Giant redwoods – the world’s largest trees – are flourishing in the UK and now even outnumber those found in their native range in California.
The giants were first brought to the UK about 160 years ago, and a new study suggests they are growing at a similar rate to their US counterparts.
An estimated 500,000 trees are in the UK compared to 80,000 in California.
However they aren’t yet as tall. In California they can reach 90m-high, but in the UK the tallest is 54.87m.
But that’s because the introduced trees are still very young. Giant redwoods can live for more than 2,000 years, so there’s still plenty of time for the UK’s trees to catch up
“Half a million trees is quite a lot to go under the radar until now, but it’s when you start looking for them in the landscape, and compiling these datasets, that you realise how many there are,” said Dr Phil Wilkes, one of the authors of the study, from Kew’s botanic garden at Wakehurst in Sussex.
Giant redwoods (Sequoiadendron giganteum) were first brought to the UK by the Victorians. They were the ultimate botanical status symbol, typically planted in the grand estates of the wealthy.
Today, some form sweeping avenues while others stand in ones or twos. But they’re easy to spot: their dense, cone-shaped crowns stand proud of everything around them.
To assess how these towering giants are adapting to their UK home, scientists selected a sample of nearly 5,000 trees to study at Wakehurst, Benmore Botanic Garden in Scotland and Havering Country Park in Essex.
They used laser scanners to measure the heights and volumes of some of the trees – it’s also a way to weigh the trees without cutting them down.
The researchers found that the trees were growing about as fast as the giant redwoods in their native home in the mountains of Sierra Nevada. The UK climate seems to suit them, says Dr Wilkes.
“Where they grow in California, it’s cooler and moister than you would typically envisage California to be,” he explained.
“And we have a reasonably similar climate here – it’s very wet and they need the moisture to grow.”
The scientists also looked at how much carbon dioxide the trees were absorbing – trees soak up and store the greenhouse gas and planting more trees can play a role in helping to tackle climate change.
The researchers found that because of their sheer size, giant redwoods can lock up large amounts of carbon dioxide in their wood – although not as much as their US counterparts.
The trees at Wakehurst, which are about 45m tall, have about 10 to 15 tonnes of carbon stored in them, Dr Wilkes explained.
“But compare this to the largest tree in California, which has about 250 tonnes of carbon stored in it, and they’re quite small. But you know, these could get as big.”
The scientists involved in the research are quick to point out that planting forests of giant redwoods would not be enough to significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But these majestic giants can play a part in a mixed forest plantation with a variety of other trees, both native and imported.
In California, the natural wonders are under threat from climate change – they’re not faring well with hotter and drier weather and more intense wildfires.
So could the UK become their new home?
In an avenue of trees originally planted as a grand entrance to a now demolished mansion in Havering Country Park, Prof Mat Disney, from University College London, says he thinks it’s more than possible.
“In terms of climate, it’s probably the case that they’re going to have a less pressured existence here than they do in California,” he said.
Although he pointed out that conditions are also changing in the UK with climate change.
Giant redwoods are being planted as saplings all over the country, often by local authorities in public parks or recreation grounds.
Prof Disney says they have a long life ahead of them – and they won’t stay small for long.
“They’re very fast growing, and they grow large. Once they reach about 60m, they will be the tallest trees in Britain, and then they will keep on growing,” he said.
However, while the trees are doing well in the UK, there’s little chance of them taking over our native forests any time soon – they’re not reproducing here as they need very specific conditions to take seed.
The study is published in the Royal Society journal Open Science.
Conservationists are up in arms and have branded the move a “fatal development”.
Conservationists in Germany are incensed as 120,000 trees in an ancient forest have started to be felled in order to make way for a wind farm.
The forest in Sababurg, Reinhardswald, which is in the central German state of Hesse, is said to be an inspiration for the Brothers Grimm mythical tales, but now it’s being destroyed to facilitate the country’s latest green energy project.
