If Trees Could Talk
THIS IS WHAT SIX OF THEM WOULD SAY
These watchful sentinels of the forest have strong opinions they’d like us to hear.
Our primitive ancestors lived in forests and jungles and believed that trees had spirits. And they may have been right. Scientists are discovering that trees communicate via chemicals, hormones, pheromones and electrical signals passed between their roots. Trees will even pass water and sugar to one another to keep their neighbours alive when humans have chopped them down and robbed them of their leaves. But what would trees say to us if we could hear them?
LE CHÊNE CHAPELLE ( THE CHAPEL OAK) ALLOUVILLE- BELLEFOSSE, NORMANDY, FRANCE
“I believe oaks are the greatest, the most majestic of all trees. But are they all equal? Non! The French oak alone possesses a special elegance, glory and savoir-vivre. And of all French trees, I am the oldest, the wisest and the most long-suffering.
Some humans believe I was planted in the time of the Emperor Charlemagne, some 1200 years ago. Others, however, date me to 911 CE, when Normandy itself was created from the land given to Rollo, a Viking raider, by King Charles the Simple of France.
There are impudent scientists who maintain that I am only 800 years old. Zut alors! I ask you, if I am a mere seedling of 800, why can I remember meeting Rollo’s great- great-greatgrandson William of Normandy, the one they call ‘the Conqueror’, in 1035? William was a big strong lad with bright red hair. The story goes that he knelt beneath my branches as if in prayer. Pah! That great ginger ape strode from a nearby tavern, his belly full of beer, leaned with one hand against my trunk, adjusted his clothing and ... I will not debase my honour by saying more.
Ah, but an even greater torment befell me more than 650 years later, when I was struck by lightning.
Mon Dieu, the agony! That bolt shot through me like a giant axe, splitting me in two and hollowing my trunk.
I was barely alive. Some villagers wanted to chop me down. But the local priest and abbot said, no, my survival was a miracle. In 1696, they created a shrine to the Virgin Mary within my trunk and then built a chapel at the top, reached by a staircase attached to my poor, battered body.
Frankly, I found the structure undignified and inelegant. It almost cost me my life during the French Revolution of 1789, when a gang of
godless rebels tried to burn me down. Let me tell you, the torment of those flames against my bark is indescribable. Luckily, a quick-witted villager shouted, ‘No! This tree should be a Temple to Reason!’
The f lames were doused, my life was saved. The shrine and chapel still stand, though I confess I need some help from the manmade poles that support my branches. I should live for a good few years yet, long after the people who have tried to hurt me have turned to dust.”
EL OLIVO DEL MOUCHÃO (OLIVE TREE) MOURISCAS, PORTUGAL
“Ah, those oaks, so proud, so boastful! Yet they ignore their fatal flaw: they are only of use to humans when they are dead. We olives are more modest. No great navy ever used our wood to build its battleships. No roofs are supported with beams hewn from our trunks. But entire civilisations have been built upon our fruit. And for that, we are allowed to live.
That Frenchman speaks with the impetuosity of youth. He talks of the Emperor Charlemagne, but I was planted more than 3350 years ago, a date scientifically proven in 2016 by Professor José Penetra Louzada.
Consider that, you humans, with your lives so brief that they seem to me barely longer than a mayfly’s flicker of existence. When I was in my infancy, the prophet Moses lived and the Pharaoh Rameses II ruled Egypt. I was more than 900 years old when Plato was expounding his philosophy to his students in Athens, and more than 1350 when Jesus of Nazareth died on his cross.
In my youth, the first humans who gathered fruit from my branches were savages, clad in rough animal skins. I’d seen 700 winters when the first crude fortifications were built, 125 kilometres from me in human measurements, that would become the city of Lisbon. Half a millennium later, the Romans arrived, so stern, so disciplined, so convinced that the empire could never fall. And yet it did, as did the kingdom of the Visigoths who succeeded them.
Next came the Arabs: proud, hawknosed, with sharp eyes and scimitars as sharp as the talons of the hunting falcons they treasured so dearly. Their kingdom of Al-Andalus
survived more than 400 years before the Christians took back the land.
But really, what are these mortal men to me? They come, they go, but I stay. My trunks may be gnarled and twisted, my bark cracked, my branches brittle, but I still produce fruit and still give my bounty to whichever human chooses to harvest it.”
NEWTON’S APPLE TREE WOOLSTHORPE MANOR, LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND
“One doesn’t like to boast. It’s simply not the British way. But we can surely agree that the discovery of gravity is one of the absolute cornerstones of our understanding of the universe.
It was, of course, to an Englishman, Sir Isaac Newton, that the world owes this insight. So what single incident first gave the young Newton his inspiration? Why, the falling of an apple from a tree. And which was the tree that produced that falling apple?
Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot deny it. I was that apple tree. And in that moment, I did more to advance the cause of science than any tree who had ever lived, at any time, anywhere.
It may have been almost 360 years ago, which may not sound like much to some trees, but is a jolly long time for an apple. I remember the occasion well. I’d known Isaac since he was a babe in arms, because Woolsthorpe Manor, where I still stand, was his family home. He was clearly an extremely clever little fellow, so I wasn’t at all surprised when he won a place to study at Cambridge University in 1661. He was still there four years later when there was an outbreak of bubonic plague. The students were sent home, which was why he was in my orchard, pondering the universe, when that fateful apple fell. Thus history was made and, to this day, there are travellers who come from all around the world to visit me and say, ‘Well done’.”
