Ginkgo Dreams - Celebrating Ginkgo

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The Stanford News Service reports on a new computer program, appropriately called Dryad, that helps users create virtual trees, a heretofore difficult task.

The Steampunk Treehouse (or Steamdork Treehouse, if you prefer) brought a bit of whimsy as well as a dose of seriousness to last year’s Burning Man. Dave Shulman, part of the team that created the treehouse, said this:

One of the story lines that we used to talk about in trying to evoke what the sense of the tree is: Imagine a time far in the future when climate change and human impact on the planet has killed off all the trees and there aren’t any more. And this might have been what a tree would like if it were built by people that had never seen one and that are just trying to remember what was a tree.

 

Best of all, it’s for sale.

The future isn’t here just yet. Jennifer Forman Orth at Invasive Species Weblog writes of a resurgence of gray mangroves in Mission Bay, California, as well as an invasion of tree-of-heaven that is threatening one of the last remaining populations of running buffalo clover.

The news isn’t all bad. The Telegraph reports:

A new species of palm tree which flowers spectacularly once in its long life and then dies has been discovered in Madagascar.

The tree has a strange lifecycle when after growing for as long as 50 years and to an immense height, the stem tip develops a giant inflorescence and bursts into branches of hundreds of tiny flowers. Each flower is capable of being pollinated and developing into fruit and drips with nectar attracting swarms of insects and birds. But the effort of the colourful display and the production of fruit is so taxing that the nutrient reserves of the palm run dry as soon as it fruits and the entire tree collapses and dies. The tree was found by accident by Xavier Metz, a Frenchman who manages a cashew plantation in Madagascar. He and his family were walking in a remote area in the north-west of the island when they stumbled across the giant palm and the huge pyramidal bunch of flowers sprouting out of the tip.

Let us pause and contemplate this photo from Ladybug’s Leaf (click for a larger version):

For further meditation, visit C’mon Let’s Plant a Tree, where Vinayaraj combines his original photography with poetry.

Dan’s post on the Little Kurrajong tree will take you both to Australia and Spain.

Swirled trees, quaking trees, battered trees, lonely trees, and (best of all) ginkgo trees await you at Christian Naturalist, Walking Prescott, Roundrock Journal, Wrenaissance Reflections, and Alone on a Limb.

Dave Coulter sent in these two photos, the first of a burl on an osage orange tree, and the second taken during a guerrilla planting project for oak acorns. I’ll leave you to ponder the implications of the phrase “guerrilla planting project.” (Or let me pick up some of the slack: What does one wear? Does one work in teams? Are weapons involved? Is there a leader? If one gets caught, what will people say? Just for starters.)

Trees and ants are on Jade’s mind over at Arboreality. Watch the dance.

Trees can listen, if they have ears.

Which is a looooong way of saying, sadly, that another Festival of the Trees has drawn to a close. Next month, Festival of the Trees will be hosted by Peg at Orchards Forever. Send your entries to her at amberapple (at) gmail (dot) com or use the automated submission form. Peg would love to see entries related to orchards and fruit trees, but other kinds of entries are also welcome.

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Not staying away from the trees are those who blog their travels in the wood, or the park, or on the road. Phil’s thinking of the future when he and his wife plant tree seeds or seedlings on their walks. He suggests planting on public land, as presumably your neighbor might not appreciate your efforts.

Pam at Nature Woman missed seeing the birds on her walk at The Thousand Acre Swamp Sanctuary, but enjoyed the trees nonetheless. She says that this is “a tree that looks like he’s trying to run away from his major issues”. You can see why.

Jason at Xenogere got trees and birds on his lake ramble, ending with this gentle exhortation:

Before we disperse, each on his or her own way, each into a life perhaps so far removed from this place as to be unimaginable . . .  Take but a moment to think about this time and this place—about this experience.  Let the natural beauty of what you’ve seen go with you.

Alice of A Growing Delight covered a lot of ground on a recent Australian road trip, from trees in the wild to trees in the backyard.

Wayne takes readers on a panoramic tour of the tree-covered banks of Sparkleberry Springs Creek at Niches. With any luck, the imaginary development will never happen, and the land and trees will be left to do what they do best.

Cypresses appear in several entries this month (first at the aforementioned Xenogere).

Larry Ayers of Riverside Rambles writes about an article on Mediterranean cypress reforestation in Morocco and the symbiotic relationship of these trees with a particular type of fungus.

At Mimi School in North Taranaki, New Zealand, Shem Kerr of Forestneeds writes about the 1927 legacy of a horticultural teaching assistant keeps on giving. The Monterrey cypresses s/he planted are gone now, but their seeds continue to be planted.

Watch a brief video clip of a bald cypress at Trailhead’s Mountain Time.