The site of the tree-toppling is next to the famous Sleeping Beauty Castle, which takes its name due to its fairytale architecture and its proximity to the mystical forest.
However, now the castle will be in close proximity to a field of wind turbines.
The Reinhardswald forest in northern Hesse is something very special, and not only because it’s the largest in the state. One of its characteristics is that it belongs to the general public. But that could be its downfall, because the coalition state government (consisting of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Green Party) is planning to build industrial areas right in the middle of it.
The reason is the government’s ambitious goal of reserving 2% of the state’s land area for wind energy. But in Hesse, there’s only enough wind — when there’s any wind at all — at high altitudes. And since most of the high lands are wooded, almost all new wind turbines are built in forests.
Hesse’s economy minister, Tarek Al-Wazir, made a noteworthy promise in 2015: “Important recreational areas and forests in Hesse are out of the question for wind energy use.” Three years later, however, it’s not clear how much weight those words really wield. The Kassel regional council the state of Hesse is divided into three such regions has designated seven wind priority areas in the Reinhardswald. In each area up to 20 wind turbines can be built.
The Reinhardswald’s old beech forests are home to many species, but above all to strictly protected bats that only live in forests with very old trees and a high proportion of deadwood. The Kassel regional council insists that protected beech forests are “just as excluded from wind energy use as the areas of the oak primeval forest,” and that it’s considering locations that are “less sensitive from a nature conservation point of view.” And yet, the wind priority areas border directly on the natural habitats of wild fauna and flora, in which bats have found a rare refuge.
Unlike birds of prey, small birds and flying animals such as bats are not killed by the rotors. Instead, their lungs burst due to the vacuum behind the rotors. The planners have placed one of the wind priority areas exactly between the natural forest and the Friedwald, a cemetery in the forest, the first of its kind in Germany. And two wind priority areas even enclose parts of the forest that have long been designated as protected.
“It makes no sense at all,” says Niehaus-Uebel. “It’s the headlong and forced adoption of wind power in Hesse, no matter the consequences. Nature conservation no longer plays a role. And all this from an environment minister from the Green Party. That’s astonishing.”
But Hesse’s environment minister defends the plans. “Wind energy is very important for climate protection because we have to achieve the energy transition,” says Priska Hinz. “We will not conserve the forests if we do not focus on renewable energy and thus on climate protection, because otherwise we will no longer have the forests as we know them in 30 years’ time and even less in 50, 100 years.”
You could argue that forests serve to protect the climate and biodiversity. Why else would German politicians like to point out the importance of their primeval forests to their colleagues in distant or nearby countries like Poland?
“We haven’t planned to build in the entire Reinhardswald.” says Hinz. “Just in a small part. This is no way comparable to large-scale deforestation.
For nature conservationists, it’s disastrous. “The Reinhardswald is one of the last largely unexploited forest areas,” says Gabriele Niehaus-Uebel of the Oberweser-Bramwald citizens’ initiative. “We don’t have many of these anymore. This habitat must be protected as such.”
The country’s five biggest environmental associations have a similar view and, in their Wilderness in Germany initiative, included proposals for forest protection areas in Hesse. Reinhardswald tops the list. The plan is to more than double the protected surface in the Reinhardswald forest and reduce the amount and kinds of trees that can be cut so as to limit the impact on the local wildlife.
Wind energy is very important for climate protection because we have to achieve the energy transition.
Birds and Bats
A short drive a few kilometers further south, in the Kaufungen forest, gives us an example of what this means in practice. There are 18 wind turbines at the state border between Hesse and Lower Saxony in the middle of an official natural habitat of wild fauna and flora. It is also a flying route for flocks of common cranes and, partly, a drinking-water protection area. The turbines rise to more than 200 meters into the sky, and for each of them, foundations of about 1,000 cubic meters of concrete were injected into the ground.