WOLLEMI PINE WOLLEMI NATIONAL PARK, NSW, AUSTRALIA
“Fellas, fellaaaaas. You really want to start squabbling about age? I’m far too mature for all that, but suffice to say I cast substantial shade on your boasts of seniority. I’m so old even I
don’t know how old I am. Let’s just say that when my grove of pines was discovered in the Wollemi National Park in 1994, I was compared to finding a living dinosaur. Fossil evidence indicates my ancestors existed between 200 and 100 million years ago and that I was once spread right across Australia. My existing crop of brothers and sisters could be up to 100,000 years old. Yeah, you heard right. I wish I could be more exact, but at my age you start to get a bit hazy on the details.
Speaking of hazy, things really heated up around here at the end of 2019. You probably heard, my countr y took a massive beat ing from bushfires in the summer of 2019-2020 and my stand of trees was right in the firing line. I could barely breathe from the smoke haze for months. The Gospers Mountain fire alone desecrated more than 512,000 hectares, making it possibly the largest fire ever known to have started from a single source – a lightning strike on October 26.
As the fires tore through my home, a top-secret rescue mission was hatched to save us. Mate, it was hectic, there were aircraft dropping water bombs, large air tankers dropping fire retardant, and helicopters winching specialist firefighters into my remote gorge to establish an irrigation system to bring some much-needed moisture to the ground fuels surrounding me. In an incredible feat, they managed to spare us while the surrounding forest was reduced to ash.
Are you getting the gist of how important I am? Basically, my siblings and I – and there are less than 200 of us – are the only Wollemi pines that exist in the wild, although we’ve now been propagated in nurseries. I’m so sacred that my exact location is kept a secret. If everyone knew where I lived, they’d flock to have a gander at me, and contamination from pathogens they would bring in could be the end of me.
Yeah, you humans have a lot to answer for, but you did save my life, so I owe you. Still, it’ll be interesting to see which of us will still be around in another 100,000 years.”
IL CASTAGNO DEI CENTO CAVALLI ( HUNDRED-HORSE CHESTNUT)
MOUNT ETNA, SICILY
“You thought Luciano Pavarotti was big? Ha! When I was measured in 1780, which seems like only yesterday when you’re 4000 years old, my total circumference was 57.9 metres. Not that they had metres then, of course, so let us just say ‘sixty paces’. Enough to give me a Guinness World Record for ‘Greatest Tree Girth Ever’, that’s for sure.
I admit my body is essentially a ring of many separate trunks. In fact, I almost look like a grove of different trees. In the middle of the circle there is enough room for buildings, which have been erected at various times in my life. But every single trunk springs from the same roots. They are all me. And I can claim to be the oldest chestnut tree in the world.
So, how did I get my name? Ah, that’s a story ... My heroine is Queen Giovanna (Joanna). Mamma mia, che bella donna!
Giovanna was the daughter of King John II of Aragon and wife of King Ferdinand I of Naples. When Giovanna married Ferdinand, her father gave her a dowry of 100,000 gold florins. Her new husband gave her land and towns from across his kingdom.
They were married by Rodrigo Borgia, who would become Pope Alexander VI. Giovanna, you will gather, was a very special lady. She was also a loyal wife, for in 1485 she began a regal journey around southern Italy and Sicily, encouraging her husband’s subjects to remain loyal to their king. To ensure her safety, and impress the people, she was accompanied by a retinue of 100 knights, all mounted on fine horses. One day, their journey took them to the slopes of Mount Etna, where I grow.
Queen Giovanna wished to see the top of the mighty volcano. But on the way to the summit a terrible storm broke out and she and her knights were forced to seek shelter. So great was the expanse of my myriad branches, that the queen and all her men were able to find shelter beneath them. Minstrels sang ballads about that day, poets composed verses, and so I acquired my name.
That was just one day. There have been more than 1,460,000 others.”
TĀNE MAHUTA ( KAURI PINE)
WAIPOUA FOREST, NORTHLAND REGION, NEW ZEALAND
“Before we settle this argument once and for all about who is the greatest among us, allow me to explain to you what my name means in Ma–ori: God of the forest. As the largest kauri tree to stand today, and with my age estimated to be between 1250 and 2000 years, I’m not overstating the matter to say that I am nothing less than the physical representation of the Ma–ori world. As legend tells, at the dawn of the world, my siblings and I lived in the darkness between our coupled parents Ranginui (the sky father) and Papatuanuku (the Earth mother). I separated my parents, and in doing so, allowed light and life to begin and flourish. No biggie.
In fact, as visitors walk down the wooded gangway into the rainforest of Waipoua and are confronted by my enormity, they are frequently brought to tears. Oh, did I mention my size? I stand 51.5 metres tall and have a girth of 18.8 metres. Try hugging me and you will not get very far. But scale aside, it is the atmosphere that pervades my whole region that evokes such an emotional response in all who behold me – an energy, a life force, something intangible yet deeply felt. All Kauri trees are considered a
taonga (highly treasured) by Kiwis, especially Ma–ori, who see the health of the tree as reflecting the wellbeing of the ngahere (forest) and the people. And as such, now is a troubling time for us all.
Logging in the 1820s depleted our numbers and the few of us giants remaining are threatened by kauri dieback disease, a rot carried on people’s shoes and by mammals. This insidious disease kills virtually every kauri it infects. At times, my walking tracks have been closed as the threat of dieback draws near. And still, foolish men have tried to trespass to bask in my glory, while simultaneously threatening my life. Will they ever learn?”