since pines normally have roundish needles that occur in bundles growing from the branches, and the Doug-fir has single, flat needles, like a fir. Another tree in the pine family that has single, flat needles is the hemlock (genus Tsuga). Because of their perceived similarities, the Douglas-fir was given the genus name of Pseudotsuga: false hemlock. The most reliable way to tell this tree from any other is by looking at the cones. There you will see the tail and back legs of a mouse sticking up from between the cone scales. Well, that’s what the Native people say anyway.

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They tell the story of a wildfire blowing through the forest. The mice despair—they will be roasted by the flames! They run to one tree after another seeking help: the smooth-barked bigleaf maple cannot help them, the hemlock with its tiny cones and thin bark cannot help them, the cedars cannot help them; finally, the Douglasfir tells them to climb up his thick, fire-resistant bark and into his cones. The crevasses between the cone scales are a little too small for a whole mouse to fit inside, but they have no choice and they plunge in nose first. The fire moves through the forest scorching the feet and tails of the mice, but their lives are saved! To this day one can see the hind feet and the tails of the mice sticking out from under the scales of the Douglas-fir cones. While the trees in endless rows in commercial plantations may not look impressive, Douglas-firs can live for more than 1,000 years and grow as tall as a redwood. The tallest and the oldest are gone now, sadly cut down. At one time the tallest known Doug-fir was 393 feet; today the tallest is 326 feet. These big old-growth Doug-fir trees of the Pacific Northwest are important habitat for spotted owls. They also harbor the red vole, a small mammal that feeds on Douglas-fir needles and nests in branches high above the forest floor. One group believes the best way to save the oldgrowth Douglas-firs in the Santiam valley of Oregon is to make the area the Douglas-Fir National Monument. They have been working on this since 2014, and almost 2,000 people support the vision. National monuments can only be declared by the US President or Congress, so this task is not an easy one. See also Muir Woods; Spotted Owl.

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merald Ash Borer An insect that has been discussed so much that it is now simply referred to by its initials: EAB. The beetle is about a third of an inch long and, as its name implies, it is a beautiful metallic emerald-green color. When it lifts its wing covers to fly, a gleaming ruby-red abdomen is exposed. No wonder it is known in the insect family as a jewel beetle (Buprestidae). EAB, like all jewel beetles, is narrowly oval in shape, with a flattened head and a tail end that comes to a point. The beetle is native to northeastern Asia, where it was barely noticed until it arrived in America and started causing major damage. It was first introduced to North America in the late 1980s via wood-packing material, but it was first identified as a problematic, invasive insect in Michigan in 2002, and since then it has spread to twenty-two states and parts of Canada. Signs in campgrounds everywhere warn not to transport firewood due to the potential of spreading EAB, yet it continues to spread, killing almost all the ash trees in its path, so far tens of millions of trees, with no signs of slowing. The dead trees tend to snap off within a year of their death, making them a hazard in towns and along trails. Municipalities with numerous ash trees are facing budget difficulties due to the cost of removing the dead ash. Similar to the story of the American chestnut blight, forest owners are being advised to harvest their trees now before they become worthless. In the loveliest time of early spring—when the fragrant locust trees bloom—the green beetles are flying, mating, and laying eggs in the bark crevices of all ash species. When the eggs hatch, the little white larvae

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immediately chew down beneath the bark and feed on the tender sapwood. The tunnels that they chew create beautiful serpentine shapes, but unfortunately they also interrupt the transport of water and sap throughout the tree, eventually killing it. The larvae pause feeding in the coldest part of winter and resume feeding when temperatures rise above 50°F. The life cycle is completed when the larvae, eventually growing to about an inch long, pupate in their tunnel. The adult beetle then chews through Tunnels created by larvae of the emerald ash borer the bark to emerge from the tree. The emergence holes are D-shaped and are one of the indicators of EAB. Other indicators are a thinning crown with dead branches and bark splitting, with the rough outer layer sloughing off. Woodpeckers going after the larvae are another indicator. At present there are few good ways to control EAB. Systemic insecticides are expensive to apply and only last for one to three years. This route may be worthwhile in arboretums with specimen ash trees, but it is impractical in wildlands. In locations where the beetles

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have killed most ash trees, there are a few populations of “lingering ash” that have not been killed. Genes that confer resistance to EAB have been identified. Scientists are collecting cuttings from these trees in the hopes of producing resistant saplings. Another attempted control mechanism is releasing parasitic insects that can kill EAB. Entomologists have collected four different wasplike parasites from China and have bred, studied, and released them. Results are mixed but hopeful. See also Ash; Sapwood. Ents A race of beings that are part tree, part human, from the fantasy books by J.R.R. Tolkien, including The Lord of the Rings. When the Ents stay put too long they become more treelike. Tolkien’s Ents are the most recent in a long pedigree of walking, talking trees depicted in fairy tales and myths throughout the world. The Forest of No Return in the operetta Babes in Toyland is an example from 1903. From Italy in the Middle Ages comes the Tale of the Talking Tree. More recently, another tree-like character is Groot, who first appeared in Marvel comics in 1960. Over the decades he reappeared from time to time until, in 2008, he became part of the Guardians of the Galaxy comic book team. Groot is a Flora colossus species from another planet. Like all members of his species, his language is almost impossible to understand due to the stiffness of his larynx; as a result it sounds like all he ever says is “I am Groot.” When the Eastern Native Tree Society was formed in 1996, the members starting referring to themselves as “ENTs.” See also Leverett, Robert T.

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Epicormic Branching A branch that arises out of a woody stem from a previously dormant bud. As trees grow, dominant buds at the tip of each branch result in a predictable pattern of growth with the oldest branches near the stem and the youngest branches in the outer radius of the crown. However, at times this pattern is disrupted and a young shoot may spring directly from a trunk or an older branch. This abnormal growth form negatively affects both the aesthetic and the economic quality of a tree. Epicormic branching is not completely understood, but there are some factors known to influence it. If a tree is damaged in any way, dormant buds may take over

Epicormic branches

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and start growing. For instance, a severely pruned tree may develop new shoots that arise quickly from older branches. These so-called water shoots grow perpendicular to the main branches and create a weak junction. In some cases a tree that is cut or burned to the ground will regrow by sprouting shoots from epicormic buds at the base of the stem. This is commonly known as “stump sprouting,” and it is the basis for coppicing. Some trees are more likely to do this than others. For instance, eucalyptus trees can be burned to the ground and will send up new shoots. Epicormic bud sprouting is a response to a severe stress that necessitates an expansion of leaf area to increase the likelihood of tree survival; in other words, a tree might not have enough leaves to carry out the photosynthesis needed to keep it alive if these “backup” buds don’t grow. See also Coppicing. Eucalyptus There are more than 700 different species of eucalyptus trees, and all but four species are native to Australia. As a group they are referred to as “eucalypts.” Most of the native Australian forests are dominated by eucalypts. Eucalypts are also the main food source for the muchloved koala bear (Phascolarctos cinereus). Eucalyptus regnans (known as mountain ash, although it is not an ash) grows in Tasmania, Australia, and is one of the tallest trees on the planet. These giants are in decline because of cutting, climate change, and fires. The first line from an old song, “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,” is about an Australian bird in a eucalyptus tree. In their native land eucalypts are called

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Eucalyptus

“gum” trees, and the hard, vase-shaped fruits that contain the seeds are known as “gumnuts.” When some types of eucalyptus are damaged by insects, they ooze blood-red sap. The sap then forms large drops that harden as they dry. The dried sap is called a gumdrop. Although these gumdrops are not edible, they were the inspiration for the popular candy sold in movie theaters everywhere. Eucalyptus trees have been planted across the planet, sometimes as plantation trees, to provide pulpwood, and sometimes as ornamentals. They have been wildly suc-

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cessful. In California, for example, there are 250 species of nonnative eucalypts growing. The state encouraged their planting in the early 1900s, but now much time and money is spent trying to remove them. You are likely familiar with the fresh scent of eucalyptus, which is used in everything from toothpaste to cough drops. Although many people love eucalyptus trees, there are just as many who hate them. Eucalyptus trees are highly flammable, and the leaves contain oils that slow their breakdown, which results in a large volume of highly combustible leaf litter. Eucalyptus trees growing near houses are considered a fire risk. To add to the fire hazard, the eucalypts draw a large amount of water from the soil—sometimes lowering the water table. With so many different types of eucalyptus trees come many different patterns of bark, and the most beautiful bark of all is that of the rainbow eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta). The tree grows quickly, and the bark sheds as it grows, revealing patterns of orange, maroon, blue, green, tan, and purple. Interestingly, this is one of only four eucalypts that does not grow in Australia, and it is the only one that grows in rainforests— primarily in the Philippines and Indonesia. See also Gum.

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ig A plant genus (Ficus) consisting of more than 850 species with a wide variety of forms. Some are vines, some produce sweet fruits (such as those found in Fig Newton cookies), and some produce aerial roots that come down from the canopy and root into the ground. The plants in the last group are known as

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cessful. In California, for example, there are 250 species of nonnative eucalypts growing. The state encouraged their planting in the early 1900s, but now much time and money is spent trying to remove them. You are likely familiar with the fresh scent of eucalyptus, which is used in everything from toothpaste to cough drops. Although many people love eucalyptus trees, there are just as many who hate them. Eucalyptus trees are highly flammable, and the leaves contain oils that slow their breakdown, which results in a large volume of highly combustible leaf litter. Eucalyptus trees growing near houses are considered a fire risk. To add to the fire hazard, the eucalypts draw a large amount of water from the soil—sometimes lowering the water table. With so many different types of eucalyptus trees come many different patterns of bark, and the most beautiful bark of all is that of the rainbow eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta). The tree grows quickly, and the bark sheds as it grows, revealing patterns of orange, maroon, blue, green, tan, and purple. Interestingly, this is one of only four eucalypts that does not grow in Australia, and it is the only one that grows in rainforests— primarily in the Philippines and Indonesia. See also Gum.

F

ig A plant genus (Ficus) consisting of more than 850 species with a wide variety of forms. Some are vines, some produce sweet fruits (such as those found in Fig Newton cookies), and some produce aerial roots that come down from the canopy and root into the ground. The plants in the last group are known as

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strangler figs, and their seeds can sprout in another tree’s canopy, send a root down to the ground, and eventually encapsulate and kill the original tree. Banyan trees, Ficus benghalensis, create some of the widest trees in the world with this continual spreading and rooting. In India, these large trees are considered sacred. One of the largest banyan trees in the world, located in southeastern India, is named Thimmamma. Local people believe that if a childless couple worships this tree, they will produce a child in the next year. Thimmamma is but one individual tree and one example of the beliefs associated with it. All over Asia there are other banyan trees venerated and mythologized. Because banyans are a tropical tree, most North Americans are not familiar with them, but on the island of Maui, in Hawaii, a massive banyan tree in the town of Lahaina occupies a whole park and has become a tourist attraction. It was planted in 1873 by the town’s mayor, and it is now the largest banyan tree in the United States, certainly worth a visit if you are in that part of the world. The fig species that Buddha became enlightened under, Ficus religiosa, is a very long-lived tree with large, heart-shaped leaves that have a long, extended drip tip. The tree is somewhat like a strangler fig, except the aerial roots do not wrap around the outside of another tree; instead they find small cracks and tunnel down inside the host tree, eventually taking it over. Few realize that one of the most common houseplants, the weeping fig or Ficus benjamina, grows up to one hundred feet tall in its native habitat. No wonder it enjoys frequent repotting! See also Bodhi Tree.

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Fitzroya A tree that grows naturally only in Argentina and Chile. They are yet another member of the exceptional cypress family. Fitzroya is the longest-living tree in South America. One specimen, named The Grandmother, is more than 3,600 years old, making this species second only to the bristlecone pine in longevity. In addition to being long-lived, the trees are also massive. They are the largest trees on the South American continent. Fitzroya forests in the Andes Mountains have the second-highest biomass of any forest in the world. Trees, like all plants and animals, have a two-part Latin name, thanks to the brilliant work of Carl Linnaeus in the 1700s. The first part of the name is the genus and the second part is the species. Normally there are many different species that share the same genus name. So, for instance, the maple genus is Acer and there are 160 different species of them (including Acer rubra, red maple), but the genus Fitzroya has only a single species: Fitzroya cupressoides. That means it can be called by its genus name and there will be no confusion. One of its common names is Alerce, which means “larch” in Spanish. It is an evergreen tree that produces small needles and small cones with rough bark that peels off in long strips. As long as 13,000 years ago humans were using the wood from this tree for making things. In the past 400 years, the range of the tree has shrunk drastically due to logging and intentional burning to clear land for agriculture; consequently, the largest of these trees are long gone. At present it is illegal to destroy living Fitzroya trees. Chile even has a national park dedicated to preserving the tree: the Parque Nacional Alerce Andino.

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Forest Bathing The practice of going into the forest for its health effects. This is also known as shinrin-yoku, which is Japanese for “forest bathing.” In an interesting twist, in Japan the popular term used to describe forest bathing is foresuto serapī, a transliteration of the English. By whatever name this practice is called, Japan is the world leader in research regarding the health benefits of spending time in the forest. They are creating a network of one hundred forests throughout the country solely for their therapeutic effects. Time spent walking in a forest has been shown to reduce blood pressure, reduce blood sugar, reduce the stress hormone cortisol, and to boost immune function. Forest bathing also has positive effects on mood and brain chemistry. Although Japanese researchers have been studying the health benefits of the forest since the 1980s, it was only popularized in the Western world since 2005, when I discussed it in Teaching the Trees. Today one can take online classes and even earn certificates in “Forest Therapy.”