Wind turbines of this size can only be installed with gigantic cranes that require one hectare of forest to be razed, not to mention the wide paths that need to be cleared for the transports of such heavy material and for later service transports. Between the installations, the remaining trees are largely bent. The windthrow is the result of storms caused by the clearings.
According to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Kaufung Forest is considered a “hotspot for biodiversity.” This also applies to the Reinhardswald. “As a natural area, it’s outstanding not only because of its size, but also because of its biological provision,” says Jochen Tamm, a biologist from the Hessian Society for Ornithology and Nature Conservation.
Tamm has been working in the Upper Nature Conservation Authority of the Kassel Regional Council for 20 years. He also advises citizens’ initiatives such as the one led by Gabriele Niehaus-Uebel. The definition of wind priority areas is the responsibility of regional authorities just as Kassel Regional Council and it can help limit the uncontrolled expansion of wind energy. For that, justified objections by nature conservationists are supposed to be taken into account. In practice, though, such objects seem to be increasingly ignored because they endanger the expansion targets.
Many objections concern strictly protected species whose habitat lies in the vicinity of planned wind turbines. Experts estimate that wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands of bats and thousands of birds of prey every year throughout Germany. ABO-Wind, the wind power project development company that is planning to apply for a building permit for the Reinhardswald forest, disagrees. “There’s no reliable evidence,” it says.
And yet, a “Progress Study” financed by the federal government shows that birds of prey do collide with such installations, and with disproportionate frequency. The further expansion of wind energy could endanger entire stocks, among them red kites. In fact, collisions against wind turbines is “the main cause of death for red kites,” says Torsten Langgemach of Brandenburg State’s Institute for Bird Protection. In his database, he has countless pictures of dead birds of prey sent by outraged citizens.
“The red kite is one of the few large birds that can only be found in Central Europe,” says Jochen Tamm. “Germany is home to more than half of the world’s population, so it has global responsibility for this bird. And it’s precisely in this central habitat where wind turbines are increasingly being installed now.”
Ralf Paschold, a wind energy entrepreneur, pointing at the wind farm site from the castle, told Deutsche Welle: “For the next 30 years. I will produce energy there.”
Responding to the claim that his development will destroy the natural environment, he said: “The dormouse, the bats, the birds, the small salamander. I will protect them. Because my heart is beating for them. But we can bring all these things together. It’s easy.”
However, campaigners are not convinced Mr Paschold will adequately maintain the local ecosystem.
Annette Müller-Zietzke, an occupational therapist and member of the campaign ‘Save the Reinhardswald’ told the same outlet: “Legally, this area is forest as long as all of this is here”
It was noted that visitors aren’t even allowed to pitch a tent in the forest due to the risk it poses to the habitat of the animals living there.
Miss Müller-Zietzke added that no human would willingly choose to live directly under a wind turbine.
She went on: “And then, for these species that are even more sensitive than we are, we just say, ‘It probably doesn’t matter.’ In times of probably the greatest loss of biodiversity since the extinction of the dinosaurs, this is a terrible, fatal development.”
Conflicts between the wind industry and nature conservationists aren’t happening just in the state of Hesse. More and more wind farms are being built in forests all over southern Germany. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate, for one, has been leading the way under Eveline Lemke a former Green Party minister (2011-2016) who is now on the supervisory board member of ABO-Wind.
The relative silence of climate activists regarding the destruction of the woodland in Hesse comes in stark contrast to their response over the felling of a 3km stretch of the Dannenröder forest in 2019 to make room for a highway.
Then, thousands of environmentalists vehemently opposed the plans, occupying trees and going to the courts in their bid to stop the project. They erected barricades and treehouses and violent clashes with the police ensued. Law enforcement operations at the time were said to have cost up to €36 million.
Similarly, there were strong protests against the felling of a 230-metre area of trees in the Fechenheimer forest.
The 2.7-hectare forest, which is surrounded by highways and industrial areas and already 98 per cent destroyed according to the environment ministry, was described by activists at the time as “the most species-rich forest in Frankfurt and the surrounding area”.
