StemCell Therapy

Tree death, like tree sex, can reveal deeper truths. You may have seen bare trunks with branches that fork over and over in perfect symmetry (that opposite branching again). These are ash trees, victims of the deadly emerald ash borer, which is thought to have arrived in shipping pallets from Asia. Beyond the aesthetic and ecological loss, and just plain tragedy, the ash carnage costs society a huge amount of money, as parks departments and homeowners must either treat ash trees or have them cut down.

The borer is a consequence of global trade, and its only the latest iteration of this sad story; chestnuts, hemlocks and elms have already taken major hits from foreign pests.

Luckily, not everything in tree world is so dismal. The trees around us can uncover forgotten history. Sometimes a huge oak rises in a yard or in the midst of a much younger woods. These witness trees once marked the edges of farm fields. An oddly straight line of junipers or locusts likely signals an old fence row. Neighborhoods built in the 1960s might be lined with once-loved, now-hated Bradford pears; older ones may feature towering willow oaks with roots bulging out of undersized tree boxes. Parts of Paris, New York and, appropriately, London, are practically monocultures of London plane trees, once favored because they could survive these cities fetid air.

Trees can also tell us how well were managing our environment today. Many eastern forests, including Rock Creek Park, the wild green vein running down Washingtons center, have an understory dominated by American beech. Beeches are slow to get going, but theyre almost unmatched at growing in shade and being unappetizing to deer, which are wildly overpopulated in much of the country. Unless we find a way to manage our woods, using predators and periodic fires, were probably on our way to species-poor forests dominated by beeches. As much as I love the trees smooth, elephant-skin bark and brittle leaves shivering on their branches through the winter, I dont think an all-beech future is one I want to see.

Some may want more practical reasons for learning trees. If so, I offer that knowing your trees opens up an abundant and entirely free food source. Those in the know can gorge on juicy native mulberries and serviceberries in the spring, and persimmons and pawpaws in late summer. Thats to say nothing of tree nuts, which carpet the forest floor in fall. Pecans, walnuts, hickory nuts, beech nuts; with proper preparation, theyre all edible. For Native Americans living in California before European contact, acorns were a staple more important than corn. Yet today theyre a specialty item, largely limited to the occasional D.I.Y. foraging workshop.

Were so used to eating domesticated plants that the idea of eating wild tree parts seems strange, primitive and possibly dangerous. As a result, were letting billions of dollars worth of free, high-quality food go to waste. This, reader, is madness! Ill admit, however, that Im among the mad. Roadside tree fruit is just an occasional supplement to my diet, and I havent yet found the patience to leach the bitter tannins out of acorns. For me, learning about trees is more about seeing, and knowing. Its about not being a stranger in my own country.

And its about not letting the built environment make me too tame. When you engage with a tree, you momentarily leave the human-created world. Look at an American elm in winter, its limbs waving like Medusas snaky hair. The elm may grow along streets and sidewalks, but there is nothing tame about that tree. In cities, where animals feast on human gardens or garbage and most landscape plants are domesticated cultivars, native trees are the last truly wild beings.

Yes, people may look curiously if you stop to study a tree. But so what? Let yourself go a little wild.

Read the rest here:
Cure Yourself of Tree Blindness - New York Times

This entry was posted on August 30, 2017 at 10:41 am and is filed under Blindness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |