Tree owns itself, but survives with help
Trees have more human qualities than we think. German forester Peter Wohlleben maintains they have friends, can feel lonely, scream with pain and communicate underground via the “woodwide web” — an underground network of microbes that connects tree species.
And so, perhaps it's not so farfetched that a tree in the Dearing Street Historic District of Athens, Ga., has legal ownership of itself. A 74-year-old oak known as the Tree That Owns Itself sits smack-dab in the middle of the road, forcing traffic to detour around it. Still, residents consider the stubborn senior one of their own.
“I see myself as just a dot in between the past and the future,” the tree's neighbour Ashley Simpson told the website Garden & Gun. “Somebody took care of the Tree That Owns Itself before I was here, and I'm hopeful there are people who will help take care of it after I'm gone. Living with the Tree That Owns Itself gives me a sense of continuity.”
A tablet at the base of the Tree That Owns Itself explains that it was William H. Jackson who deeded the tree, as well as eight feet of land all around it, to itself. But alas, no one can locate the deed. Plus, the 1890 newspaper article that ran his statement was submitted anonymously, making the search — and the verification of Jackson's intent — even harder.
Truth be told, the tree laying down roots in modern-day Athens is a descendant of the original oak, which residents believe was up to four hundred years old. High winds toppled that tree in 1942, and four years later citizens planted a sapling grown from one of its acorns. Today, plenty of would-be acornheirs are nurtured in planters, just to be safe.
In fact, much of the Tree That Owns Itself's survival is thanks to those living around it, since trees — like people — aren't meant to lead a solitary existence. Athens now protects its canopy as a Tree City USA, and it has its own tree council.
“If a tree is surrounded by forest and it is left as a single tree standing, it is suddenly exposed,” appointed community forester Rodney Walters told Garden & Gun. “The wind around it changes. The hydrology that supports it changes. But trees, even isolated, are adaptive. They're resilient. The Tree That Owns Itself's survival is an example of what's possible in the cohabitation of trees and people.”