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inkgo Ginkgo has a leaf shape that cannot be confused with any other. In some of the leaves the green fan has a gentle dip in the center of its outer margin, barely creating two lobes, but enough to give it the species name Ginkgo biloba—two lobes. While many recognize the leaves, few realize that this tree has very unusual pollen. Ginkgo pollen is carried from a male tree to a female tree by the wind. When a pollen grain lands near the small female reproductive structure, it grows a pollen tube, and inside it two swimming sperm

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Forest Bathing The practice of going into the forest for its health effects. This is also known as shinrin-yoku, which is Japanese for “forest bathing.” In an interesting twist, in Japan the popular term used to describe forest bathing is foresuto serapī, a transliteration of the English. By whatever name this practice is called, Japan is the world leader in research regarding the health benefits of spending time in the forest. They are creating a network of one hundred forests throughout the country solely for their therapeutic effects. Time spent walking in a forest has been shown to reduce blood pressure, reduce blood sugar, reduce the stress hormone cortisol, and to boost immune function. Forest bathing also has positive effects on mood and brain chemistry. Although Japanese researchers have been studying the health benefits of the forest since the 1980s, it was only popularized in the Western world since 2005, when I discussed it in Teaching the Trees. Today one can take online classes and even earn certificates in “Forest Therapy.”

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inkgo Ginkgo has a leaf shape that cannot be confused with any other. In some of the leaves the green fan has a gentle dip in the center of its outer margin, barely creating two lobes, but enough to give it the species name Ginkgo biloba—two lobes. While many recognize the leaves, few realize that this tree has very unusual pollen. Ginkgo pollen is carried from a male tree to a female tree by the wind. When a pollen grain lands near the small female reproductive structure, it grows a pollen tube, and inside it two swimming sperm

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Ginkgo leaf

cells are formed. Eventually the sperm cells break out of the pollen tube and swim toward the female ovule, fertilizing it. Although this may sound similar to animal fertilization, it is also the primitive method used by the earliest sexually reproducing plants such as algae, mosses, and liverworts. Botanists have given it the cool name of “zoidogamy.” Indeed, the ginkgo is a very early evolved tree—primitive when compared to the later evolved flowering trees. Two hundred million years ago, ginkgos covered much of the earth, shading many a dinosaur from the high-noon sun. But as time and evolution marched on, most of the dinosaurs and most of the gingko trees disappeared from the earth. As the dinosaurs were slowly replaced by newly evolving

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mammals, so the primitive ginkgos were replaced with newly evolving flowering trees. This disappearance continued until ginkgos occurred naturally in only a few small places in China, and even the wildness of these few occurrences was in question, as the low genetic diversity of the trees there led some scientists to speculate that the trees were planted by Buddhist monks. More recent scientific studies, however, have confirmed the trees’ wild character. The Gelao people, who are indigenous to the region of China where the ginkgos grow wild, have strict traditional taboos against either planting or logging ginkgo trees, believing if they do, they will lose fertility and wealth. Like turtles, who lived at the time of dinosaurs and survive to this day, ginkgos are slow: slow to reach sexual maturity, slow to evolve, slow to become extinct, and slow to die. There are documented examples of individual ginkgo trees that have lived for thousands of years. Many claims are made about the medicinal properties of ginkgo leaves. Some claim the steam from steeped leaves clears sinuses, while others say the leaves have an antiaging effect and will improve memory. Gingko fruits are eaten in Asia, although the fruit of the female tree has an offensive odor as it rots. Because the trees take more than twenty years to reach the age of reproduction, and before that the two sexes look exactly alike, trees are usually well established by the time one might discover that they have a female tree. To avoid this often unwelcome surprise, cultivars have been developed that are 100 percent male. See also Cultivar.

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Guanacaste A tree native to the tropical areas of the Americas, from central Mexico southward. It is the national tree of Costa Rica. One of the most characteristic things about the Guanacaste tree is its seed pods, which have earned it the common name of elephant ear tree, for the pods are unusually curved. The tree’s Latin binomial, Enterolobium cyclocarpum, reflects this pod shape in its name: the root of the word “cyclo” is circle or wheel and “carpum” relates to the carpel, a section of a plant’s fruit. In the case of this tree, the carpels are arranged in an unusual circular pattern, hence the ear shape of the seed pods. Guanacaste is in the pea family and, indeed, the seeds inside the young, green pods are edible. Once the pods ripen and brown, the seeds become so hard that they are often used as beads in jewelry making. The tree tends

Pod from a Guanacaste tree

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to be wider than it is tall, creating an inviting umbrellalike silhouette that beckons one to enjoy its shade in the hot climates where it grows. The leaves are not simple things—they are bipinnately compound, and each leaf is composed of hundreds of tiny leaflets. This results in a soft, feathery appearance that allows flecks of light to pass through the canopy. “Shade-grown coffee” is often grown under the shade of Guanacaste trees. Gum Tree A common moniker given to many different tree species across the globe. Gum trees are not related to one another but only share a common name. In Australia, the eucalyptus trees are called gums because they exude a reddish sap called kino when the bark is injured. Australian Aborigines used kino to treat colds. In the southeastern United States, sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua) and black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) are both very common. The injured sweet gum bark extrudes a pleasant-smelling resin that was prized in other places and other times as an incense. The black gum exudes no such substance, and its common name remains a mystery. As Donald Culross Peattie notes, “Nowhere on the American continent has anyone ever expressed from this dry and disobliging vegetable one fluid ounce of any sort of gum.” The black gum has other uses, however. The older trees are frequently hollow, and rural folks from the South used to cut sections of these hollow trunks, add a plank of wood as a roof, and call it a honeybee hive. These rustic hives might even be put on a boat and paddled out to the swamp when the black gums (called tupelo by some) bloomed in early spring.

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Leaf from a sweet gum tree

The bees would fly from the hives to collect nectar from the flowering trees, and the resulting tupelo honey is considered one of the best-tasting honeys in the world. It is also a very sweet song by Van Morrison. In some places sweet gum and black gum have low market value and foresters consider them “undesirable species.” Public gardens have also had a difficult time with sweet gums due to the woody, prickly seed balls they drop. At times the number of “gum balls” on the ground interferes with dog walkers, runners, or stroller

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pushers. The resulting complaints have led some arborists to inject the trees with a chemical called “Snipper.” One application of Snipper in the early spring causes the flowers to die before they are fertilized. No fertilized flowers; no spiky balls. Both black gums and sweet gums have exceptional fall color. The black gums are the first to turn. Although hikers on the shady forest paths may still be wearing T-shirts, the black gum’s change from glossy green to burgundy red is nature’s first herald of the coming winter. Never will a black gum leaf turn yellow—that hue is reserved for other trees, including the sweet gum. Next to sugar maples, who are the undisputed champions of fall foliage, sweet gums have the most exceptional autumn colors. Sitting beneath a sweet gum on a perfect fall day, one will see green, yellow, orange, cherry red, violet, and deep maroon. Even individual leaves have multiple hues. It is impossible to pick a favorite leaf! Worth the spiky seed balls? On this day, yes. See also Eucalyptus.

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eartwood The darker colored wood found in the central portion of a tree’s trunk. Unlike the outer, most recent rings of a tree where water is being transported, the rings toward the center, from when the tree was younger, contain cells that are no longer transporting materials. These heartwood cells essentially become storage spaces. Although they are no longer active in transport or production, the younger sapwood cells can still synthesize compounds, like resins and tannins, and can move these compounds toward the heartwood in

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pushers. The resulting complaints have led some arborists to inject the trees with a chemical called “Snipper.” One application of Snipper in the early spring causes the flowers to die before they are fertilized. No fertilized flowers; no spiky balls. Both black gums and sweet gums have exceptional fall color. The black gums are the first to turn. Although hikers on the shady forest paths may still be wearing T-shirts, the black gum’s change from glossy green to burgundy red is nature’s first herald of the coming winter. Never will a black gum leaf turn yellow—that hue is reserved for other trees, including the sweet gum. Next to sugar maples, who are the undisputed champions of fall foliage, sweet gums have the most exceptional autumn colors. Sitting beneath a sweet gum on a perfect fall day, one will see green, yellow, orange, cherry red, violet, and deep maroon. Even individual leaves have multiple hues. It is impossible to pick a favorite leaf! Worth the spiky seed balls? On this day, yes. See also Eucalyptus.

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eartwood The darker colored wood found in the central portion of a tree’s trunk. Unlike the outer, most recent rings of a tree where water is being transported, the rings toward the center, from when the tree was younger, contain cells that are no longer transporting materials. These heartwood cells essentially become storage spaces. Although they are no longer active in transport or production, the younger sapwood cells can still synthesize compounds, like resins and tannins, and can move these compounds toward the heartwood in

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the center. As a result, heartwood is not only darker in color than sapwood, it is also more weather- and rot-resistant when used in woodworking. According to Dr. Smoke, a purveyor of wood products for making gourmet smoked foods, heartwood is the most desirable for grilling and smoking. Heartwood is also the name of a regional network of forest-saving groups in the eastern and midwestern United States. See also Sapwood. Hill, Julia “Butterfly” (1974–) A young woman who lived in the top of a redwood tree for two years to prevent it from being cut for timber. The 1,500-year-old tree was on a California property owned by Pacific Lumber. They planned to harvest the tree as they had many other ancient redwood trees. Hill had previously lived in Arkansas, but she paid a visit to California after spending a year recovering from a car accident. “The first time I entered into a redwood forest—it was Grizzly Creek—I dropped to my knees and began crying because the spirit of the forest just gripped me,” said Hill. “The knowledge, the spirituality, the power that has no words, that power that makes your hair stand on end, see? The power that gives you goosebumps even to remember.” She was in her early twenties then, and she knew she must get involved in protecting those forests. The tree sit was initially started by environmental activists from Earth First! Hill volunteered to spend five days in a tree named Luna, which already had wooden platforms in it 180 feet up. The second time up she stayed for two

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weeks, and the third time she went up into the tree, she vowed to stay until it was guaranteed to be saved. A dedicated ground crew supported her by supplying food and other necessities. While in the tree she participated in many media interviews via her solar-powered cell phone. She also hosted media crews and overnight guests in Luna. Hill finally came down when Pacific Lumber agreed to preserve Luna and a buffer zone of 200 feet around it. She cried as her feet touched the earth for the first time in years. Following the tree sit Hill traveled the globe giving motivational talks, trying to convince others that they also had the power to speak for the planet. Hill’s father was a revivalist minister, and the whole family had traveled together when she was young. When “Butterfly” took to a stage, it was evident that she had learned to preach, only in her case she was preaching for the forests.

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uniper Evergreen shrubs and trees that have become well known as the flavoring in gin. In fact, the word “gin” is a shortened version of jenever, the Dutch word for juniper. It is the juniper “berries” that are used, although technically they are not berries at all but are rather fleshy cones—for junipers are coniferous plants. Instead of having woody cones with scales, such as the pines, the juniper cone scales swell and fuse, enclosing the hard seeds in a spicy, blue-colored, waxy covering. There are more than fifty different species of juniper (Juniperus), a genus in the cypress family. There is even a juniper named after Gifford Pinchot: Juniperus

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weeks, and the third time she went up into the tree, she vowed to stay until it was guaranteed to be saved. A dedicated ground crew supported her by supplying food and other necessities. While in the tree she participated in many media interviews via her solar-powered cell phone. She also hosted media crews and overnight guests in Luna. Hill finally came down when Pacific Lumber agreed to preserve Luna and a buffer zone of 200 feet around it. She cried as her feet touched the earth for the first time in years. Following the tree sit Hill traveled the globe giving motivational talks, trying to convince others that they also had the power to speak for the planet. Hill’s father was a revivalist minister, and the whole family had traveled together when she was young. When “Butterfly” took to a stage, it was evident that she had learned to preach, only in her case she was preaching for the forests.

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uniper Evergreen shrubs and trees that have become well known as the flavoring in gin. In fact, the word “gin” is a shortened version of jenever, the Dutch word for juniper. It is the juniper “berries” that are used, although technically they are not berries at all but are rather fleshy cones—for junipers are coniferous plants. Instead of having woody cones with scales, such as the pines, the juniper cone scales swell and fuse, enclosing the hard seeds in a spicy, blue-colored, waxy covering. There are more than fifty different species of juniper (Juniperus), a genus in the cypress family. There is even a juniper named after Gifford Pinchot: Juniperus

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pinchotii. Some junipers are extremely long-lived. In West Virginia, one eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) was documented to be 940 years old. (Only two other trees in the eastern United States can grow older—the bald cypress and the northern white cedar.) In California, a common western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) was documented as more than 2,000 years old—that’s almost as old as the oldest known redwood tree (Sequoia sempervirens)! One tallish, shrubby juniper (Juniperus communis) is spread throughout the northern hemisphere; it has the widest geographical distribution of any woody plant in the world. The plant community known as Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands covers a large percentage of the dry parts of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, California, and Oregon. Four different juniper species are found in this wide-ranging plant community, including J. communis.

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Native junipers show great variation, and these natural variations may be labeled by botanists as subspecies or varieties of a subspecies. Horticulturalists have encouraged this natural variation and have created many cultivars. Cultivated growth forms vary from groundhugging evergreens, to sprawling, vase-shaped bushes, to tall trees, and they are every shade you can imagine. Some have been selected with gold-colored leaves, while others are almost blue. Most landscape plans for sunny areas include junipers somewhere in the mix. Some juniper species are dioecious, meaning plants have either male reproductive structures (pollen cones) or female reproductive structures (ovule-containing cones that will become the “berries”). Juniper pollen from the male plants is very small and lightweight, and it can be carried many miles on the wind and easily enter eyes and nasal passages. Juniper pollen is highly allergenic, and even individuals with no other pollen sensitivities may be allergic to junipers. This is particularly a problem in parts of Texas where mountain cedar (Juniperus ashei) causes an allergic reaction known as “cedar fever.” As a result of the troubles caused by juniper pollen, cultivars of juniper are available that are female-only. See also Cultivar; Pinchot, Gifford.