Trailhead is also a fan of mangroves, along with Jade at Arboreality. Mangroves are host to crowds of wildlife, both above and below the waterline. Trailhead’s picture of a cormorant rookery in a mangrove swamp is but one example.

Ponderosas, pohutukawa, and palms featured prominently at Under the Ponderosas (here and here), Penguin Unearthed, and Pure Florida. Perhaps the pohutukawa has the most peculiar pronunciation, but it’s also the most friendly to tree-climbers (and with that, I’m out of alliterative prison. Sort of.).

But while I’m in a wild and crazy mood, check out Treeface:

As Amazingly Bizarre reports:

Thousands of people are flocking to a Malasian village to see a ‘ghost tree’ which has reportedly sprouted a human face. There are markings on a 5-metre tall betel nut tree in Kanpung Paya. These clearly resemble human eyes, teeth and a nose. Zainol Nayan, a native spotted the curves emerging a month ago but said the resemblance to a human face only became obvious last week. Villagers, who call it the ‘ghost tree’ claim the face changes each day and they are selling photographs to villagers!

I saw more salamanders this week than I saw all last year at Burning Silo (Bev’s got a lovely reminiscence on a walk in the woods) and Rigor Vitae. As Carel Brest Van Kampen points out, birds aren’t the only creatures that suffer as a result of deforestation:

In the southern Appalachian Mountains, the center of salamander diversity in the United States, it’s estimated that logging has reduced the overall salamander population by 9%. The salamanders most vulnerable to logging impacts are probably the members of the family Plethodontidae, the largest salamander family, with 23 genera and well over 200 species, nearly half of which are native to the U.S.A. Having no lungs, these mostly small, slender amphibians breath through their delicate skin, which loses moisture quickly. Because of this, they venture abroad only at night and during rain, otherwise remaining ensconced under leaf litter or inside decaying wood.

Shem Kerr writes about his recent participation in the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association’s field days for special purpose timber groups, which seemed to work out well for him but perhaps not for others. Which is how it seems to be working out for the tamarisk tree in the southwestern United States. Josh McDaniel’s article on the this tree, a non-native species introduced from Eurasia, is a sobering story of plants in the wrong places. There’s a note of mourning in Ester’s brief tale of a tree death at Daily Drawings.

Jade at Arboreality not only gets all crafty with her live Christmas trees but makes me want to hang with the birds in her yard, and I’ve even had supper. Instead of me, however, she got a great horned owl as a dinner guest, not to mention red foxes, white-tailed deer, raccoons, gray squirrels, and voles.

Forests can become old friends, but even old friends can show a new side of themselves from time to time. So Pablo discovered when he found a cedar tree at Roundrock he calls the Old Man of the Forest.

Salix Tree’s witch hazel at Windy Willow is a breath of fresh air in my wintry landscape and makes me wish for the days-to-come of scratch-and-sniff blogs. The crab apple trees at Earth, Wind, and Water are meant to inspire you gardeners who are looking for something new.

Often we truly don’t know what we’ve got until it’s (almost) gone. Joseph Ilick knew this when he wrote ten reasons why we need trees. Genevieve Netz places his writing in its historical context at Prairie Bluestem.

Bonsai may be literally the least of the tree world, but there’s nothing small about their impact. Laurahinnj visits the bonsai display at Longwood Gardens and comes away with an appreciation of the work that results in a bonsai.

O, what would it be like, I wondered then, to have that thing explode each year for a week into blossom in your head so long after you were dead?

From “May”, Laura Kasischke’s poem of memory.

Silvia at Sister Earth points to the Tree of Contemplative Practices found at The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.

Not everything found in a tree belongs there. Fences grow in, objects get swallowed up. If you don’t believe me, read Riverrim’s essay (with pictures to prove it) on things people find in trees. Of course, it’s not only trees that absorb what was not there in the beginning:

At first, compromise is such tender discipline, a bending arch as comforting as a gentle stretch or the quiet nudge of a warm and welcomed hand. At what point do ties begin to bind, the supple shape of acquiesence gradually solidifying into the iron bands of unmoving habit? What says “stability” to a strapping sapling might say “strangulation” to a full-grown tree, the initial kiss of hugging cables increasingly chafing with each swelling season. Once contained within a metallic embrace, can a growing tree ever sway against the inevitability of no escape? Once restrained, can any freed creature be re-trained?

So writes Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries.

Grassroots Social Worker points to these words of Julia Butterfly Hill:

As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don’t try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong, or you, too, may break.

With this wisdom we end another edition of Festival of the Trees. Next month’s festival will be hosted by Riverside Rambles. Send your entries to larry (dot) ayers (at) gmail (dot) com by February 27. You may also submit entries via the entry form at Blog Carnival.

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