Everyone should have a favorite tree. Here's mine.
Do you have a favorite tree?
In the expanse of Big Meadows, one of the most popular areas in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, stands a lone gray birch tree. It is a beautiful tree. It emerges from the ground with multiple trunks sculpted by the wind, its form mimicking the veins of one’s hand. Its bark is white, rather unusual for the area, and it is adorned with triangular leaves that turn a golden hue come October.
The tree is a member of a disjunct population that serves as a reminder of the Blue Ridge Mountains’ boreal past. I met the tree two decades ago, on my first hike through the meadow. Over the years, I would admire its beauty through the seasons, from the way its bark matched the snows of winter to how its catkins wafted in spring winds. I began a photographic odyssey documenting the tree through seasonal changes and weather patterns. It was at first more akin to a muse but later became an old friend. I visit Shenandoah rather frequently to hike its trails and camp in the backcountry, and no trip is complete without a visit to my friend, my favorite tree.
Why do I admire this tree so much? Part of it, I guess, is its resilience. That it continues to thrive in a southerly latitude long past the period of its prime is impressive. Of course, I admire its beauty. When the warm glow of the rising sun, or the cool blue of evening twilight, is reflected off its bark, it becomes something marvelous. As does the sound of its leaves under a midnight sky. But mostly it is because when I see this tree, I am able to travel to the past, specifically my past. To times of joy, times of sorrow, of grief and loss, of marriage and childbirth. The seasons of my life follow the seasons of this tree.
I don’t have a school to visit where I can roam the halls laced with the nostalgia of my formative years. The schools I attended have been either bulldozed into concrete rubble or transformed into warehouse space for a hospital. But this birch tree still stands. A fixture in the constant progress of life and nature, for better or worse. What makes it all the more ironic is that the gray birch is generally a short-lived tree.
I first took my daughter to the tree after she turned 1, when the meadow floor was strewn with blue phlox. When she returned as a big sister and showed the tree
to her brother, in autumn, when the meadow is painted with the scarlet hues of wild blueberry shrubs, she gave it a hug and said to her mother, “I love this tree, like Papa.”
It is these moments that gave rise to my belief that everyone should have a favorite tree.
I think most of us can agree that trees in general deserve our admiration and respect. A Pew Research Center poll in 2020 found that 90% of Americans support planting trees to absorb carbon emissions. Not many issues can produce such a consensus. Trees provide
food and oxygen as well as shade, and they increase property values. Planted in urban environments, they have positive effects on both physical and mental health. They protect wildlife: Brook trout thrive when Eastern hemlocks shade the mountain rivers they inhabit; the wandering salamander lives the entirety of its existence on the thick branch of a towering redwood. Trees inspire art and contribute to science.
But a favorite individual tree is something special. (Turns out, I’m not the only one who thinks so. After writing this, I was gratified
to learn of a piece expressing similar sentiments, which I wholeheartedly approve.) It gives you a living thing of your own to admire and celebrate, to appreciate as time goes by. A favorite tree grows, as you do. A favorite tree has an expiration date, as you do. Take the time to find one and love it, if you haven’t realized that you have one already.