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ilmer, Joyce (1886–1918) This New Jersey native wrote a famous poem about trees titled, simply, Trees. Generations of schoolchildren were once required to memorize this poem. Many of those children mistakenly assumed that the poet was a woman because of the first name, Joyce. His given name was Alfred Joyce Kilmer, but he never

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Native junipers show great variation, and these natural variations may be labeled by botanists as subspecies or varieties of a subspecies. Horticulturalists have encouraged this natural variation and have created many cultivars. Cultivated growth forms vary from groundhugging evergreens, to sprawling, vase-shaped bushes, to tall trees, and they are every shade you can imagine. Some have been selected with gold-colored leaves, while others are almost blue. Most landscape plans for sunny areas include junipers somewhere in the mix. Some juniper species are dioecious, meaning plants have either male reproductive structures (pollen cones) or female reproductive structures (ovule-containing cones that will become the “berries”). Juniper pollen from the male plants is very small and lightweight, and it can be carried many miles on the wind and easily enter eyes and nasal passages. Juniper pollen is highly allergenic, and even individuals with no other pollen sensitivities may be allergic to junipers. This is particularly a problem in parts of Texas where mountain cedar (Juniperus ashei) causes an allergic reaction known as “cedar fever.” As a result of the troubles caused by juniper pollen, cultivars of juniper are available that are female-only. See also Cultivar; Pinchot, Gifford.

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ilmer, Joyce (1886–1918) This New Jersey native wrote a famous poem about trees titled, simply, Trees. Generations of schoolchildren were once required to memorize this poem. Many of those children mistakenly assumed that the poet was a woman because of the first name, Joyce. His given name was Alfred Joyce Kilmer, but he never

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used Alfred, preferring to use his middle name instead. In almost any group, if the first line of his poem is spoken aloud—“I think that I shall never see”—there will be someone ready to give voice to the second line: “a poem as lovely as a tree.” During World War I Kilmer enlisted in the National Guard, but his unit was sent to France. The official story is that Kilmer was killed by a single German sniper bullet at the front lines, but others have suggested that he was depressed and walked to the front lines to shoot himself. He was only thirty-one when he died and left behind a wife and five children. One of the many memorials to Kilmer is the iconic Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in western North Carolina. The area was preserved and named after Kilmer at the request of the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization. The 3,800-acre national forest wilderness area is one of the largest blocks of oldgrowth forest left in the eastern United States. Think of it as the East’s answer to Muir Woods. Impressive tulip poplar trees up to twenty feet around draw 35,000 visitors to their base each year. Many of the trees have been standing for hundreds of years—they were growing before the war that made the United States a nation, and well before the war that Kilmer died in. See also Muir Woods; Old Growth; Tulip Poplar.

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eaf Scar The identifiable mark left on a twig after a leaf has fallen off. Leaf scars can be used to help identify trees since they vary between species, but within a species they are consistent. For instance, the leaf scar of a black walnut looks like the smiling face of a cartoon

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used Alfred, preferring to use his middle name instead. In almost any group, if the first line of his poem is spoken aloud—“I think that I shall never see”—there will be someone ready to give voice to the second line: “a poem as lovely as a tree.” During World War I Kilmer enlisted in the National Guard, but his unit was sent to France. The official story is that Kilmer was killed by a single German sniper bullet at the front lines, but others have suggested that he was depressed and walked to the front lines to shoot himself. He was only thirty-one when he died and left behind a wife and five children. One of the many memorials to Kilmer is the iconic Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in western North Carolina. The area was preserved and named after Kilmer at the request of the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization. The 3,800-acre national forest wilderness area is one of the largest blocks of oldgrowth forest left in the eastern United States. Think of it as the East’s answer to Muir Woods. Impressive tulip poplar trees up to twenty feet around draw 35,000 visitors to their base each year. Many of the trees have been standing for hundreds of years—they were growing before the war that made the United States a nation, and well before the war that Kilmer died in. See also Muir Woods; Old Growth; Tulip Poplar.

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eaf Scar The identifiable mark left on a twig after a leaf has fallen off. Leaf scars can be used to help identify trees since they vary between species, but within a species they are consistent. For instance, the leaf scar of a black walnut looks like the smiling face of a cartoon

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monkey! The “eyes” and “mouth” are from the veins that used to run from the branch to the leaf, carrying water to the leaf and sugars away from the leaf. These bumps within the leaf scar are called bundle scars, and they are darker than the surrounding area. Ash tree leaf scars look like the largest smile one could ever imagine, with a curved row of dark bundle scars forming the line between the two lighter “lips.” The number of bundle scars within a leaf scar is often used as a means of identification in taxonomic keys. For instance, the large leaf scar on horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) always has seven bundle scars. Walnut twig showing leaf scar A red maple (Acer rubrum) leaf scar always contains three bundle scars. In the autumn when the days shorten, the leafy trees send a hormonal message to the thin line of cells between the leaf and the twig. Gradually the cells change from living to dead, and eventually the leaf falls from the tree, leaving behind the mark of its former existence. Leverett, Robert T. (1941–) Known to his friends as Bob, Leverett is renowned for his revolution in tree measuring, especially for champion tree competitions. As both a big tree fan and a trained engineer, Leverett recognized that there was a better way to determine a tree’s height than by the

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methods that were then in use. As laser range finders became available, Leverett and a few others developed the “sine method” of measuring tree height. With this new method, the eye-level laser range finder is pointed at the top of the tree to get the distance to that point. Then the angle from the eye to the top of the tree is determined (either with a clinometer or, more frequently, with a built-in tilt sensor inside the range finder). If you recall any trigonometry you may have had, picture a right triangle and recall that the longest side of the triangle is called the hypotenuse. By using the laser range finder, one has measured the length of the hypotenuse (from eye to top of tree), then by finding the angle, one can determine the sine (sine is a ratio, and different angles give different ratios). One can then compute the height of the tree above eye level by simply multiplying the sine times the distance to the top. Once the height from eye level up is known, add the height from eye level down to get the total height of the tree. Leverett trains professionals as well as big-tree aficionados in the use of this new technique. In 2014 it was adopted by American Forests, a nonprofit conservation organization, as the preferred method of tree measuring. Currently, Leverett is applying his measuring skills to questions about the rate of carbon sequestration in living trees from youth to old age. But this revolution in measuring, born of his engineering background, was just the cherry on top of Leverett’s long association with old-growth forests. As Leverett puts it, “it was from site documentation that the tree measuring gene became activated.” During the early 1990s, Leverett wrote articles for the Wild Earth journal

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and was a codiscoverer of most of the known old growth in Massachusetts. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Leverett helped organize old-growth conferences, and he was a key player in the book (edited by Mary Byrd Davis) that grew out of those conferences: Eastern Old-Growth Forests: Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery. Some of the key players in this old-growth forest movement were sitting around his Massachusetts dining room table with a bottle of Jack Daniels when he cofounded the Eastern Native Tree Society (ENTS) in 1996. Later, this internet-based group became international in scope and changed its name to the Native Tree Society. With the late Bruce Kershner, Leverett went on to cowrite the Sierra Club Guide to Ancient Forests of the Northeast (2004), now a collector’s item. Over the years he has continuously given freely of himself, not only to document and preserve the oldest of our trees but also to share his deep appreciation for the beauty of nature. Leverett has been an important supporter to anyone who is doing anything for the forests. Thanks, Bob. See also Champion; Davis, Mary Byrd; Ents. Lorax An imaginary creature invented by children’s book author Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss). The Lorax is featured in a book of the same title published in 1971. He was described in the book as “shortish, and oldish, and brownish and mossy,” but he is always depicted as animal-like, though standing on two legs, and completely covered in orange hair, with a big yellow moustache. The Lorax bravely spoke out for the preservation of the Truffula trees. “I speak for the trees, for the trees

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have no tongue,” said he. In the story the Lorax was not successful at saving the trees. The greedy Once-ler cut them all down to make Thneeds and destroyed the habitat for all the animals who had once lived there. Lowman, Margaret (1953–) Canopy Meg, they call her. She is a scientist who knew that there were wonders and interactions in the canopy that were not being studied because the canopy was so difficult to access. Lowman started climbing into the treetops with ropes very early in her career. Her book Life in the Treetops chronicles that early work. When she began teaching at Williams College in Massachusetts, she realized how difficult it was for groups of students to research life in the canopy, so in 1992 she designed the first research canopy walkway in the United States. Lowman has been a longtime pioneer in canopy access technology, and some of her projects include hot air balloon access using a sled instead of a basket, crane access, and rope access using motorized ascent. Lowman was also responsible for the first public canopy walkway in the United States—a suspension bridge twenty-five feet high and a hundred feet long in the forest at Myakka River State Park in Florida. She encourages communities to build canopy walkways to increase ecotourism. Lowman’s work is not restricted to the United States. In Ethiopia some of the last forests left are those surrounding Orthodox Christian churches. Forested churchyards are a traditional part of the churches and are used for certain rites. Lowman is working with the priests to fund the installation of conservation walls

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around the remaining forests. The walls will keep cattle and goats from eating the trees and seedlings. She is also training the young members of the churches to monitor insect biodiversity in their forests. Many of her projects are funded through the Tree Research, Exploration & Education (TREE) Foundation, which she helped found in 2004. Lowman is currently executive director of that Sarasota, Florida–based foundation.

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aathai, Wangari (1940–2011) The first East African woman to earn a PhD and the first East African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari, from Kenya, was awarded the Nobel for the Green Belt Movement she started. This movement not only replanted trees where they had been cut, and protected forests on public lands, but it also took a stand for democracy and women’s rights. She raised funds to be able to pay village women for growing and planting trees, and frequently she planted right alongside them. Wangari attended universities in the United States for a few years. She was able to do so because Thomas Mboya, one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya, together with US president John F. Kennedy, created a program called the “Kennedy Airlift,” which allowed hundreds of talented young Africans to travel to the United States for education. Barack Hussein Obama Sr., father of former US president Barack Obama, was another African student who was part of the Kennedy Airlift. The program only lasted a few years. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and Mboya was assassinated in 1969, so neither man ever reached

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around the remaining forests. The walls will keep cattle and goats from eating the trees and seedlings. She is also training the young members of the churches to monitor insect biodiversity in their forests. Many of her projects are funded through the Tree Research, Exploration & Education (TREE) Foundation, which she helped found in 2004. Lowman is currently executive director of that Sarasota, Florida–based foundation.

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aathai, Wangari (1940–2011) The first East African woman to earn a PhD and the first East African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari, from Kenya, was awarded the Nobel for the Green Belt Movement she started. This movement not only replanted trees where they had been cut, and protected forests on public lands, but it also took a stand for democracy and women’s rights. She raised funds to be able to pay village women for growing and planting trees, and frequently she planted right alongside them. Wangari attended universities in the United States for a few years. She was able to do so because Thomas Mboya, one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya, together with US president John F. Kennedy, created a program called the “Kennedy Airlift,” which allowed hundreds of talented young Africans to travel to the United States for education. Barack Hussein Obama Sr., father of former US president Barack Obama, was another African student who was part of the Kennedy Airlift. The program only lasted a few years. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and Mboya was assassinated in 1969, so neither man ever reached

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fifty years old, yet the results of the Airlift program reverberated for many decades and influenced democracy across the globe. Wangari died from ovarian cancer at age seventyone. As former president Barack Obama noted in his condolence letter, “The work of the Green Belt Movement stands as a testament to the power of grassroots organizing, proof that one person’s simple idea—that a community should come together to plant trees— can make a difference, first in one village, then in one nation, and now across Africa.” Trees are still being planted today with financial support from the Green Belt Movement. Groups in Kenya are paid ten cents per tree for those that are grown, planted, and survive. In 1900 Kenya was 10 percent forested, but today it is only 2 percent forested. Despite the many millions of trees planted by the movement, Kenya still loses thousands of acres of forest per year. MADCap Horse A mnemonic device for recalling which trees have opposite branching. Most trees and shrubs have alternate branching, so if you see a tree with opposite branching, you can narrow down its identity to one of the following: maple, ash, dogwood (the MAD in MADCap), and Caprifoliaceae, a plant family that includes many shrubs like abelia, snowberry, and honeysuckle (the Cap in MADCap). “Horse” stands for horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). While the horse chestnut is only native to a very small region of the Balkans in southern Europe, it has been widely planted as a shade tree. They are not at all related to American chestnuts (Castanea). In the

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Pacific dogwood has opposite branching

United States, there are various native trees in the same genus as horse chestnut (Aesculus), but they all go by the common name of buckeye. Perhaps the mnemonic should be revised to MADCap Buck. Magnolia Early evolved trees that are bodacious in every way. As Donald Culross Peattie writes, “In the coves of the southern Appalachians, cooled by the breezes set astir by ever-falling water and fresh with fern and saxifrage, this lovely tree is most at home, its flowers shining forth serenely as water-lilies floating in the forest green.” He must surely have loved these trees, as so many before and since have, for he describes the umbrella magnolia (Magnolia tripetala) thusly: “In summer the great, filmy, pale green leaves, clustered umbrella fashion at the end of the stem, seem the very embodiment of the Appalachian forests’ spirit, as they shine through the

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underwood, or stream on the fresh breeze that seems perpetually to sweep down the long valleys.” The leaves of magnolia trees tend to be quite large, with some of them measuring twenty inches long by ten inches wide. (When one of these leaves drop, it is noticed!) Magnolia trees originated in Asia, and in the long past—50 million years ago, that is—magnolias had spread across the northern hemisphere, including into North America. Ten million years later the planet cooled drastically and the warmth-loving magnolias across much of North America died off. The survivors, cut off from the larger gene pool, evolved into new species over time. The most recent glaciation, and its accompanying climate change, again reduced both their range and their abundance. The places where magnolia species are most

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common now in North America are in the hardwood coves of the Appalachian Mountains. Someone hiking in the Smoky Mountains today might pass by four different magnolia species: cucumber tree (Magnolia acuminata), Fraser magnolia (Magnolia fraseri), bigleaf magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla), and umbrella magnolia (Magnolia tripetala). And these are not all understory trees— some are quite tall—and one must look far heavenward to see what leaves belong to this particular bark. Magnolias play an important role in evolution because they are among the first flowering plants to rely on insects for pollination. Flowering plants first showed up in the fossil record during the cretaceous period. Insects were already in existence then, including bees. Today we think of bees as the grand pollinators, but the early evolved magnolias were pollinated by beetles, as they still are today. Their large flowers not only provide a sturdy platform for crawling beetles, but the petals close at night, protecting the beetles from harsh weather and predators. Most magnolias are self-fertile, with large male pollen-covered stamens beneath the numerous female carpels in the center of the flower. But self-fertilized seeds may not be as vigorous due to inbreeding. The beetles help with mixing up the genetic material, as all pollinators do. See also Tulip Poplar. Maple The common name for a genus of trees (Acer) that includes 128 different species spread throughout the temperate forests of the northern hemisphere. Maples are easily recognizable. All have double-winged seeds