When wind turbines are involved, climate activists seem to bite their lips. The fact that 29 hectares of an ancient forest will be destroyed to build 14km of roads for 18 huge wind-power constructions, each with a blade diameter of 150 metres, does not seem to be an issue.
The apparent acceptance of habitat destruction in the name of wind power seems to be inspired by Berlin, which wants a transition to low-carbon energy after it ended the use of nuclear power.
For conservationist and Federal Cross of Merit recipient Hermann-Josef Rapp, the deforestation is a tragedy. He has been working in the forest since 1972, first as a forester and in retirement as an expert who has led around 1,000 guided tours. He is regarded as the “voice of the Reinhardswald”.
“It is the treasure house of European forests. An ensemble in a class of its own. You can’t sacrifice it to the greedy wind power league.” Rapp said, who is involved in the “Save the Reinhardswald” initiative.
A forensic ecologist claims she could have solved the mystery of the Sycamore Gap felling by examining a ‘halo of pollen’ around the tree to help track down vandals.
Professor Patricia Wiltshire, known as ‘Pollen Pat’ to Met detectives, has helped police in more than 300 criminal investigations since 1994, by examining soil or plant samples taken from crime scene.
Last year her services were recommended to police investigating the mystery of the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree which was chopped down in the middle of the night. But she says she wasn’t called to investigate.
Speaking to The Times, Ms Wiltshire said she could have traced the culprit in this case and said: ‘All I would have needed to do was take [a suspect’s] shoes and some samples from the scene.
‘Sycamore pollen doesn’t go very far. There would still be a halo of pollen around the tree. The person or people responsible would have got it on them.’
The world famous tree, located next to Hadrian’s Wall, appeared in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and was a much-loved tourist destination before it was chopped down in an ‘act of vandalism’.
The iconic tree was thought to be among the most photographed in the world – and when it was mysteriously chopped down it caused national outrage.
In November two men aged in their 30s were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and were bailed.
In December Walter Renwick, 69, and a 16-year-old boy who can not be named for legal reasons were arrested separately in connection with the felling, but police said they would face no further action.
New life has sprung from the rescued seeds and twigs of the Sycamore Gap tree mysteriously cut down last year, giving hope that the iconic tree has a future.
BBC News saw the new shoots on a rare visit to the secret National Trust centre in Devon protecting the seedlings.
Millions once visited the sycamore tree nestled in a gap in Hadrian’s Wall.
A national outpouring of shock and dismay followed its felling in September.
Police are still investigating what happened in what they call a “deliberate act of vandalism”. Two men remain on bail.
Just a stump is now left – if it is healthy, a new tree could eventually grow there.
Young twigs and seeds thrown to the ground when the tree toppled were salvaged by the National Trust, which cares for the site with the Northumberland National Park Authority.
It guards genetic copies of some of the UK’s most valuable plants and trees.
Its hall of fame includes copies of the apple tree that Sir Isaac Newton said inspired his theories on gravity, and a 2,500-year-old yew that witnessed King Henry VIII’s relationship with Anne Boleyn in the 1530s.
These are back-up plants – insuring the nation’s heritage in case of an outbreak of disease, a devastating storm, or an attack on the trees.
No-one expected the sudden loss of the Sycamore Gap tree, once one of the most photographed spots in Britain.
Now the green shoots poking through large pots of soil give promise it will live on.
The National Trust is still deciding what to do with them once they are strong enough – schools and communities could be given saplings to grow their own Sycamore Gap tree, explains Andy Jasper, director of gardens and parklands. If the stump does not regrow, one might replace it.
But for now, the priority is nurturing the tiny shoots.
Preparations have included releasing micro-warms or 2mm-wide micro- wasps to prevent the pests by attacking them or injecting their babies into them SO they can burst out
In September it was a race against time to get the seeds and living twigs to this special centre.
