Page 16 - Boca Club News - September '19

Page 16, Boca Club News
The Arts

Book Review: “Wise Trees”

By Nils A. Shapiro Presented here in a beautifully
I discovered Wise Trees not in a produced, oversized (12-1/2” x
bookstore, nor in a library. My wife 11-1/4”) volume from Abrams, the
and I were in a shop that offered fine leading publisher of fine art books,
furniture and home decorating items, are more than 100 stunning full-
and I saw this volume displayed color photographs and fascinating
conspicuously in a living room explanatory descriptions of 59
setting. It was clearly serving its trees from five continents that have
purpose as what is known in the affected the spiritual and cultural
publishing industry as a “coffee table” book: a lavishly life of civilizations around the
produced, photographic publication---usually on a subject world.
such as fashion, architecture, jewelry---that is intended While every one of these trees
to impress guests, and the shop owner had placed it deserves your attention, space
appropriately, as a prop. limitations here permit me to Pando Clonal Colony---which, for more than 80,000 years lived under the guise of
As one who loves and appreciates books on a range merely touch upon a few of these: an Aspen forest in Utah---is now known to be a single organism: one that reproduces
of subjects---to read, rather than to simply admire---I - The Magna Carta Yew. asexually. It is the oldest living clonal organism on Earth and, at more than 6,000 tons,
was struck by this book’s cover and title because of its Growing in a meadow next to the heaviest organism on the planet. It is actually a single organism with a root system
subject matter. As the river Thames near Windsor, extending over 106 acres!
regular readers of England, said to be between 2,000
this column are well and 2,500 years old, this giant is believed to have been witness happened to observe an apple falling from the apple tree in his
aware by now, an to King John’s signing in 1215 of Magna Carta, the document orchard and, wondering why it fell straight down instead of
international non- that outlined basic rules of law and was influential in the sideways, developed his theory of gravity. “In 1816 a storm
fiction bestseller that drafting of the U.S. Constitution. It was also in the shadow blew the apple tree down, but rather than succumbing to its
I reviewed about a of its leaves that Henry VIII’s romantic liaison’s with his fall, the prone tree re-rooted, and began its life anew. Today
year ago was a life- ill-fated second wife, Anne Boleyn, took place. it is believed to be the oldest apple tree on the planet and is
altering experience - The Bodhi Tree. The sacred fig tree in India that is a still producing fruit.”
for me: “The Hidden direct descendant of the tree under which Buddha attained - Survivor Trees. While the longevity of many trees
Life of Trees: What enlightenment. is common knowledge---the oldest known living tree is
They Feel, How They Luna, Coastal Redwood. The tree in which anti-logging
Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World,” in activist Julia Butterfly Hall spent 738 days on a platform high
which Peter Wohlleben, a German who is in charge of one in its canopy to prevent its being cut down.
of Europe’s oldest and largest natural forests, reports on - Isaac Newton’s Apple Tree. This Flower of Kent
the latest scientific findings that trees have intelligence, Apple grows in the orchard of Woolsthorpe Manor, historic
communicate with one another for their mutual protection, family of Sir Isaac Newton. It was here in 1665 that Newton
nurture their young, act together to keep alive their dying
neighbors as long as possible...and so much more.
I decided immediately that, although “Wise Trees” was
not actually for sale in that store, I was not going to leave
without it, and convinced the owner to sell it to me.
*****

The sixteen people shown in the front of this Montezuma
Cypress offers only a hint of its size; as many as 30 can
actually stand together on just one side of the tree, which
This sample double-spread is an example of the book’s elegant measures a circumference of 137.9 feet, almost half the length
typographic design and layout. It depicts the Hiroshima Bonsai, of a football field! This tall, thriving tree stands in the center
a miniature Japanese White Pine that was already 320 years old of the Mexican town of Santa Maria del Tule and began life
when it survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August between 1,200 and 3,000 years ago. Another photo in the
of 1945, while the city around it was devastated. The Japanese book shows the full tree.
government presented this tree as a gift to the United States in
1975 in celebration of America’s upcoming Bicentennial. Book Review on page 17