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that catch the wind as they fall, and they have leaf veins radiating from a central base. Just picture the flag of Canada, and there you have a maple leaf. In the entire world, the most colorful autumn leaves are those of the sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Throughout its natural range of New England, the Great Lakes region, parts of Canada, and in the higher altitudes all the way south to Georgia, just witnessing the autumn colors of maples adds a lift to the mood, and is reason enough for “leaf peepers” the world over to plan trips to view the show. As

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Donald Culross Peattie notes, almost as colorfully as the leaves themselves: “On a street where great maples arch, letting down their shining benediction, people seem to walk as if they had already gone to glory.” And this sweet sight for the eyes is matched by the sweet sap coursing through the tree’s vessels that can be tapped to make maple syrup—surely the sweetest nectar on this earth. The red maple (Acer rubrum) is the most widespread and abundant of the leaf-dropping trees in the entire eastern half of the United States. Red maples are one of the first plants to flower in the spring, and even though it may still be February, the forest will blush red with flower-tipped twigs that provide important early pollen and nectar for the bees. Do not confuse this tree with the Japanese red maple (Acer palmatum). Although the red maple has red buds, red flowers, red leaf stalks, and turns red in the fall, the leaves are green—unlike most Japanese red maples, a much smaller tree, which may have red leaves throughout the growing season. There are a thousand named cultivars of Japanese red maple, and no one in the universe who can tell them all apart. Maple wood carries tones so nicely that it is used for the world’s most famous guitars, such as the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster, and Gibson’s Les Paul. Menominee Forest A 235,000-acre Wisconsin forest that NASA space shuttle astronauts could see from space because of its greenness and defined outlines when compared to the surrounding land. But one doesn’t have to be an astronaut to get a space-eye view of the forest—just take a look on the computer using Google Earth. Much of the green

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comes from the canopy of white pine, hemlock, sugar maple, and oak. This forest is owned by the Menominee Indian tribe. The tribe has a long and complicated history, but the short version is that in 1954 the Menominee tribe was terminated by federal law, and the Menominee reservation land that they controlled became a county in anticipation of their eviction. In 1974 the tribe regained recognition, and as a result they controlled an entire county. Their large forest is not treated as some sort of sacred hands-off space; indeed, they log it from one end to the other, and even centuries-old trees are sometimes taken down for the income they generate. What makes the forestry there so different from that in other places is that the forest is large and the selective logging is very controlled. The tribe started harvesting in the 1800s when Chief Oshkosh counseled them to “start harvesting with the rising sun and work toward the setting sun . . . when you reach the end of the reservation, turn and cut from the setting sun to the rising sun and the trees will last forever.” This forestry has been going on for 150 years, and it is planned to continue for another seven generations at least. Make no mistake, however, this is a working forest and chainsaws, logging trucks, and stacks of cut trunks are part of the experience of visiting the Menominee Forest. Six thousand acres of woodland are marked for cutting each year, and the harvests are bid out to both Native and non-Native contractors. During the cutting season, fifty crews may be in the forest at any one time. The tribe owns a large mill and cuts an average of 14 million board feet of timber each year, for uses such as wood flooring, window casements, and even pallets. The Menominee Forest has become the classic

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example of sustainable forestry. Although some of the trees are impressively large, and the diversity of tree species has been retained, it looks and feels very different from an unmanaged old-growth forest. But, unlike the surrounding dairy cow fields and cropland, it still has a green canopy, and it still contains the native tree species that were there before the “white man” came to the area. Meristem The place in a tree where cells divide to create new cells, resulting in growth. Trees grow very differently from animals. Animals grow all over, getting proportionately larger, and then at a certain point, they stop growing. Trees, on the other hand, only grow wider (from the lateral meristems) or taller (from the apical meristems), and they never stop growing as long as they live. The tree rings are created by a lateral meristem (also called the vascular cambium) that occurs in a circle of cells just under the bark layer. As these meristem cells divide, the ones that move toward the outside of the tree become the sap-carrying cells (phloem), and the ones that move toward the inside of the tree become the water-carrying cells (xylem). The tree rings you see when a tree is cut are all xylem cells. So this lateral meristem is responsible for the trunk and branches getting wider each year. The apical meristem is at the growing tip of each branch and root, and the cells dividing there cause the branches to get longer and the tree to grow taller. This meristem also produces a hormone that keeps the buds below it in check. That’s why when the tips of a plant get pruned it gets “bushier,” as the other buds are now allowed to grow. See also Dendrochronology; Epicormic; Sapwood.

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Muir, John (1838–1914) One of America’s early nature writers. Although he was born in Scotland, Muir is best known for his time in California’s Yosemite Valley and its surrounding sequoia forests. He was an avid “experiencer” of nature, hiking the mountains, climbing the trees, and relishing the power of storms. “I am in the woods, woods, woods, & they are in me-ee-e,” he wrote to a friend. Muir saw clearly how humans were destroying the beauty of nature. Eventually he turned to writing to try and save his beloved places. Using emotionally expressive prose, he convinced the US government to make Yosemite a national park, thereby protecting it from the loggers, grazers, and unmanaged hordes of tourists. When President Theodore Roosevelt visited Yosemite in 1903, he slipped away from a formal dinner, attended by many special guests, to instead spend the night camping with Muir. Under the massive sequoia trees in the Mariposa grove, they discussed why the grand trees should be preserved. Those trees still stand thanks to Muir, but camping beneath them is no longer permitted. Muir knew that the task to save America’s natural land was a huge challenge. He formed the Sierra Club to galvanize as many as possible to help. Today the Sierra Club has 3.8 million members. See also Muir Woods; Sequoioideae; Roosevelt, Theodore. Muir Woods The most well-known old-growth forest in the western United States, perhaps the world. What makes this forested national monument so popular is its proximity to

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San Francisco and the absolute grandeur of its coast redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens). Namesake John Muir boasted that it was “the best tree lover’s monument in all the forests in all the world.” The forest has more than a million visitors a year. For some visitors, the buses full of people and the asphalted pathways have ruined their expectations, while for others, a first experience of the stature of ancient redwood trees has been wondrous and illuminating. In the second half of the 1800s, all of the California forests were being cut at a furious rate, including the redwoods and the sequoias. By 1900 only 5 percent of the original old-growth forests persisted. One small pocket of original forest—well, small for those days—was the 240 acres surrounding Redwood Creek, which flowed down from Mount Tamalpais. Now cue the hero, the personification of one-person-can-makea-difference: William Kent. Kent was from a wealthy family and was active in politics. He saw what was happening in the California forests and decided to buy the remnant forest that had been passed over by the loggers due to its inaccessibility. In 1905, encouraged by his wife, he purchased 611 acres, which included the oldgrowth area, for $45,000. However, just two years later, a local water company started condemnation procedures because they wanted to dam the creek and create a drinking water reservoir. Of course, that would kill the trees, even if they hadn’t been cut out first—which was the likeliest scenario. Providing drinking water to a community is a powerful argument, and Kent knew that he needed help if the forest was to be preserved. His saving tactic was to donate the forest to the US

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Department of the Interior for the establishment of a national monument. The Antiquities Act had just been passed in 1906, giving then president Theodore Roosevelt the authority to quickly preserve public land as monuments. Kent requested that the forested monument be named after John Muir, who was then active in influencing others to preserve wildlands. Muir Woods became the sixth national monument in the nation in January 1908. In 1910 Kent was elected to the US House of Representatives. In 1916 he was the lead sponsor of the legislation that created the National Park Service. One would be tempted to pay tribute to him today, except for his unfortunate anti-Asian racist tendencies. In the past one hundred years Americans have become less racist, but even more appreciative of the forest Kent preserved. See also Muir, John; Old Growth; Roosevelt, Theodore; Sequoioideae. Mycorrhizae Some fungi form close relationships with tree roots. The thin fungal strands may wrap densely around the fine tree roots, or the fungal strands may even enter into the root cells.Yes, trees and fungi spoon. This relationship is so close that we have given the combination one name: myco (fungus) rhizae (roots). They are the Bennifer of the arboreal world. But this is not a monogamous relationship. A tree may be involved with more than a dozen different fungal partners. Not all fungi have the ability to form mycorrhizal relationships with trees, but there are thousands that do.

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Tree roots with mycorrhizae

The most common type of mycorrhizal fungus penetrates the root cells, which makes it easier to exchange materials such as photosynthetic sugars—going toward the fungus—and water, nitrogen, phosphorus, and micronutrients going toward the tree. These mycorrhizae have been around for hundreds of millions of years, and they were critical in the early evolution of plants moving from water to land. Mycorrhizae are responsible for storing vast amounts of carbon in the soil. When forests are cut, much of this carbon is released back into the atmosphere. The majority of plants partner with fungi that live underground and produce their spores there, but 15 percent of the plants, for example, beech and pines, have a relationship with mycorrhizae that can form classic “toadstool”

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mushrooms. As a result, the mushrooms you see growing from the forest floor may be connected by underground mycelia to many different trees. These physical relationships between plants and fungi were described in the late 1800s, but it took more than a hundred years for us to begin to understand how they function. And only in the past few decades have we understood that trees can use this fungal network to share molecules with other trees, whether of the same species or not. So not only are the fungi connected to many different trees and sharing resources, but the trees themselves are connected to many other trees. The older the tree, the more of these connections it has. Researcher Suzanne Simard calls this the “wood wide web.”

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ak Trying to identify oak trees to species can make one’s head spin. There are 90 species in the United States, 160 species in Mexico, and 100 species in China—altogether around the world there are 600 different species of oak! And if that weren’t enough, they naturally crossbreed, forming hybrid species that are very difficult to tell apart. Some of these oaks are evergreen, and some drop their leaves in the winter, but one thing they all have in common is that their seeds come in the familiar form of the acorn. Acorns were an important food source for humans for thousands of years. They are also an important food source for many animals, such as wild turkeys, ducks, woodpeckers, and, of course, squirrels. Oak trees call to humans in powerful ways. Fourteen countries have chosen oak as their national tree:

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mushrooms. As a result, the mushrooms you see growing from the forest floor may be connected by underground mycelia to many different trees. These physical relationships between plants and fungi were described in the late 1800s, but it took more than a hundred years for us to begin to understand how they function. And only in the past few decades have we understood that trees can use this fungal network to share molecules with other trees, whether of the same species or not. So not only are the fungi connected to many different trees and sharing resources, but the trees themselves are connected to many other trees. The older the tree, the more of these connections it has. Researcher Suzanne Simard calls this the “wood wide web.”

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ak Trying to identify oak trees to species can make one’s head spin. There are 90 species in the United States, 160 species in Mexico, and 100 species in China—altogether around the world there are 600 different species of oak! And if that weren’t enough, they naturally crossbreed, forming hybrid species that are very difficult to tell apart. Some of these oaks are evergreen, and some drop their leaves in the winter, but one thing they all have in common is that their seeds come in the familiar form of the acorn. Acorns were an important food source for humans for thousands of years. They are also an important food source for many animals, such as wild turkeys, ducks, woodpeckers, and, of course, squirrels. Oak trees call to humans in powerful ways. Fourteen countries have chosen oak as their national tree:

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Bulgaria, Cyprus, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Moldova, Jordon, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, United States, and Wales. In addition to political states being associated with oak trees, the trees also carry spiritual clout. There are written records about the rustling leaves of oaks advising the priests of ancient Greece, but oaks were spiritual touchstones long before that. As James Frazier wrote in his classic book, The Golden Bough, “it appears that a god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain was worshipped of old by all the main branches of the Aryan stock in Europe, and was indeed the chief deity of their pantheon.” The oak and the thunder were considered one and the same spirit. In contemporary times the Druids of Ireland still consult with, and guard, the oak trees in their community. There are many exceptional oak trees on this planet. They have the ability to live a very long life, and a number of oak trees are said to be more than 1,000 years old. One example comes to us from England. If you have heard the tale of Robin Hood and the Sherwood Forest (“steal from the rich, give to the poor”), you may be interested in knowing that Sherwood Forest still exists in Nottinghamshire, England. In fact, there is one particular hollow oak tree there, the Major Oak, that sheltered Robin Hood in the year 1216, or so it is told. The tree is an English oak, Quercus robur. By 1790 the tree was already a tourist attraction—both because of its massive size and the colorful tales told about it. One contemporary Englishman, John Palmer, spent many years and expelled much sweat in propagating this tree. In the year 2000 he collected 500 acorns from the Major Oak and potted and germinated them. After two years he had

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300 sturdy saplings. Then he bought a seven-acre plot of land in hopes of creating a miniature Sherwood Forest. Palmer says, “Preparing the field has been a big project— hedging, burning hedge offcuts, ditching, reseeding ditch spoil lines, grass cutting, bailing, bagging and removing, digging a well, building a deer-proof enclosure, improving the road for access, purchase of a 4×4, bringing the oaks to the enclosure, building a rope and pulley system to get water out of the well, using an old bath to store the water and watering the saplings every other day in the summer.” All for the love of oak trees! Two famous oaks from the United States, said to be more than 1,000 years old, are the Angel Oak and the Great Oak. The Angel Oak is a Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) that lives in a park named in its honor in Charleston, South Carolina. The tree is a popular tourist attraction and has been called the most beautiful tree