“As soon as you cut something down it’s dying,” explains Chris Trimmer who runs the nursery.
When the tree came down, local horticulturist Rachel Ryver sprang into action – climbing over the damaged tree and wall to collect what is called scion – young twigs with buds. This was vital raw material for grafting genetic copies of the tree.
“It was drying out fast – we had to save whatever we could. Hours later I was standing at Hexham post office thinking “nobody knows I’m carrying what’s left of the Sycamore Gap tree”,” Rachel says.
The five bags of twigs, seeds and a few leaves arrived in Devon at 09:30 the next day.
Chris Trimmer was waiting. He has worked with plants since he was 12 – decades later, he is one of the UK’s leading horticulturists.
Chris Trimmer grafted the Sycamore Gap tree
For him, like many across the country, the story is personal. The first film he went to see with his now-wife was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves – its scene of Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman at Hadrian’s Wall catapulted the tree to global fame.
Chris is softly-spoken, talking scientifically about the process. “It’s our job to graft this stuff,” he says.
He unpacked the bags, ran tests to check the material was free of disease, then bleached it for five minutes.
It was quite a moment. “If one had shown disease, it all would have been destroyed,” he says.
By 15.30 Chris was done – 20 pieces grafted. But he was lucky. Autumn is a bad time to do this work – it should be done in January when the trees are dormant. He just about got away with it.
Grafting is an old technique, used by ancient Egyptians and Romans. “It’s a bit Frankenstein-esque – adding body parts onto something else, making a hybrid. But it’s worked for hundreds of years,” explains Andy Jasper.
Using a lime tree as an example, Juliet Stubbington, a propagator who works alongside Chris, demonstrates how it was done. “You have to be confident with a knife,” she says.
Grafting binds fresh roots with living twigs that have buds of the same species. The hope is that the two knit together to make one larger living young tree. This was the only way to preserve the beloved Sycamore Gap tree. “It is the same tree,” Juliet explains.
Her work is not just technical to her. “It’s lovely to help them grow back. Each one of these trees is a story,” she says.
The horticulturalists also successfully planted seeds from the Sycamore Gap tree, now its descendants.
Five months on, they are looking after nine surviving grafted plants and 40-50 seedlings.
“This is literally the first one that came up,” Andy Jaspar says, carrying a small pot with a 10cm green shoot. People have cried when holding it, he says. It’s next to a type of rhododendron seedling that is the only known one in the world.
Juliet says the success rate should be high. Sycamores are famously hardy.
Nine grafted copies of the tree survive
But the sense of responsibility is huge and she has to stop herself fussing over them. “The best way to kill something is to over-care for it,” she says.
Nothing can bring back the tree exactly as it was. It was planted in the natural dip of Hadrian’s wall in the late 1800s – time and the weather moulded it into its famous silhouette.
That shape is gone but what is born from its ruins will have its own story. It will be three years before horticulturists know if the stump is healthy enough to produce the next tree.
Until then, these seedlings hundreds of miles away are primed – each one waiting to see if it could be the next Sycamore Gap tree.
Conservationists are still holding out hope that the stump at the site itself could regrow into a large tree but it is unlikely that it will be the same impressive specimen that it once was.
As a result, officials may decide to replace the stump with a clone of the famous sycamore.
Andrew Jasper, director of gardens and parklands at the National Trust, said: ‘There is an argument that starting from scratch at the site would make a whole lot of sense but it would be 30 years before we see a decent tree and 200 years before we see a replica.
Reflection by Archaeology for the Woman’s Soul. By Corina Luna Dea
I LONG TO SIT WITH SOUL DEEP WOMEN
~Happy International Women’s Day 2024~
I long to sit in council with Soul Deep Women. Women who carried burdens and chose to love the wounds until love became the place where peace enters the heart.
I long to be in the presence of Soul Deep Women. Those that sing their heart’s calling in Voices of paradise and feathers surrounding their crown.
