Tree

This is a note about trees as a lifeform and as a design stakeholder. For tree communities, also see Forest

Jackson, James P. The Biography of a Tree. Middle Village: Jonathan David Publishers, 1979.

A fictions account of plant communication and a popular new novel that uses recent research.

Powers, Richard. The Overstory. London: William Heinemann, 2018. Simard, Suzanne. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. New York: Knopf, 2021.

Science-based interpretations of connectivity

Haskell, David George. The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors. New York: Viking, 2017. Haskell, David George. The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature. New York: Viking, 2012.

Overview of trees:

Tudge, Colin. The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006.

The ‘environment’ is alive—a fluid, changing web of purposeful lives dependent on each other. Love and war can’t be teased apart. Flowers shape bees as much as bees shape flowers. Berries may compete to be eaten more than animals compete for the berries. A thorn acacia makes sugary protein treats to feed and enslave the ants who guard it. Fruit-bearing plants trick us into distributing their seeds, and ripening fruit led to color vision. In teaching us how to find their bait, trees taught us to see that the sky is blue.

And more, about the richness of the unseen life constantly unfolding and being much more interesting than Tostoy and human drama.

There’s danger everywhere, readiness, intrigue, slow-motion rising action, epic changes of season once too slow to see that now blast past his bed too quickly to make sense of.

Dorothy snorts herself awake. “Oh! Sorry, Ray. Didn’t mean to abandon you.”

He can’t tell her. No one can ever be abandoned, anywhere, ever. Full-out, four-alarm, symphonic narrative mayhem plays out all around them. She has no idea, and there’s no way he can let her know. Civilized yards are all alike. Every wild yard is wild in its own way.

Powers, Richard. The Overstory. London: William Heinemann, 2018.

Old Age

There are arguments that trees (and maybe other plants) only experience old age but not senescence (or age-related deterioration). they die of accidents but have no built-in death mechanism. They grow faster with age and thus sequester more carbon with age too.

When you live for millennia, 'ageing is not really a problem'. What can humans learn from ancient trees?

Munné-Bosch, Sergi. ‘Long-Lived Trees Are Not Immortal’. Trends in Plant Science 25, no. 9 (2020): 846–49. https://doi.org/10/ghf3f8.

A history of trees:

Farmer, Jared. Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees. New York: Basic Books, 2022.

Urban Trees

Goodwin, Duncan. The Urban Tree. London: Routledge, 2017.

Economic Value

Nowak, David J. ‘Assessing the Benefits and Economic Values of Trees’. In Routledge Handbook of Urban Forestry, edited by Francesco Ferrini, Cecil C. Konijnendijk van den Bosch, and Alessio Fini, 152–63. London: Routledge, 2017.

Song, Xiao Ping, Puay Yok Tan, Peter Edwards, and Daniel Richards. ‘The Economic Benefits and Costs of Trees in Urban Forest Stewardship: A Systematic Review’. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 29 (2018): 162–70. https://doi.org/10/gc8p5w.

For the general idea of paying for ecosystem services:

Richards, Daniel R., and Benjamin S. Thompson. ‘Urban Ecosystems: A New Frontier for Payments for Ecosystem Services’. People and Nature 1, no. 2 (2019): 249–61. https://doi.org/10/gf6ppz.

References

For forests, see the note on Forest.

On careful observation of trees:

Hugo, Nancy R., and Robert J. Llewellyn. Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees. Portland: Timber Press, 2011.

On Individual Trees

Crane, Peter R. Ginkgo: The Tree That Time Forgot. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

Freinkel, Susan. American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

Logan, William Bryant. Oak: The Frame of Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

Hay, Ashley. Gum: The Story of Eucalypts & Their Champions. Sydney: NewSouth, 2021.

As an example on how to write about trees in a lyrical style, with portraits of individual trees.

Peattie, Donald Culross, and Paul Landacre. A Natural History of North American Trees. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2013.

A look at 17 trees and their meaning in human cultures

Stafford, Fiona J. The Long, Long Life of Trees. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

Identification

EUCLID: Identification app for eucalypt trees

Indigenous Plant Knowledge

Zola, Nelly, and Beth Gott. Koorie Plants, Koorie People: Traditional Aboriginal Food, Fibre and Healing Plants of Victoria. Melbourne: Koorie Heritage Trust, 1992.

Williams, Cheryll. Medicinal Plants in Australia Volume 1: Bush Pharmacy. Kenthurst: Rosenberg, 2010.

Human Cultural Attitudes and Societal Transformations

Roy, Sumana. How I Became a Tree. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.

Interesting but romantic about slowness, spaciousness, and unselfishness of trees; not really engaging with what they are as much as with what humans think trees are.

Mancuso, Stefano, and Gregory Conti. The Nation of Plants. 2019. Reprint, New York: Other Press, 2021.

Imagines a constitution for the plant as if specified by plants.

Gooley, Tristan, and Neil Gower. How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Bark to Leaves: Learn to Navigate by Branches, Locate Water with a Leaf, and Unlock Other Secrets in Trees. New York: The Experiment, 2023.

Trees can tell humans about the land, the water, the humans, the animals, the weather, and time as well as about their lives. Trees tell stories to those who can understand them.