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in the eastern United States. The Great Oak is a coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) that grows in Southern California. It is called “Wi’áaşal” by the Pechanga band of Luiseño Indians, on whose land the tree grows. The tree is not available for casual visitation by outsiders, as it is protected by a tall security fence and a locked gate. But by special arrangement, one may be granted permission to visit the glorious tree. The Great Oak has long thick branches that reach out, dipping to the ground for support and then reaching back up. No photograph has ever been able to capture the whole tree. In honor of the Great Oak, the main bar in the center of the tribe’s casino has been designed to resemble a huge tree. Old Growth This term is used in many different ways by many different people, as there is no commonly agreed upon definition. In general, it is used to describe a forest that has been developing naturally for a long time with very little disturbance. There are other names that have been given to these old, undisturbed forests too: “first growth,” “original,” “primary,” “virgin,” or “primeval.” Confusions arise, however, when one tries to quantify how long a time and how much disturbance qualifies a forest to be labeled as old growth. For instance, what if a forest was cut 300 years ago and has grown back naturally? Is that old growth? Well, for a forest containing short-lived tree species, the answer may be yes, but for a redwood forest, the answer would be no. In response to this challenge, the US Forest Service has come up with different definitions of “old growth” for different forest types. Another question can be raised regarding what

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type of disturbance. For instance, humans clear-cutting a forest would naturally disqualify it from being called old growth, but what if human disturbance were completely absent, and a native insect or a tornado radically changed the forest? Location matters too. For instance, in the United States, no forests were commercially exploited before the 1600s, so the rare forests that escaped cutting from the 1600s to the present day look as they would pre-European settlement, and these forests can easily be called old growth. But what of forests in the Old World that were cut once in the 1400s and have been recovering for the past 600 years? These forests look and feel old (if it quacks like a duck . . .), but perhaps they are not the same ecologically as they would be if they had never been cleared. We could call these forests “secondary” old growth. A next step in approaching the label of “old growth” is to examine the characteristics of the forest. Does it have old trees (at least some approaching the maximum life span for that species)? Does it have some standing snags with cavities and thick bark? Does it have

Fallen dead tree in an old-growth forest

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large fallen dead trees? Light gaps? Pits and mounds from fallen trees? Herbaceous vegetation similar to that found in other undisturbed forests of the same type? All of these are ecological indicators of an old-growth forest. At times the caveats and hairsplitting get to be frustrating and the moniker finally becomes a judgment call. Is the forest relatively old, and relatively undisturbed? These forests are rare; let’s call them old-growth forests for want of a better word. Overstory In a forest, the layer of vegetation overhead is called the overstory, and the layer of vegetation beneath head level is called the understory. Overstory is used almost synonymously with “canopy,” although in some cases,

Looking up at the overstory

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such as in descriptions of primary tropical forests, the canopy is considered all overhead vegetation and the overstory is the tallest layer of trees that emerge above the canopy. The Overstory is also the title of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Richard Powers that describes people who were moved by the power of trees to try and protect them. One consequence of the popularity of this novel is that a Google search for the term “overstory” is more likely to turn up the review of a novel than an ecological description.

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alm A tree that often resembles a leafy asterisk on a tall stalk and means “vacation” to most residents of North America and Europe. While they scrape the ice from their windshields, their friends are posting photos of coconut palms lining tropical beaches. Indeed, palms only grow in tropical areas. A hard freeze kills the terminal bud—the largest bud in nature— which contains the new year’s growth at the top of the palm. When the bud dies, the tree dies. Unlike all the other trees in this book that grow out as well as up, palms mainly grow up. They do not grow vastly wider as they age, since they put down no annual rings. Why are palms so different from other trees? Well, a tree is any plant with a tall trunk and leaves; it is not a particular kind of plant. Trees are not necessarily closely related to one another; in fact, a palm tree is more closely related to the grass on the lawn than it is to a maple tree. Anyone who has ever studied plants, even in the most rudimentary way, might remember

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such as in descriptions of primary tropical forests, the canopy is considered all overhead vegetation and the overstory is the tallest layer of trees that emerge above the canopy. The Overstory is also the title of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Richard Powers that describes people who were moved by the power of trees to try and protect them. One consequence of the popularity of this novel is that a Google search for the term “overstory” is more likely to turn up the review of a novel than an ecological description.

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alm A tree that often resembles a leafy asterisk on a tall stalk and means “vacation” to most residents of North America and Europe. While they scrape the ice from their windshields, their friends are posting photos of coconut palms lining tropical beaches. Indeed, palms only grow in tropical areas. A hard freeze kills the terminal bud—the largest bud in nature— which contains the new year’s growth at the top of the palm. When the bud dies, the tree dies. Unlike all the other trees in this book that grow out as well as up, palms mainly grow up. They do not grow vastly wider as they age, since they put down no annual rings. Why are palms so different from other trees? Well, a tree is any plant with a tall trunk and leaves; it is not a particular kind of plant. Trees are not necessarily closely related to one another; in fact, a palm tree is more closely related to the grass on the lawn than it is to a maple tree. Anyone who has ever studied plants, even in the most rudimentary way, might remember

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that all flowering plants are divided into two main categories: monocots and dicots. Monocots have long, thin leaves with parallel veins and flowers in multiples of three. Dicots have wider leaves (broadleaves) and more complex venation in the leaves. All the other trees in this book are dicots or conifers—ginkgos and palms are the exceptions. Palms are monocots, like grasses, lilies, and daffodils. There are 2,600 different species of palm, and they are highly diverse; Coconut palm tree some are short, some are tall, some have spines, and some have none. While most of the palms have green fronds, there are also magnificent palms with silver-blue fronds. Some palms, such as the coconut palm and the date palm, are important food sources. Occasionally people who live in palm-friendly climates become practically obsessed with growing many different kinds of palm. The poet W. S. Merwin was such a person. In his nineteen-acre Maui, Hawaii, garden, he planted 400 different species, more than 2,700 individual palm plants. His poem The Palms is an homage to them. Here is one verse: “some of the leaves are crystals others are stars / some are bows some are bridges and

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some / are hands / in a world without hands.” Merwin died in 2019, but his garden has been preserved and is open for tours by appointment. Pinchot, Gifford (1865–1946) Pinchot was born into a wealthy family with political connections. His father, a conservationist, suggested that his son, Gifford, should go into forestry, a new field in America. At that time forests were being clear-cut and then just left. There was really no “management” to ensure that the forest resources would be preserved. When Pinchot told one of his professors that he would like to study forestry, his professor responded that no American university had a curriculum in forestry, as it was a science that was unknown and therefore untaught. Pinchot graduated from Yale in 1890 and then traveled through Europe to see the science-based forest management occurring there. When he finished his studies and his travels in 1892, he took a position managing the 125,000-acre forest that surrounded the Vanderbilt’s North Carolina estate known as Biltmore. That was also the year he met John Muir, and they camped together in the Adirondacks. The pair shared a love of the natural world, but Pinchot thought nature should be managed and produce income, while Muir felt that it should be preserved for beauty and biodiversity. Eventually Pinchot and Muir’s differences became too great and their friendship split over the construction of the Hetch Hetchy Dam in Yosemite, California. Pinchot was for it, Muir was against. Pinchot only stayed at Biltmore for a few years before he became a consulting forester in New York. He

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hired a German forester named Schenck to carry out his harvest plans for the Biltmore estate. Schenck wrote about the Big Creek cut he was instructed to make: “In the valley were the most beautiful trees I had ever seen, towering tulip trees with gigantic chestnuts, red oaks, basswood, and ash trees at their feet.” This “glorious, primeval forest” would soon be cut and sent to the mill—by his own doing, for he felt he could not go against Pinchot’s order. After the cut he lamented, “the bed of Big Creek, arched with Rhododendrons, green with moss-covered rocks, and replete with brook trout, was made a ruined run, a veritable arroyo of torn shores and skimmed stones.” Meanwhile, in New York, Pinchot, through his family connections, got involved in government work. He was instructed to oversee the development of the US Forest Service. That task was accomplished in 1905, and he became its first chief under President Theodore Roosevelt. When Roosevelt was no longer president, Pinchot continued to work hard to preserve the national forests. Even after he was fired from his position by those who did not feel strongly about nationalized land, Pinchot never stopped “politicking” to preserve what he and Roosevelt had created. Pinchot was born in Connecticut, lived in New York for most of his early life, attended school in New Hampshire, worked in North Carolina, and eventually moved to Washington, DC, to lead the forest service, yet he was elected as governor of Pennsylvania in 1922. How did that happen? Although he spent very little time in Pennsylvania, his family had deep roots in that state, especially in the town of Milford. His parents

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built Grey Towers there, a mansion 66,000 square feet in size, which was completed on Pinchot’s twenty-first birthday. Today Grey Towers is open to the public and houses the Pinchot Institute. Toward the end of his life Pinchot became more of a preservationist. This is evident in the revised and final edition of his book The Training of a Forester. In the last version, he mentions the beauty of the forest and the other organisms that depend upon it; these things were not mentioned in the earlier editions. Pinchot founded the Society of American Foresters, and he used that organization to criticize the devastation left behind from traditional logging. In addition to the “most perfect” tree in Muir Woods being dedicated to Pinchot, there is also a state park in Pennsylvania and a national forest in Washington State named after him. His only child, Gifford Bryce Pinchot, founded the Natural Resources Defense Council. See also Douglas-fir; Muir, John; Muir Woods; Roosevelt, Theodore. Pine An evergreen tree with long, needlelike leaves that grow clustered together in bundles. The length of the needles and the number of needles in a bundle is a key to identification. There are 126 species of pine in the world, distributed across the northern hemisphere of the planet. The largest pine tree in the world is a sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) that grows in California. The oldest tree in the world, of any species, is a bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), also living in California. It is 4,600 years old. Another tree of the same species reached 4,900 years old

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before it was cut down by a researcher who didn’t realize its age. The bristlecone pine grows very slowly and is not a very large tree. The dry, rocky, windswept places where it grows are not favorable for other trees, or insects, or fungi; hence, the bristlecone pine has an advantage. Another superlative pine is the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus). It is one of the tallest trees in the eastern United States, and it can live to be 400 years old. It was this very species that played a large part in the American War of Independence. When England claimed ownership of the tall, straight trees—to be used for building their naval ships—the colonists rebelled. The first Revolutionary War flag depicted a white pine tree. England eventually lost that war, but that did nothing to help the pine trees. “Like so many busy demons” (to quote Henry David Thoreau), Americans carried on with a wood-cutting industry that lasted more than a hundred

Ponderosa pinecones

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years and removed almost all of the ancient white pines. Farther south in the United States, it was the tall, straight longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) that provided material for the timber industry. Pines produce two kinds of cones: the papery male cones that release yellow pollen before dropping to the ground, and the woody female cones that may take years to fully develop. Seeds develop inside the woody cones. The seeds from most pines are light and are disbursed by the wind, while the seeds from other pine species are larger and are dispersed by birds and small mammals. Humans also enjoy eating pine nuts from some species of pinyon pines, stone pines, and Asian pines. Proforestation Letting existing forests grow to their ecological potential. This is a term first used in 2019 by William Moomaw and introduced in the article “Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good” in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Moomaw and his coauthors, Susan Masino and Edward Faison, point out that reforestation and afforestation are frequently mentioned as methods for capturing additional atmospheric carbon dioxide, but allowing standing forests to continue growing— proforestation—is actually a more efficient way to capture carbon dioxide. Cutting mature forests for timber products releases soil carbon into the atmosphere; additionally, young trees do not sequester as much carbon dioxide as older trees, and many young planted trees die before they reach maturity. By allowing forests to grow unimpeded, much more carbon could be removed from

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the atmosphere, and a side benefit is the biodiversity preserved in these less disturbed forests. See also Carbon Sequestration.

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edwood Summer In the summer of 1990 forest preservation activists planned to gather in California to protest the continued cutting of the ancient redwood trees by private timber companies. Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were the primary organizers. They dubbed the action “Redwood Summer.” In May, just before the largest actions, a pipe bomb went off in the car Bari was driving with Cherney as a passenger. Both were injured, Bari most severely, with a shattered pelvis, broken back, and wounds in the groin area. The FBI claimed that the pair knew of the bomb and were planning to use it, and charged them with manufacturing and transporting bombs. The FBI then used the pretext of investigating the bombing as cover for a nationwide investigation of Earth First! Bari and Cherney claimed innocence, noting that the Redwood Summer resistance was completely nonviolent. They believed the bomb was set by someone else who intended to kill them, as they had recently been getting death threats. After the case was not prosecuted, the pair countersued. Their suit claimed false arrest, unlawful search, and a conspiracy to suppress their free speech by discrediting them as violent extremists. The lawsuit was delayed from coming to trial for eleven years as a result of motions and appeals by the defendants. In 2002 a jury found that the FBI and the Oakland police had framed Bari and Cherney, and they were awarded $4.4 million. Bari died of breast

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the atmosphere, and a side benefit is the biodiversity preserved in these less disturbed forests. See also Carbon Sequestration.

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edwood Summer In the summer of 1990 forest preservation activists planned to gather in California to protest the continued cutting of the ancient redwood trees by private timber companies. Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were the primary organizers. They dubbed the action “Redwood Summer.” In May, just before the largest actions, a pipe bomb went off in the car Bari was driving with Cherney as a passenger. Both were injured, Bari most severely, with a shattered pelvis, broken back, and wounds in the groin area. The FBI claimed that the pair knew of the bomb and were planning to use it, and charged them with manufacturing and transporting bombs. The FBI then used the pretext of investigating the bombing as cover for a nationwide investigation of Earth First! Bari and Cherney claimed innocence, noting that the Redwood Summer resistance was completely nonviolent. They believed the bomb was set by someone else who intended to kill them, as they had recently been getting death threats. After the case was not prosecuted, the pair countersued. Their suit claimed false arrest, unlawful search, and a conspiracy to suppress their free speech by discrediting them as violent extremists. The lawsuit was delayed from coming to trial for eleven years as a result of motions and appeals by the defendants. In 2002 a jury found that the FBI and the Oakland police had framed Bari and Cherney, and they were awarded $4.4 million. Bari died of breast

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cancer in 1997, at age forty-seven, and never learned of the verdict. See also Hill, Julia Butterfly; Sequoioideae. Reforestation The planting of forests where they once occurred but occur no longer. Reforestation can also be accomplished by allowing natural forests to return via seed banks and seed dispersal from nearby forests. Five thousand years ago Planet Earth had 46 percent forest cover; currently it has 31 percent forest cover; hence, there are many areas now cleared that were once forested. Assisting forests in recovering those areas once again will result in building the soil, controlling runoff and erosion, and increasing habitat for wild animal species. Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919) President of the United States from 1901–9. The most celebrated camping trip in American history occurred in 1903 when Republican president Theodore Roosevelt spent several days in Yosemite, California, with writer and explorer John Muir. Muir convinced Roosevelt that the nation needed to protect more land in parks, and Roosevelt saw that through. He is frequently called the “conservation president” because during his time in office he used his authority to establish 150 national forests, 51 bird reserves, 18 national monuments, 4 national game preserves, and 5 national parks, totaling nearly 230 million acres in all. No other president, until Barack Obama, has equaled that amount of land protection. Roosevelt said, “Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish

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the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.” He also said, “there is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty.” See also Muir, John.