I long to cry with Soul Deep Women. Resilient strong sisters nurturing the Wound of the Would. Caretakers of the Light standing like a lighthouse on the edge of humanity.
I long to make magic with Soul Deep Women. Emotional alchemists healing the silence of what hurts inside believing in the magic of forests, rivers and mountains.
I long to walk in the company of Soul Deep Women. Women who have deep convictions. Women of immense courage. Women who seek the truth and stand up for what they believe in.
I long to write in the company of Soul Deep Women. Women who feel the poetry of their hearts. Metaphors-Makers. Dancers. Creators of words.
And yes, so grateful to be surrounded by YOU-Soul Deep Women. Givers. Nurturers. Healers. True Soul-Makers. Together Making the Soul of the World as We Live our Truth.
You are the Soul Deep Women I long to be with!
Thank you for being part of this community!
Celebrating YOU on this International Women’s Day 2024
Photo: Tamara Phillips Owner of DeepColouredWater on Etsy
North Yorkshire‘s Mulgrave Estate is set to plant a whole 300,000 trees over 500 acres of land in a new pioneering woodland project. Phase One of the project will cover the Glaisdale and Egton parishes in what will be one of the largest private woodland creation projects in the North.
Located in the North Yorkshire near Sandsend, the Mulgrave Estate extends over 6,000 hectres with 1,000 hectres of woodland and forestry currently.
Robert Childerhouse, Mulgrave’s estate manager, said: “This is probably one of the largest private woodland creation projects in the North East and is something the estate is very passionate about, with woodland currently making up some 16 per cent of the estate’s 15,000 acre area.”
He said that the consultation that will take place on the 12th March between 3pm and 7pm “will enable us to share our revised plans with residents and obtain their views. It’s very important to us that the public are kept informed about what we are planning and what we are hoping to achieve with our new woodland.
He continued: “We received pretty good feedback from our previous public meeting, which was also held at Egton Village Hall, but we have revised our plans to take into account comments from residents and statutory authorities.
“Our estate woodland is used for both commercial timber production as well as amenity and conservation. We have a very successful firewood business and we employ four foresters on the estate. Mulgrave Woods at Sandsend are open on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays throughout the year, except in May when the birds are nesting.”
The drop-in consultations will take place at Egton Village Hall and once the final consent of the Forestry Commission has been given the first trees will be planted this winter.
The Mulgrave Estate woodland project is not the only going on at the minute. Work has resumed on the huge project that aims for 100,000’s of trees to be planted in the Yorkshire Dales to create a huge native woodland spreading from coast to coast. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority has commenced work on the creation of 43 hectares of native woodland this winter.
The the third year of the funding scheme called ‘Grow Back Greener’, 12 sites are working to create what will be known as the Nothern Forest. It’s expected that a further 550 hectares of woodland this winter in the National Park meaning they’re on course to meet the target of creating an average of 600 hectares of woodland each year with the aim of increasing the area of woodland in the National Park from 4% to 7% by 2030, according to the Yorkshire Dales website.
About Mulgrave Estate The Mulgrave Estate came into the Phipps family in the early part of the 18th Century, from lands belonging to John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. The first house there was constructed by his Duchess, Lady Katherine Darnley, the illegitimate daughter of James II. She left the Estate to her daughter by her first husband, The Earl of Anglesey: Catherine Annesley, who married William Phipps. We have no pictures of this building, except for some tiny images on early 18th Century maps. These show a rectangular three-storey house with a single, lower, two storey extension to the left (looking from the sea).
In the late 1780s, Constantine John Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave, engaged Sir John Soane, the architect, to remodel and enlarge the mansion. Soane built two new wings and completely reconstructed the interior of the original house, to produce a handsome pedimented Georgian residence in 1786-7. The middle part of the present-day building, with somewhat smaller windows, is what remains of the original house. Though Soane’s drawing names it Mulgrave Hall, it had been re-named Mulgrave Castle before 1792. Accordingly, the architect William Atkinson added battlements to the roof in 1804-5. By the 1840s the baronial front hall and towers that we see today had gone up, in response to the Gothicizing enthusiasms of the time.
