March 18, 2010
Who doesn’t love trees? A walk in the woods, the sounds hushed as your footsteps are alternately muffled by the carpet of old fallen leaves underfoot or crackling through the recently-fallen dry leaves of autumn, slants of sun filtering through the branches high overhead, is one of my favorite activities not only in the fall, but at any time of year.
Trees are uniquely designed organisms with multiple survival mechanisms that allow them to live far longer than most other living things. You only see the top half a tree in the forest. The other half is the root system and it lies hidden underground. There are two main types of trees: deciduous and conifers. Oaks and maples and many other broadleaf trees are called deciduous trees. They usually drop their leaves in the autumn. Pines, spruce,fir and others grow cones and are called conifers. They keep their leaves and shed only a few of the oldest all year long.
There’s an excellent online story today at Wired.com called The Oldest Trees on the Planet, which includes a slideshow of 12 trees that are each thousands of years old. This photo essay is full of the kind of WOW! moments that I love to share with kids…..for example, there is a photo of a tree that, at 6,615 tons, is the heaviest living organism on earth. Another one was just a sapling approximately 3,500 years ago, during the Bronze Age! Kids will be fascinated by the photographs of these trees and their stories.
Coincidentally, last night we were looking at an incredible book called The Life and Love of Trees. Photographer Lewis Blackwell (who is also the head of creative development at Getty Images) worked with a group of internationally known photographers to document trees in all their majesty and glory. The result is an absolutely stunning book that is very moving, as well. I have taken many, many photographs of trees, but these are particularly artistic and capture the majesty of these forest giants as successfully as any collection that I’ve ever seen.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