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apwood The light-colored wood closest to the outer, bark-covered portion of a tree’s trunk. The sapwood is the most recently laid-down wood fiber, and it is where the water is actively moving from roots to leaves. In young trees all wood is sapwood, but as a tree ages, the oldest water-conducting cells in the center stop functioning and become darker in color. In large trees the

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the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches, or its romance.” He also said, “there is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty.” See also Muir, John.

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apwood The light-colored wood closest to the outer, bark-covered portion of a tree’s trunk. The sapwood is the most recently laid-down wood fiber, and it is where the water is actively moving from roots to leaves. In young trees all wood is sapwood, but as a tree ages, the oldest water-conducting cells in the center stop functioning and become darker in color. In large trees the

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sapwood area appears as a light ring around the darker central heartwood. Sapwood is just as strong as heartwood, but because it has more moisture and sugars, and fewer oils and waxes, it is more susceptible to fungus and insects. See also Heartwood; Meristem. Sequoioideae A subfamily of cypress that are commonly known as redwoods. These are exceptional trees. The three species that make up this subfamily include the tallest and the most massive trees in the world. Two of those species, coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) and giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), occur in California, and the third species, dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), occurs in China. All three species are very ancient and are the last of a long lineage. Four other species of coast redwood are now extinct, including the species that is petrified in Yellowstone National Park. The giant sequoia has no extinct close relatives, but its range has been shrinking over the eons. This exact same tree species was common during the age of the dinosaurs, when it occurred in Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Australia. Just imagine the strangelooking animals that slept in its shade! At present it occurs only in very restricted areas of the western Sierra Nevada mountains of California, and its range continues to shrink. Individual trees can live more than 2,000 years. Roughly a third of the giant sequoia trees left on Earth were cut down in the late 1800s to early 1900s. More than 90 percent of the old-growth coast redwoods were cut then too. Fortunately, there are now

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state parks and national parks protecting almost all of the remaining old-growth groves. The story of the third species, dawn redwood, is like something from a fable. By examining the fossil record, it was determined that there were originally five species of Metasequoia; like its two sister species, it occurred all over the globe. These trees outlived the event 65 million years ago that drove the dinosaurs to extinction, but then the trees disappeared from the fossil record about 2 million years ago. Imagine the excitement then when a species of Metasequoia turned out to be alive! It was found in the 1940s in a small valley in China near the Yangtze River. So, unlike coast redwoods and giant sequoias, which went extinct everywhere except California (and a tiny region in Oregon), dawn redwood disappeared from North America but remained living in China. In 1947 seeds of the dawn redwood were collected and sent to major universities and herbaria. They have now been planted widely across the globe. Although the trees are not “wild” anymore, with the help of humans they have once again expanded their range across the planet. The story of what happened in their last-known wild location might sound familiar. A Chinese man whose ancestors settled in the valley of the dawn redwood, Shui-hsa, around 1750 tells the story: “The mountain slopes bore a forest cover so dense that one could not see the blue sky through the canopy, and the level valley floor had never been disturbed by man. Fires were set to destroy the forest, and rice paddies were established. Rice culture since then has extended over practically the whole of the level valley floor, and the forests on the mountain slopes have been largely destroyed because

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of timber use and charcoal making.” They could have easily destroyed the last of the dawn redwood too, but some held on at the margins. In the late 1940s there were still naturally reproducing populations, but between 1950 and 1980, following the Chinese Revolution, several hundred dawn redwood trees were logged. It is now illegal to cut the trees, but their habitat has been so greatly altered that they no longer reproduce naturally. They are considered endangered. Meanwhile, more and more cultivated dawn redwood trees are being planted from New Zealand to Manhattan, including three in “Strawberry Fields,” an area of Central Park dedicated to the memory of John Lennon. See also Muir, John; Old Growth. Sillett, Stephen (1968–) He climbs the tallest trees in the world and studies what lives in their canopies. Sillett started out as a general botanist but soon became interested in what was happening in the tops of the largest plants of all—trees. He was raised on the East Coast but chose to attend Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for his undergraduate education. In 1987, during his junior year, he and a friend free-climbed an ancient redwood in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in California. He was astounded by the life he witnessed within the canopy: lichen, soil, shrubs, insects—the top of a redwood tree supports many other organisms! These were ecosystems that no one had studied or described. Sillett had found his niche, but it took him a number of years and a number of other research projects before he started seriously studying the redwood canopy.

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The next step in his journey was learning to climb tall trees, such as Douglas-firs, using the techniques taught to him by an earlier generation of canopy researchers. Rigged harnesses and Prusik knots enabled the researchers to get up and down, but that was about all. At times Sillett even used the traditional technique of the lumbermen— spiked boots and a flip line around the waist—for collecting data from the canopies of the Douglas-firs. An arborist and redwood enthusiast, Kevin Hillery, was angry when he heard that someone was climbing precious old-growth trees using steel spikes. He first tracked down Sillett just to tell him off but then ended up teaching him to climb in a more tree-friendly way. The techniques developed by arborists allowed movement across branches as well as horizontally from tree to tree. The arborists wore soft-soled boots and were careful not to harm the trees. After learning these techniques, Sillett’s research entered a whole new dimension—and he had a new group of climbing buddies. The story of Sillett and his exploits was told by Richard Preston in his book The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring. Preston learned to climb trees using these advanced methods in order to be able to climb with Sillett. Besides climbing and studying the coast redwoods, Sillett has climbed and measured the tallest of each of the tallest tree species on Earth, including giant sequoias, Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce, Eucalyptus regnans, and Eucalyptus globulus. He is currently a professor at Humboldt State University, and the Save the Redwoods League financially supports many of his research projects. See also Arbor ist; Douglas- fir ; Eucalyptus; Sequoioideae.

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Silviculture The growing and cultivating of forest crops, generally for the production of timber. “Silvi” is Latin for “forest,” so silviculture is the growing of forests. The methods of growing forests might involve seed harvesting, seed germination, seedling growth, and planting. Once the trees are growing in the forest, decisions need to be made about fertilization, thinning, pruning, diseases, insect pests, and harvesting dates and methods. The usual goal of all this work is a strong economic return when the trees eventually go to the mill or the pulp yard. Site preparation is the management work that is carried out after a harvest and before the new crop is planted or seeded. Site preparation sometimes involves prescribed burning. The burning reduces competition from other plants, raises the pH, and increases available phosphorus. Mechanical scarification is another method used to prepare a commercial forest site. Scarification is accomplished by using a bulldozer with a front-mounted blade plow or rake, or by dragging a rolling chopper or heavy chains to move away detritus, mosses, and other plants and expose mineral soil for seeding and planting. A more powerful piece of equipment used for scarification has two massive toothed blades that can dig into the soil to create trenches and mounds. The trenches make it easier for planters to access the site, and the mounds increase drainage and raise the soil temperature for the seedlings. After initial establishment of the forest, much of silviculture’s focus is on competition. The goal of silvicultural management is to direct more of the forest resources (e.g., water and sunlight) into the trees that are most valuable in the marketplace. The competing plants

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Machine used for mechanical scarification

may be sprayed with herbicides or cut out to reduce competition. It is called a plantation when virtually all competing plants are eliminated. When natural regeneration or artificial seeding results in trees growing too close together for silviculturally desired levels, the stand is thinned. Thinning is an operation that artificially reduces the number of trees growing in a stand with the goal of speeding the growth of the remaining trees and increasing economic returns. There are a great variety of ways to thin a forest, and it is nothing like thinning a carrot patch. As Joseph McNeel, the director of West Virginia University’s Forestry Division says, “you take the rest and leave the best. . . . The forest will do that naturally . . . but it may take a hundred years to occur. Thinning speeds that up.” And there is some income to be made from the thinning, even if it is just sold as pulp or biomass for pellets. “And then you can log your choice trees sooner,” adds Donna

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Childress with the American Forest Foundation. Thinning may be done by hand using chainsaws and horses, or it may be done with large logging equipment, such as a feller buncher, which rolls up to a tree, grasps it between metal claws, cuts it clean across the base, and lifts and moves it to the processing area.Young, densely stocked stands are often thinned mechanically with wide rows or strips being cut out of the forest at measured intervals; this is called precommercial thinning. Stocking charts and density management diagrams from forestry textbooks/websites guide the management decisions. As an example, for red pine (Pinus resinosa), naturally regenerated forests may contain 2,000 young trees per acre. When the trees have grown to a point where they average five inches in diameter, the stocking chart suggests that the number of trees should be reduced to 400 trees per acre; when the trees reach fifteen inches in diameter, the chart says there should only be 175 trees per acre; and by the time of the final harvest, the stand should have 100 trees per acre. Although silviculture “by the book” was often hard on the land and reduced biodiversity, the profession has been slowly shifting and incorporating more ecological principles, including leaving riparian buffers undisturbed, retaining wildlife trees, such as snags, and maintaining preservation cores where nothing is disturbed. See also Pinchot, Gifford; Snag. Sinuosity Growth form of an ancient tree. Instead of growing straight, the trunk and main branches of older trees often appear curvy and snakelike. These sinuous curves are a

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result of a tree’s response to standing for hundreds of years in one spot while the forest changes around it. A neighboring tree may grow and shade the tree, resulting in growth away from the neighbor. Then the neighboring shade-making tree may be killed by an insect or a storm, resulting in an open patch of sun, which results in another change in growth direction, with branches growing toward the gap. Over the centuries, these toand-fro slow growth patterns result in the character trait known as sinuosity.

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Snag A standing dead tree, not just something that happens to your sweater. Snags are ecologically important because the hollow spaces in a typical snag provide nesting space for a wide variety of animals, including flying squirrels. These nests are high above the forest floor and away from ground-dwelling predators, such as coyotes. The dead wood of a snag is also a food source for numerous fungi. One indicator of an old-growth forest is the presence of snags. See also Old Growth.

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Spotted Owl A bird that became the focal point for the conflicting interests of environmentalists and loggers in the 1990s. Spotted owls live in the old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Scientists and environmentalists watched spotted owl populations decline drastically due to logging in their old-growth forest habitat, but loggers feared the loss of their jobs as more and more of the remaining forest was protected because of the owl. Emotions ran high on both sides regarding the importance of the owl. There are three subspecies of spotted owls, but it is the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) that garnered all the attention. The northern spotted owl is chocolate brown, with big brown eyes and a heart-shaped face. It was once quite common. Mating pairs stay together to breed and hunt; they are extremely territorial and each pair requires thousands of acres of territory. The owls nest in cavities of large old trees, or in the broken tops of large trees, or in abandoned raptor nests. All of these habitat spaces are more common in old-growth forests. The owls also need forests with tall canopies that have space under the lowest branches to fly and hunt. Again, this is the sort of habitat that ancient forests provide. The adult pair and the nestlings depend on prey species that also need old-growth forests, such as the flying squirrels that occupy cavities in snags, the tree voles that live their entire lives in the canopy, and the wood rats that live in the tangled debris on the forest floor. But as more and more of these forests were cut, the flying squirrels and the woodrats disappeared along with the huge trees. The spotted owls disappeared too. The young

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plantation forests that replaced the original forests did not have the large trees with cavities for nesting or the habitat for the prey species. By 1990 only 12 percent of the appropriate habitat was left intact, and the owl was on its way to extinction. The US Fish and Wildlife Service responded by listing it as an endangered species in 1990, after refusing this listing in 1982, 1987, and 1989. Although the northern spotted owl is now listed as threatened and endangered, and logging plans in the national forests of the Pacific Northwest have changed to accommodate the birds, the species is still in decline.