Mulgrave Estate and Counting Carbon
Carbon seems to be the up and coming currency within world markets. Saving and holding carbon to prevent it being released into the atmosphere is a clear priority to reduce the effects of global warming. At Mulgrave Estate, they are contributing to the effort to reduce carbon emissions in a variety of ways. Planning trees from local seed sources, storing rainwater, installing renewable energy, grip blocking to rewet the moor and switching to electric vehicles are all commitments they have made to reduce their emissions in the last 2 years.
They have also recently carried out a carbon audit of their home farm which gives an indication of where they can improve their performance. The estate is committed to carbon capturing and storage wherever this is possible and feasible.
The first signs of February spring…. Ukraine, Kharkiv by Alexandr Fandikov
Aspen Trees in Flagstaff, Arizona by jpchoa15
Autumn Memories ~ Codsall, South Staffordshire, UK by Ian Haycox
Lattrop, The Netherlands by Mirjam de Vos
The story of this tree is remarkable. The house , a former bakery, dates from 1783. Around 1900, the owner asked permission to expand the property with a pigsty. This was refused because a large oak tree had to fall for it. They decided to build while preserving the tree. The roof tiles were laid around the trunk to create space for a few pigs. It is barn now.
Embedded Oak in St.-Etienne-des-Champ, in Auvergne, France by Jerem Racines
Deep Joy. Enjoying the storm from inside a Coastal Redwood basal hollow formed by fire and fungi. Humboldt California by Fred Blackburn.
Flower from the African BAOBAB TREE by David Attenborough.
Monument Valley by Luis Sanchex Espinal.
Morning light, Redwood National Forest, California, USA by Jake R. Petersen.
Pinion in the Corona, Corona Arch, Grand County, Utah, USA by Jake R. Petersen.
Brookings Oregon ~ After a huge forest fire, this tree was still standing in the Smoke by Rise Fulton.
Very old Kapok tree in Peurto Rico! My husband is standing near the middle of it. The locals said that it is blooming which is very unusual. They say at night the fruit bats come by the hundreds to feast on the blossoms! I took that picture today, 26/2/2024 by Zula Clark.
On the beautiful island of Oahu by Tracy Gunter.
Look at this beautiful tree. Mount Diablo State Park. California 🌳🌿🌲 by Juan Carlos Villanueva Osorio.
Sweden by Marlene Vestberg.
I found an old photo, it’s from 1999 when you still had to take the film somewhere and have it printed. This one is special and scanned okay, we were hiking thru the “Cook Forest” in a bad storm, lost and everything was going wrong, then suddenly the sun popped thru the trees and at this moment we knew everything was going to be okay! (Western Pennsylvania) Every picture tells a story don’t you think? By Joe King.
Trees a long the parkway, South Jordan, Utah, USA by Jake R. Petersen.
Path to another enchanted forest … Yvonand – Switzerland – 04.02.2024 Canon R5 / RF 15-35 2.8 by Nikola Petanjko
A 500 year old Moreton Bay Fig Tree. One of the few remaining on Biripi Country Australia #rotsphotography.
BAIE JAMES QUEBEC 🍁 CANADA, visit to nephew, Jimy who works in the mines, absolutely freezing, beautiful. Aurora Borealis and Trees by Woody Burnett.
Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree 🌳Big Island, Hawaii, by @wade.morales.images.
