Looking up at big trees

In Northern California, a hush and stillness surrounds like no place else.

In Northern California, a hush and stillness surrounds like no place else.

The redwoods take your breath away. Their quiet and grandeur is overpowering. These are some of the biggest living things on earth.

It’s comparable to looking up in a quiet Roman cathedral. You can’t help but embrace, or at least consider, the existence of a higher power.

But you don’t have to go to out west, or to the “Left” Coast (we’re here on the “Right” Coast) to capture that feeling. Big trees are everywhere.

Longwood Gardens, that special place in Kennett Square, was named by Native Americans because of the LONG wood forests or tall trees. There are 214 Champion Trees — the largest of their type in the state — at this 1,077 acre wonder-place. A tulip poplar here is 164 feet tall and still growing.

Giant sycamore trees are everywhere. Andy Wyeth preserved for eternity a huge buttonwood at Brandywine Battlefield for the painting, “Pennsylvania Landscape.”

The Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia is lined with sycamores.

Fast growing sycamores were often planted on the southwest corner of houses and taverns to give shade, or “air conditioning” in the summer. The leaves would fall during autumn to allow the winter sun to naturally heat the buildings.

Sycamores are excellent street or city trees. They sport a small root ball that doesn’t typically dig up sidewalks and streets. And their splotchy bark collects air pollution and then sheds that pollution, along with a portion of the tree’s outer skin.

Huge old growth trees are everywhere in western Pennsylvania. Visiting the white pine forests of Cook Forest State Park and Allegheny National Forest is both spectacular and soothing to the soul. And it’s a treat to stroll on a squishy, golden carpet of pine needles.

If you can reach the bottom branch of many pines you might easily climb to the top like you would on a ladder. The view from high above is wonderful.

The largest intact expanse of old growth bottom land hard work forests in the southeast is located in South Carolina’s Congaree National Park. If you can fend off the mosquitoes while walking along the park’s elevated boardwalk, you will see that flood waters sweep through the flood plain carrying nutrients and sediments to nourish, rejuvenate and make these trees big.

While the trees might be monsters in Washington’s Olympic National Park’s Hoh Rainforest, it’s the green moss coating that covers almost everything which makes this place gorgeous and one of a kind. This area has been declared the quietest place in America. The calm and peace is overpowering.

Banyan Fig trees kill a host tree. They don’t typically grow as high as they grow wide. The aerial secondary roots reach from branches and take hold in the ground. The roots resemble a tossed plate of spaghetti. These babies take over an area

and in some countries have become village meeting spots. Hindu lore refers to the banyan as “heavenly” trees.

For the purposes of this article let’s refer to the towering saguaro cactus of the Sonoran Desert a tree. The nation’s largest cactus is a symbol of the west and might only grow an inch or so in its first eight years. Some live 150 to 200 years and those distinctive arms may not start to protrude from the trunk for 75 to 100 years. The downward facing spikes direct rare rainfall into the plant’s depressions.

Bamboo and aspen trees grow in packs. Old hammi bamboo is the world’s fastest growing plant and can grow one or two inches per hour, or two to three feet PER DAY.

A clump of aspens all have identical genetic characteristics.

From a chairlift in Vail I wondered why so many aspens were broken off half way up the trunk. I was told that a heavy August snowfall had weighed down on the branches and leaves and broken the trees at an odd height.

Florida’s white cedar trees are swamp creatures. They can grow 115 feet tall and are evergreens. I’m fascinated by the knees resembling large fingers or spikes raised from beneath ground. It’s not known exactly why these knees grow, but they are frequently found in swamps. They can become shin breakers when submerged in deep swamp water.

Florida’s Southern live oaks usually grow wider rather than taller. The Spanish moss on these trees joyfully sways in the wind like a grandfather’s beard.

Douglas firs are tough, hearty trees. Straight as an arrow, they were often used to make ships’ masts.

When wild fires sweep along the forests of New Mexico, many times only eight or ten feet of the tree trunk is scorched, while the firs continue to thrive.

It’s been said that seeds from California redwood pine cones only take root after a fire first prepares the forest floor.

Big and old trees have outlasted lighting storms, insect infestations and the whim of man. They’ve been around for decades.

If only trees could talk — the stories they might tell.

SUBMITTED PHOTO Big trees and a little car in Redwoods National Park.