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The owls now face a new threat. Barred owls (Strix varia) have moved from their former eastern forest habitat, across the Great Plains, and into the forests of the Pacific Northwest. The first barred owl nest was witnessed there in 1970. Barred owls are more “humantolerant” and can live in a wider variety of habitats and eat a wider variety of prey. They are also larger than spotted owls, so when conflicts over territory arise, it is the spotted owl that loses. Now there is a new controversy over owls in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, as forest managers have begun calling in barred owls with recordings and then shooting them when they appear. For some this is considered the best way to help the spotted owls, while for others it is considered a travesty. See also Old Growth. Spruce Spruce trees live in snowy places. The boreal forest, also called the taiga, is the world’s largest land biome, and spruce trees (Picea) are a major component of these forests. Thirty-five different kinds of spruce trees grow across the northern parts of the earth. Spruce are all evergreen and have the classic, conical shape of a Christmas tree. They even have the smell of the holidays, as Donald Culross Peattie describes: “In the high groves there is only the delicious commingled fragrance, reminding you of Christmas morning even though it may be a day in July when, panting in the thinner air after a 6000-foot climb, you rest beneath the intense shade of these trees, on the deep bed of mosses.” Peattie describes the white spruce (Picea glauca) as such: “the lowest arms sweep benignantly down almost to earth,

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then turn up at the twig, like fingers lifted, in a gesture of easy grace.” One might criticize the way he bestows a tree with human appendages, but all is forgiven with the image of arboreal delicacy he conjures. Spruce cones hang downward, and the scales are softer and more flexible than the woody cones of pines. The easiest way to differentiate a spruce tree from all other evergreen trees is by looking closely at the needles and how they join to the branches. Trees in the pine genus have needles in bundles; other evergreens, such as hemlock, have flat needles that are attached singly to the branch; but the spruce has needles singly attached to the branch that are almost square in cross section, enabling them to be rolled between the fingertips. (Although there are exceptions, such as the Ezo spruce [Picea jezoensis], which grows in Japan and has flat needles.) Another identifying characteristic is the way the needle is attached to the branch, for there will be a little peg, called a pulvini, where a spruce needle attaches to the branch. Even after a needle falls, this peg will remain. Spruce needles tend to be rigid and have a pointed tip. So, if you “shake hands” with a spruce branch, you might want to say “ouch.” Although all

Close-up of a spruce needle

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types of spruce trees have their basic needle structure in common, one place where they vary is in their leaf color. For instance, the Colorado blue spruce has a color like no other evergreen tree; in contrast, the Norway spruce is a dark kelly green. Other spruce have common names like white spruce, red spruce, and black spruce. All three of these species grow in the vast boreal forest that stretches across Canada, as well as on the highest hills and latitudes of the eastern United States. Black spruce is abundant in areas of permafrost, where deep soil is frozen. When the permafrost melts due to climate change or logging, which exposes the soil to sunlight, the soil structure changes and the black spruce lean in toward the melted area and may eventually fall over. These are called “drunken trees.” Perhaps they are drowning their sorrows. Although black spruce trees are normally too small to use as structural lumber, many thousands of acres of them are cut to make biomass pellets, books, and the chopsticks we get with our Chinese carryout. The Spruce genus is not without its superlatives though. The largest spruce species is the Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis). Although it is named after a town in Alaska, the Sitka spruce reaches the pinnacle of its development farther south. The tallest tree in Canada, named the Carmanah Giant, is a Sitka spruce located on Vancouver Island, but even taller specimens can be found in Oregon and Washington State. These huge trees are more than 300 feet tall. Sitka spruce trees are long-lived, and some are more than half a millennium in age, but it is a Norway spruce (Picea abies) in Sweden that has sometimes been called

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the “oldest tree on Earth.” This claim is a bit misleading, however, because the part sticking up from the ground that most would call a tree is only a few hundred years old. It is just the roots that are truly ancient. For time and time again, these roots have supported a tree that has lived for hundreds of years. When each of these upright trees “died,” the roots remained alive and another one of the rooted branches continued to grow. By using carbon dating, researchers determined that “Old Tjikko” (as this Norway spruce is known) is more than 9,000 years old—the oldest tree? That depends on one’s definition. Stranahan, Nancy (1952–) In 1995, Nancy Stranahan, an Ohio native, was one of the founders of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, located at the leading edge of Ohio’s Appalachian foothills. At that time, Stranahan was a state park naturalist turned retail baker and gift shop owner who cared deeply about biodiversity and nature’s beauty. When the 7 Caves tourist park came up for sale, she felt moved to preserve it from further development. In addition to having caves that sheltered vulnerable bat populations, the rock walls and flowing springs along forested Rocky Fork Gorge were stunningly beautiful and rich in biodiversity. Alongside her husband, Stranahan formed a nonprofit and began fund-raising to buy the parcel. In one season, the couple raised $60,000 toward the agreed sale price of $203,000. But the money wasn’t coming in fast enough. Up against deadlines, the seller gave them just two weeks to commit to a closing date before the land would be subdivided and sold off as house lots. A

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dramatic last-minute loan through the Ohio chapter of the Nature Conservancy saved the project. Stranahan figured that, other than fund-raising for the balance, her job was done. But then an adjacent property came up for sale, and then another. There were two more loans negotiated with the Nature Conservancy to help pay for them. Many private philanthropists stepped up to the cause as well, and the membership of the sanctuary grew. Just five years later the sanctuary was 1,000 acres in size, held $3 million in assets, and had expanded its vision from saving the 7 Caves to protecting a tenmile-long forested corridor along the lower Rocky Fork. In 2005, the Highlands Nature Sanctuary expanded even farther, out of the Rocky Fork Gorge and into a rare short-grass prairie region closer to the Ohio River. It adopted a new name, the Arc of Appalachia, in response to its expanded mission of saving precious natural areas throughout southern Appalachian Ohio. Since those days, the Arc has raised nearly $17 million and has saved nearly 7,000 acres of land. Stranahan has negotiated and fund-raised for 114 separate land acquisition projects, 68 of which built up the original preserve, the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, to the nearly 3,000 acres it is presently. Today the sanctuary offers nearly twenty miles of hiking trails, eight overnight lodges, an Appalachian Forest Museum that interprets the world significance of the eastern temperate forest, and a thriving Appalachian Forest School offering courses for advanced naturalists. Stranahan shows no hint of retiring, despite her halo of white hair. She continues to fund-raise and purchase land parcels, and the Arc is experiencing explosive growth. Stranahan now

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has a full-time staff and a cadre of devoted volunteers. Her story is illustrative of what one person can do when igniting and channeling the passion of others. Stranahan is a force of nature; a force for nature. Stomata The small mouths on a leaf that let carbon dioxide in and let water vapor and oxygen out. They are usually described as “pores” but “mouth” feels more accurate since these structures—hundreds or thousands to a leaf—are not passive openings. The stomata can open and close in response to environmental conditions. Hot and dry? The stomata close and water vapor is retained in the leaves. Moderate temperatures and moist conditions? Stomata open to let maximum carbon dioxide into the leaf, so maximum photosynthesis can take place, with no worries about escaping water vapor. The stomata are constantly, and sensitively, adjusting depending on the needs of the plant and the external conditions. The balancing act is something like what happens at your doorway when you want to let the guests in but you don’t want to let the puppy out. The microscopic stomata are critically important for life on Earth. Ninety percent of the water that enters a tree’s roots escapes through the stomata and back into the atmosphere without ever participating in the photosynthetic process. From an average tree, in the summer, fifty gallons of water a day are returned to the atmosphere through stomatal openings. From gigantic trees, like sequoia, that figure is closer to 500 gallons. Just imagine the vast quantity of water vapor reentering the atmosphere from an entire forest! Forests not only rely

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Close-up of stomata on leaf

on rainfall but are actively creating rainfall from the water vapor escaping the stomata, and also from the organisms and compounds released by the trees that act as nuclei for condensation. However, water vapor is just one side of the stomatal door. The other side is the atmospheric carbon dioxide that the plants need to build the carbon-containing molecules they use for both structure and energy storage. Forty percent of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passes through stomata at some point during the year. Trees capture much of this carbon in the stems, which give them the structural ability to reach high for the sunlight. Some of the carbon-containing molecules built during photo-

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synthesis are transported down to the roots for growth and storage there. Some of those molecules become a food source for the mycorrhizal fungal networks. The free oxygen that has changed life on our planet also passes through the stomata. It is nothing but a byproduct of photosynthesis—and the stomata don’t tightly regulate its coming or going—but to us it is life itself. See also Carbon Sequestration; Mycorrhizae.

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ongass Forest Located in Alaska, this is the largest national forest in the United States. When asked to conjure an image of the geographic outline of Alaska in their minds, most people picture that burl-like bump coming off the northwest side of Canada, but only a few include in their mind’s eye the narrow strip of coastline and islands that snakes southward. That strip is the Alaskan Panhandle, where there are a few cities, such as Juneau, but most of it is made up of national parks, national monuments, and the Tongass National Forest. The national forest covers almost 17 million acres, the majority of the panhandle. Theodore Roosevelt is responsible for creating most of the national forests in the early 1900s. National forests are open to logging, and the Tongass National Forest is no exception. Hand logging started in the 1950s, and soon after that the Forest Service gave a contract to the Ketchikan Pulp Company (KPC), part of Louisiana-Pacific, to utilize the pulp from the small logging operations. But the pulp company worked to control the market and started dealing in whole logs, and then whole forests. Much of the cut timber was exported.

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synthesis are transported down to the roots for growth and storage there. Some of those molecules become a food source for the mycorrhizal fungal networks. The free oxygen that has changed life on our planet also passes through the stomata. It is nothing but a byproduct of photosynthesis—and the stomata don’t tightly regulate its coming or going—but to us it is life itself. See also Carbon Sequestration; Mycorrhizae.

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ongass Forest Located in Alaska, this is the largest national forest in the United States. When asked to conjure an image of the geographic outline of Alaska in their minds, most people picture that burl-like bump coming off the northwest side of Canada, but only a few include in their mind’s eye the narrow strip of coastline and islands that snakes southward. That strip is the Alaskan Panhandle, where there are a few cities, such as Juneau, but most of it is made up of national parks, national monuments, and the Tongass National Forest. The national forest covers almost 17 million acres, the majority of the panhandle. Theodore Roosevelt is responsible for creating most of the national forests in the early 1900s. National forests are open to logging, and the Tongass National Forest is no exception. Hand logging started in the 1950s, and soon after that the Forest Service gave a contract to the Ketchikan Pulp Company (KPC), part of Louisiana-Pacific, to utilize the pulp from the small logging operations. But the pulp company worked to control the market and started dealing in whole logs, and then whole forests. Much of the cut timber was exported.

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Besides the location and size of the Tongass, another remarkable thing about it is how long environmental activists have been trying to save it, and how many activists have been involved. Perhaps the start of the movement was 1974, when three men challenged a contract given to KPC to log 800,000 acres of old-growth forest. The suit centered on protecting salmon streams from the effects of logging. The federal judge sided with the challengers. Cue a battleground of forest rangers, tree huggers, judges, politicians, timber industries, nonprofits, hunters, and tourism agencies and you get some idea of what has been happening there for the past fifty years. Some gained, some lost, but by 1990 half of the old-growth forest was gone. The majority of the large trees being harvested were/are western redcedar (Thuja plicata) and Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis). Although the pleas for help from various environmental organizations make it sound as if the whole forest is threatened, in reality the majority of the old-growth forest areas are now preserved in dedicated wilderness areas. There are nineteen different wilderness areas within the forest totaling more than 5.7 million acres. Although national forests can, and are, logged, wilderness areas in those forests cannot be logged. The most recent, in the long string of ideological battles, was a 2019 Trump administration reversal on the limits of logging. This was done at the request of Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski and Governor Michael Dunleavy. It would have allowed an additional 1.8 million acres to be logged, and hundreds of miles of new roads into a formerly roadless area. Eight environmental groups brought the case to court, and in 2020 a

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federal district judge declared that the logging plan violated the National Environmental Policy Act. The judge wrote, “By not developing actual site-specific information, the Forest Service limited its ability to make informed decisions regarding impacts to subsistence uses and presented local communities with vague, hypothetical, and over-inclusive representations of the project’s effects.” As with the other wins for the forest, this one is likely temporary too. Expect another round. Environmental battles can be lost only once, but they must be won over and over again. As Rachel Carson put it, “Conservation is a cause that has no end. There is no point at which we will say our work is finished.” See also Spruce. Tree of Souls (Avatar) A giant willow-like tree in the fantasy film Avatar. The film, written and directed by James Cameron in 2009, describes contact with the fictional Na’vi people. The Tree of Souls is the most sacred thing that exists for the Na’vi people. It is their direct connection to Eywa (what they call their Supreme Being). The tree is able to connect with the nervous system of the Na’vi people, and it can also connect them all together as one. If the tree were to be destroyed, it would create a cultural and spiritual void that would destroy the race. Thus, it is also called the “home tree.” The tree produces seeds that look like a cross between a huge dandelion seed and a small jellyfish. The seeds drift slowly and playfully. But the seeds are more than just genetic material for trees; they are pure and sacred spirits, known as woodsprites. So, if a seed from the tree chooses to land

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on a spot, it is considered an auspicious sign. When someone from the tribe dies, a woodsprite is planted with them; in that way the deceased stays connected to Eywa and the rest of the tribe. The Tree of Souls resonated with moviegoers. It reflected the beliefs of ancient cultures across the globe, such as Druids and Native Americans, who revere certain trees and refuse to cut them. In 2010, in Hyde Park, London, an interactive replica of the Tree of Souls was installed. The fiber-optic cables it was made from could change colors, move to music, and display uploaded messages. A consortium of groups, including 20th Century Fox, committed to planting a real tree for every person who interacted with the sculptural tree. This Avatar Home Tree Initiative funded the planting of more than a million trees across the globe. Perhaps the closest thing to a real-life Tree of Souls is the Lone Poplar (Populus laurifolia) in the Kalmykia province of southwest Russia. This tree is “lone” because it is the only tree for many miles. The surrounding landscape is a vast grassland. How did the tree get there? The story of its origin tells of a Buddhist monk who made a pilgrimage to Tibet and then stored some seeds from his journey in his walking staff. When he returned he hiked to the highest mound on the vast, empty steppe. He planted his staff in that spot and eventually the seeds sprouted. In what century did that happen? The identity of the monk and the year of the planting are both unknown. As the tree got larger, travelers on long horseback journeys would stop in the shade of the tree for a rest. As they rested they brought their requests to the tree. The requests were granted.

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More people came to pray and worship at the tree; these were no longer travelers just passing through but spiritual pilgrims coming specifically to worship at the tree. Today the tree is regarded as a shrine, and visitors by the hundreds bring prayer flags and incense to the tree and pray and meditate in its presence. Tu BiShvat A Jewish holiday celebrated in late winter/early spring as the New Year of the Trees. In Israel it is celebrated as both a day to plant trees and a day of ecological awareness—a cross between Arbor Day and Earth Day. The Jewish National Fund organizes the tree planting in Israel, and more than a million people participate. In the past some Arab communities saw the tree plantings as a land-grab attempt by the Jewish community, but these days it is more common for Arabs and Jews to plan environmental activities together. It is one Earth, after all. Tu BiShvat has a close connection with fruit trees. The ages of the trees are determined by how many Tu BiShvats they have lived through. Traditionally, in Orthodox Jewish practices, for the first three Tu BiShvats, the fruits from a tree should not be harvested. After a tree has lived through four Tu BiShvats, its fruits may be harvested, and part of the harvest should be used as a tithe. In the sixteenth century a famous Kabbalistic rabbi, Yitzchak Luria of Safed (a.k.a. Ari—“the Lion”), developed a Seder that involved eating ten specific tree fruits and drinking four cups of wine in a specific order while chanting appropriate prayers. It is claimed that Luria was an expert in the language of trees, the language

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of birds, and the language of angels. In contemporary times, a feast of tree fruits has become a traditional part of the Tu BiShvat celebration. See also Arbor Day. Tulip Poplar The largest tree in the eastern United States, an eastern Sequoia, if you will. The tallest are in the Smoky Mountains, and once upon a not-so-long-ago time, one of them reached 192 feet tall. The tulip poplar also has the largest volume measured of any eastern tree, although sycamores are quite close. Some of these impressive giants can be witnessed at the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in North Carolina, but most of the original old-growth trees have been logged out. In the distant past, some of the big ones were felled and carved into canoes. Historical figure Daniel Boone carved a tulip poplar canoe in 1799 to move his family from Kentucky to Missouri. Tulip poplars often appear early in a forest’s development after the previous forest has been cleared. They grow very fast and very straight, and a huge number of them are cut for the usefulness of their timber before they even reach middle age. When they are left alone, however, although some die young from the usual causes—the roll of Mother Nature’s die—others live for hundreds of years. Donald Culross Peattie writes of some tulip trees planted more than 200 years ago that “today are giants of longevity, speaking, themselves, in many-leaved, elegiac voices, of how mayfly were the bright and vanished humans they knew.” The oldestknown tulip poplar tree is more than 500 years old.