FALLEN 700+ YEAR OAK TREE AT SILVERTON (26.01.24) On the 25th January this mighty 700+ year old oak tree fell in the recreational ground, Silverton, Devon, England. There was no wind at the time, but it just decided to go on this full moon day. Luckily no one was injured. The only damage was to a garden in a neighbouring property. The tree has provided generations of pleasure, from climbing it to relaxing under it on a hot day. It is a sad loss to the community, but hopefully some of the wood can be used in the village for various projects. A new oak tree could be planted near to where this one fell for future generations to enjoy by Warren Weatherman Radmore.
First Light hits the Scottish Highlands by Lukas Watschinger.
Komorebi Redwood National and State Parks by Mitch Crispe.
Tolkien was based near Cannock Chase during WWI where he served as a signals officer. It is believed a number of features in the area influenced characters and places in his novel, including the gnarled tree pictured above, along with influences for the orcs and The Ring.
It is thought that this ancient tree – an oak planted during the reign of Henry Vlll – inspired the legendary character Treebeard in JRR Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings. Tolkien lived nearby and would walk these woods sparking his imagination to write his stories.
Treebeard was a giant tree that could walk and talk in Tolkien’s novel. Such a tree was considered an Ent, and there were other Ents in Lord Of The Rings too. The tree is natural and has not been adapted which makes it even more amazing ~ Ian Haycox
“Like Sherlock Holmes, in the absence of any other evidence, it is certainly very strong. The tree has been there for quite a while.
“Most of the oaks were planted by Henry Vlll to build up the British Navy. It certainly has an interesting shape. They were planted across Cannock Chase during the Tudor times, it is more than 400 years old.”
Tolkien was stationed at Rugeley and Brocton Military Camps on Cannock Chase from November 1915 to June 1916, living nearby in the village of Great Haywood where a blue plaque is dedicated to him. When Tolkien was based there, he wrote The Fall Of Gondolin on the back of a sheet of military marching music.
The book is a deep history of Middle Earth and is set before the time of the Lord Of The Rings. His draft for The Fall Of Gondolin is considered the first traceable story, written down, of his Middle Earth series. The book was only published as a standalone piece in 2018, curated and edited by his son Christopher.
There are other theories about how the area, and his experiences while living there, influenced Tolkien’s writing. One is derived from a band of New Zealand soldiers who were based on Cannock Chase from the Auckland Regiment. It is thought the pronunciation of the regiment influenced the name of the ‘orcs’ in the Lord Of The Rings.
In a letter from Tolkien to close friend, Auden, he writes: “Their part (i.e. Ents) in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of ‘Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill.
I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.”
Tolkien’s reaction to Shakespeare was definitely a strong influence in Ent creation – or “sub creation” ~ Dan Cruver
Here is his description of looking into the eyes of an Ent:
One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long slow steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present…I don’t know, but it felt as if something that grew in the ground—asleep, you might say…between deep earth and sky, had suddenly waked up and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years.
He once described the magical world he had imagined as “my own internal Tree.” He must have been describing his own feelings when he wrote about Frodo touching a mallorn tree in Lothlórien: “He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter: it was the delight of the living tree itself.”
Trees in Middle-earth
Tolkien loved trees, especially this black pine in the Oxford Botanic Garden, and was often photographed with them. His grandson Michael took the last known photograph of him with this tree, which he named Laocoön.
Both for Tolkien personally, and in his Middle-earth writings, caring about trees really mattered. Indeed, the Tolkien scholar Matthew Dickerson wrote “It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of trees in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.”
Tolkien stated that primaeval human understanding was communion with other living things, including trees.
Commentators have written that trees gave Tolkien a way of expressing his eco-criticism, opposed to damaging industrialisation.
In a 1955 letter to his publisher, Tolkien wrote “I am (obviously) much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and I find human mistreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals”
Tolkien’s poem “Sing all ye joyful!” at the end of The Hobbit has in its last verse a mention of six kinds of tree ~
Lullaby! Lullaby! Alder and Willow! Sigh no more Pine, till the wind of the morn! Fall Moon! Dark be the land! Hush! Hush! Oak, Ash, and Thorn!
Tree Weaver 