Reality nature

 So much on the news about the ups and downs of reality-television stars. So much on the tube. In my world, we watch reality television of trees. Its like science-fiction. I cannot watch television, due to a brain disability. I feel insulted by  the programming; isn't that odd?

Some of us care about trees as much as viewers seem to care about the made-for-tv stars. Of course, they just sit there, right? The visuals need a little tweaking if we are going to send this from my mind to prime time.  And trees, unfortunately, can't talk, so crying, a great draw, is also out. Oh, by the way, they may not 'feel' at all... but no matter. Just imagine....

Right after WWI, a previously undocumented disease made its way across Europe, killing stately, tall city trees we call elms. Especially American Elms, Ulmus americana, were susceptible to a fungus, transported by a beetle. Around 1930, the disease made its way to America in a shipment of wood.

As if overnight, the populations of city trees in the US and Canada were decimated, in some places almost entirely, and in some reduced by half or more. Nobody ever linked the presence of this disease to war, to the exploding of shells and piercing of bullets that took place all over Europe. A previously benign fungus that somehow became prevalent had elms quaking in their roots. If you look at the backgrounds in old movies, you see American Elms everywhere. They are tall, tall. Vase shaped, graceful, just your idea of the perfect tree, if you are like most of us.

Trees cannot fight, and they cannot run. So what would be the use of a 'fight-or-flight' reflex, such as we mammals have? This whole idea of trees 'screaming' as was so popular to believe in the seventies, is another example of man anthropomorphizing trees.  Talking about 'bleeding', 'healing' and other junk science. Probably trees, like zen masters, just stood and accepted the fact, saying "Is that so?" to the wave of disease.

Trees, Dr. Shigo once said to me, are rarely defined. He went on to say that one can almost always win an argument by asking for a definition of terms. One of his hobbies was to come up with definitions, some of which took years, for common concepts. He had some nutty ideas, but I loved the elegance of his definitions. Trees, he said, are a ..."conglomeration of associations living and dead..." it went on, but thats enough for now. Don't hurt yourself.

We call things 'dead' and 'living' based on our own anthro-centric definitions. But discolored heartwood, which most arborists call 'dead' tissue, still transports water and nutrients upward, and is a highway for radial movement of parenchyma. 'Dead' bark and hollows containing decay are often thriving communities of fungus, bacteria, invertebrates and mammals. (-thanks Dr. Shigo!) So tree people seem to wax philosophical, and hedge (pardon the pun) when asked about dead wood. My friend Scotty Altenhoff used to always leave a hunk of deadwood near the top of a tree, a signature, if you will, for birds to sit on.

Right now in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Portland, Oregon, large populations of American Elms quietly await their fate. For some reason, these elms have escaped the wholesale destruction most of North America felt due to Dutch Elm Disease (DED) so called, because of the Dutch scientists who first noticed it in the years following WWI. In these areas, hominids are prevented from cutting or pruning trees of this species form March 15 to November 15 or thereabouts. Injections are given. Infected areas are pruned out. Trees are 'protected by law' a very human solution to woody plant problems.

It is my opinion that diseases like this will continue to crop up with global heating. These are secondary reactions of tree associations, if you will. Trees suffer from some of mankinds more brutal follies, like war and the slow heating of the biosphere. Diseases like bark beetle and root rots, that used to be winter killed, are finding the weather to their liking, and are on the increase here in the Pacific Northwest. Who can tell, maybe it also true with the DED?

I wish you could all see what I am seeing, in the slow-motion world of trees, where fascinating changes are taking place in real time, with real actors, who just happen to be another species, in another kingdom. For now the tv, even cable, can't run it. But if you really care, and you watch over time, you can partake of this tragicomedy in your own brain. You just have to watch them, a few days out of the year, with consciousness.