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Tulip poplar leaf

The common names of this tree go on and on: tuliptrees, tulipwood, yellow poplar, whitewood. So many different names for the same tree! I am stubborn and continue to use the name I called it by in my undergraduate days—tulip poplar—but perhaps we should just start calling it Liriodendron. There is only one other species with that name, and it is found in China, so they are unlikely to be confused. The American tree is Liriodendron tulipifera, appropriately named for the large flowers it produces. The other species has the appropriate Latin name of Liriodendron chinense. Neither one is a true poplar (as you know, common names can be misleading); instead, they are in the Magnolia family.

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There are more than a hundred different species of Magnolia, but only two species of Liriodendron. All the trees in the family have large, showy flowers, but the leaves of Liriodendron are unlike those of the magnolias. While the other magnolias share a long, elliptical leaf shape, the tulip poplar leaves look like a cut-off mitten, or some would say a cat’s head. See also Magnolia; Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.

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illow A tree found in wet areas around the northern part of the globe.The genus name for the willow, Salix, is derived from the Celtic meaning “near water.” Willows are some of the most difficult trees to identify to species. There are many hundreds of different willow tree species, and they crossbreed easily in the wild. On top of that there are many cultivars created for the horticultural trade—more than 800 at the last count. But even these counts vary, as some claim that there were 1,200 varieties of willow at the Long Ashton Research Station in England before it closed in 2003. They had sixty cultivars of basket willow (Salix viminalis) alone. Before the invention of plastics, the rods from coppiced basket willow plants were used to make all kinds of storage vessels. In 1938, H. J. Massingham wrote about visiting a countryside basket maker: “In two hours—we took half the time talking—I watched a bundle of rods wave and bend and twist until they had reached a final end in which the art and the use were one, an architectural experience I am not likely to forget.” Willows vary vastly in size. While some of the Arctic willows are only a few inches tall, the majority of

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There are more than a hundred different species of Magnolia, but only two species of Liriodendron. All the trees in the family have large, showy flowers, but the leaves of Liriodendron are unlike those of the magnolias. While the other magnolias share a long, elliptical leaf shape, the tulip poplar leaves look like a cut-off mitten, or some would say a cat’s head. See also Magnolia; Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.

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illow A tree found in wet areas around the northern part of the globe.The genus name for the willow, Salix, is derived from the Celtic meaning “near water.” Willows are some of the most difficult trees to identify to species. There are many hundreds of different willow tree species, and they crossbreed easily in the wild. On top of that there are many cultivars created for the horticultural trade—more than 800 at the last count. But even these counts vary, as some claim that there were 1,200 varieties of willow at the Long Ashton Research Station in England before it closed in 2003. They had sixty cultivars of basket willow (Salix viminalis) alone. Before the invention of plastics, the rods from coppiced basket willow plants were used to make all kinds of storage vessels. In 1938, H. J. Massingham wrote about visiting a countryside basket maker: “In two hours—we took half the time talking—I watched a bundle of rods wave and bend and twist until they had reached a final end in which the art and the use were one, an architectural experience I am not likely to forget.” Willows vary vastly in size. While some of the Arctic willows are only a few inches tall, the majority of

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willows are shrubby, and only a few dozen species are tree-sized. The largest is the black willow (Salix nigra), but it is rare for even that tree to reach sixty feet. Willows are the James Dean of the arboreal world: “Live fast, die young” could be their motto too. They take root very easily and grow very quickly, rewarding their human caretakers with a feeling of accomplishment, but it is very likely that those same humans will witness the death of their beloved tree. Could this be the reason willow trees are featured in myths throughout the world? Greeks, Japanese, Irish, and Native Americans all have songs and stories about willows. The Greeks believed that planting a young willow and watching it grow would ease the passage of the soul at death. The Celts believed a willow planted over a grave would retain the essence of the departed one. Some cultures believed that willow under your pillow would enhance dreams and their recollection. Willow twigs are used in some Wiccan love spells. Willows are dioecious, meaning that individual trees produce only male or female flowers. Their flowers emerge very early in the spring, well before their leaves appear. One of the most well-known willow shrubs is the pussy willow (Salix discolor). Now considered a somewhat “old-fashioned” plant, it found a spot in many rural gardens for the sheer pleasure it brought from starting its spring growth so early in the year. The pollen-filled anthers of the male flowers are surrounded by grayish fuzzy hairs that resemble fur—the fur of tiny gray kittens, hence the moniker “pussy willow.” Just as evergreens brought inside at winter solstice were reminders that life goes on even in winter, so, too,

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pussy willows were celebrated as signs of new life. In the Christian church, Palm Sunday is the week before Easter, but the tropical palms used to herald Jesus’s arrival into Jerusalem the week he was to be crucified were not always available for church services in Europe and North America, so pussy willows were often used in their stead. Of all the hundreds of different willows, there is one that is known beyond all others. When asked to fill in the blank—“_____ willow”—the majority of people say “weeping.” These trees with pendant branches reaching down to the ground are fixed in the memory of many a child. I, too, once gathered handfuls of flexible twigs and swung on a willow like the smallest Jane of the jungle. Weeping willow is a commonly known tree, but it has given taxonomists a headache. The simple story is that the classic weeping willow is Salix babylonica, a tree native to China and not Babylon, as the name implies. The Chinese were cultivating this tree hundreds of years ago, so many cultivars and hybrids exist. However, Babylon willow is not reliably hardy in North America, hence, most of the weeping willows there are most likely hybrids of white willow and Babylon willow. Even the experts agree that the nomenclature of weeping willows is “hopelessly confused.” In 1988 Frank Santamour, of the US National Arboretum, wrote that “many of the various names (species, hybrids, cultivars) under which weeping willows are presently cultivated in our major arboreta are virtually meaningless.” He recommended that most of the cultivar names should be abandoned by the nursery trade and we should start

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over: “There is no need to continue the confusion already rampant.” Although horticultural experts like to argue these points, this may be a case, like Shakespeare’s rose, of a tree that can be loved and admired no matter what its name. See also Coppicing; Cultivar.

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Wu, Ken (1973–) Wu is a forest hero who has focused on saving the oldgrowth forests of British Columbia for almost thirty years, since 1991. He grew up in a Taiwanese Canadian family, moving across Canada regularly, as his father, a chemical engineer, relocated to different provinces throughout Wu’s childhood. This provided Wu the opportunity to experience diverse ecosystems while growing up, from the rich deciduous forests and wetlands in southern Ontario, to the prairie grasslands of Saskatchewan, to the mountainous ecosystems of Alberta, and to the temperate rainforests of British Columbia. In 1991 Wu attended the University of British Columbia to study ecology and evolution. He became heavily involved in the campaigns to save the old-growth forests of the Walbran and Capilano Valleys, organizing various rallies, blockades, and events. In 1993 the War in the Woods in British Columbia hit its peak, with more than 12,000 people taking part in mass blockades to halt logging trucks in Clayoquot Sound, near Tofino,

Wu in western redcedar stump on Vancouver Island

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resulting in almost 900 arrests. Wu organized the student blockades and the large urban rallies in downtown Vancouver. The experience instilled a strong sense of optimism in him surrounding the power of movementbuilding. That experience never left him. In 2005 Wu led a campaign that was simultaneously focused on saving the remaining old-growth forests of British Columbia and sustaining the logging industry there. The Forest Workers Alliance organized to ban raw log exports; ensure a sustainable, value-added, secondgrowth forest industry; and end old-growth logging. This alliance put forest workers and environmentalists on the same side during debates. The alliance became vital when the provincial government tried to block the creation of new protected areas with the Working Forest Initiative. In 2010 Wu cofounded the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA). The AFA is a nonprofit dedicated solely to the protection of British Columbia’s old-growth forests, with an emphasis on building nontraditional alliances with tourism businesses, forestry workers, and First Nations, as well as using professional photography to bring the beauty and destruction of the grandest ancient forests in the country to people via the quickly expanding social media platforms of the time. The organization’s collaboration with the small business community to protect old-growth forests, in particular with the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, dramatically expanded the momentum to protect old-growth forests in British Columbia. The campaigns also featured catchy nicknames coined by Wu for various endangered forests, which have helped campaigns go viral, including the

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ancient redcedars of the “Avatar Grove,” nicknamed shortly after the release of James Cameron’s blockbuster movie; Canada’s second-largest Douglas-fir, “Big Lonely Doug,” which stands alone in a clear-cut; and the “Jurassic Grove,” an endangered old-growth forest that, if protected, will become “Jurassic Park.”  In 2018 Wu stepped down as the executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance to establish a new organization, the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA), which focuses on the large-scale, science-based protection of all endangered ecosystems, supports Indigenous Protected Areas, promotes ecosystem literacy, and expands outreach to nontraditional allies of the conservation movement. See also Tree of Souls (Avatar).

Acknowledgments I am hugely grateful for illustrator Maren Westfall. She was a joy to work with, and this book is much stronger due to her talents. My entire extended family is supportive of my work speaking for the trees, and I thank them all, most especially my daughter, Alyssa Maloof. Some personal friends and professional colleagues who are guiding lights include Jamie Phillips, Richard Powers, and Diego Saez Gill. I live in gratitude for the other “tree people” in my life, and in no particular order I think of Bob Leverett, Andrew Joslin, Susan Masino, Sunshine Brosi, Mike Kellett, Will Blozan, Harry White, Doug Wood, Brian Kelley, Craig Limpach, Nancy Stranahan, Duane Hook, Jill Jonnes, Turner Sharp, and Tim Kovar, but there are many, many others. I also thank Jeff Kirwan for reading an early draft of the manuscript. Everyone at Princeton University Press was a delight to work with; particular thanks go to Abigail Johnson and Robert Kirk, who thought I was the right person

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for this project, and who gave me the freedom to do with it as I pleased. Thanks also to copyeditor Cathryn Slovensky and book designer Chris Ferrante. Finally, my sincerest gratitude to anyone who has spoken out for a forest—or even a single tree.

Works Cited Addendum Much of the writing and research for this book was done during the COVID-19 quarantine. I am grateful for the many electronic databases that were available to me in my home during that time, particularly JSTOR, Web of Science, Wikipedia, and the ENTS electronic bulletin board. Braun, E. L. Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America.  Hafner, 1964. Collins, Robert F. A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest, 1770–1970. Edited by Betty B. Ellison. USDA Forest Service, Southern Region, 1976. Childress, Donna. “Tree Thinning 101.” Woodland magazine (Fall 2014). American Forest Foundation. Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Murray, 1859. Davis, Mary B. Eastern Old-Growth Forests: Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery. Island Press, 1996.

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Davis, Mary B. Old Growth in the East: A Survey. Cenozoic Society, 1993. Douglass, Ben. History of Wayne County, Ohio. Robert Douglas, 1878. Durrell, Lucile. “Memories of E. Lucy Braun.” Ohio Biological Survey Notes, no. 15 (1981). Freinkel, Susan. American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree. University of California Press, 2007. Frazier, James. The Golden Bough. Macmillan, 1890. Hill, Julia B. The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods. HarperOne, 2001. Kershner, Bruce, Robert T. Leverett, and Sierra Club. The Sierra Club Guide to the Ancient Forests of the Northeast. Sierra Club Books, 2004. Kilmer, Joyce. “Trees.” In Poetry, vol. 2, no. 5. Harriet Monroe, 1913, 160. Lowman, Margaret. Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology. Yale University Press, 1999. Massingham, Harold J. Shepherd’s Country: A Record of the Crafts and People of the Hills. Chapman & Hall, 1938. Moomaw, William R., Susan A. Masino, and Edward K. Faison. “Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good.” Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, vol. 2, 2019. Moon, Beth. Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees. Abbeville Press, 2016. Patterson, James. Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports. Little, Brown, 2007.

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Peattie, Donald C. A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America. Houghton Mifflin, 1950. Pinchot, Gifford. The Training of a Forester. Lippincott, 1937. Preston, Richard. The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring. Random House, 2007. Saint-Exupéry, Antoine d. The Little Prince. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. Sandars, N. K., trans. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin, 1972. Seuss, Dr. The Lorax. Random House, 1971. Sillett, Stephen C., et al. “Aboveground Biomass Dynamics and Growth Efficiency of Sequoia Sempervirens Forests.” Forest Ecology and Management 458 (2020). Simard, Suzanne, et al. “Mycorrhizal Networks: Mechanisms, Ecology, and Modelling.” Fungal Biology Reviews 26, no. 1 (2012). Thoreau, Henry D. Faith in a Seed. Island Press, 1993. Thoreau, Henry D. The Maine Woods. Ticknor and Fields, 1864. US Forest Service. Program for Observance of American Forest Week . . . 1925–1928 by Schools, Boy Scout Meetings, and Other Assemblies. Government Printing Office, 1925. Ward, Robert B. New York State Government. Rockefeller Institute Press, 2006.

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