Page 19 - PGA Community News - September '19

September 2019 September 2019 PGA C.A.N.!, Page 19

Book Review from page 18

of gravity. “In 1816 a storm blew
the apple tree down, but rather than
succumbing to its fall, the prone tree
re-rooted, and began its life anew.
Today it is believed to be the oldest
apple tree on the planet and is still
producing fruit.”
Survivor Trees
While the longevity of many
trees is common knowledge – the
oldest known living tree is well The Burnside Sycamore. This American sycamore tree is the
over 6,000 years of age – three of last living witness to what was not only the bloodiest last day
the trees shown and described in of the Civil War, but also the single bloodiest day in American
this book have remarkable survival Pando Clonal Colony – which, for more than 80,000 years lived under the guise of military history: During the 12-hour battle over Antietam
stories of their own. an Aspen forest in Utah – is now known to be a single organism: one that reproduces Creek in Sharpsburg, Md., on Sept. 15, 1862, the armies of the
The Hiroshima Bonsai asexually. It is the oldest living clonal organism on Earth and, at more than 6,000 tons, Union and Confederacy together suffered 23,000 casualties.
“In 1975, as part of Japan’s gift the heaviest organism on the planet. It is actually a single organism with a root system Photographs taken days before the battle show the young tree
to the United States for (America’s) extending over 106 acres! standing next to the bridge.
upcoming bicentennial, the bonsai
master Masaru Yamaki of Hiroshima presented a prized city.” Yamaki’s home was only two miles from the epicenter entrance to the Sanno Shrine were not even 900 yards away;
bonsai tree to the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. of the blast and was badly damaged, yet the bonsai nursery they were scorched, their branches and leaves blown away.
Bonsai, the Japanese art of cultivating trees in a very small was miraculously untouched because it was protected by a Yet the trees gradually recovered, and their resilience in the
container, dates back more than a thousand years ... The white sturdy wall. It wasn’t until Yamaki’s grandsons visited the aftermath of such destruction gave the city’s inhabitants hope
pine bonsai Yamaki bestowed had been in his family for many National Arboretum in 2001 that the world learned what this that life could endure.
generations; it had been “in training” since 1625, making it bonsai had survived. 9/11 Survivor Tree
one of the oldest bonsai trees in the world. But when Yamaki The Nagasaki Camphor “In 1950s America, the Callery pear tree, native to China
presented his gift, he did not reveal an essential chapter of Three days after the Hiroshima bombing, on August and Vietnam, became the urban street tree of choice, planted in
the tree’s history. 9, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on cities because it is disease-resistant and able to grow in a range
“On the morning of August 6, 1945, the U.S. military the Japanese city of Nagasaki. No living organism within of climates and survive in many types of soils. One such tree
dropped an atomic bomb, called, Little Boy, on Hiroshima, 1,000 years of the blast’s epicenter was given any chance of graced Liberty Plaza in Lower Manhattan, but during the rescue
killing eighty thousand people instantly and devastating the survival. The two 500-year-old camphor trees standing at the and recovery effort following the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, this badly
damaged tree was found beneath the rubble of the Twin Towers.
Laurie Metlis What remained of the tree was a burned trunk, with most of its
branches missing and a severely damaged root system. Yet,
Living & Selling in PGA National Realtor ® despite being subjected to intense heat and burial beneath a
heavy load of debris, the tree retained a few green sprouts.”
Call Laurie replanted at the National September 11 Memorial in December
After being nursed back to health, this Callery Pear was
2010 near the South Pool, one of the memorial’s two reflecting
When You’re pools. “An early bloomer, it is the first tree at the memorial to
bloom in spring and its leaves are the last to change colors in
autumn—a beloved symbol of renewal and strength at the former
Ready World Trade Center site.” *****
Wise Trees is the work of Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, two

To Sell Yours of America’s finest landscape photographers, who traveled to
five continents to produce the magnificent tree portraits in this
book...and Verlyn Klinkenborg, an author and teacher at Yale
University, who wrote the highly informative and inspiring text
Illustrated Properties, PGA National “She Sells PGA” that accompanies the photographs.

Together, they have created a volume deserving of their
7100 Fairway Drive 561-308-5433 subject...and that is high praise indeed.
“On the last day of the world

Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418
lmetlis1@gmail.com I would want to plant a tree”
This is not a solicitation of a currently listed property. W.S. Merwin (From the poem, Place)

Designs Beyond Amazing

From Entry Level to Incredible

Jeffrey Klein, President (New Resident of Barclay Club)
3600 South Dixie Highway, #100 (561) 660-6986 • www.outdoorkitchenstores.com
West Palm Beach, FL 33405