National Trees

There is not a consensus on how many countries exist in the world, with some counts ranging from 193 (UN members) to 197. The problematic issues are whether an entity such as Taiwan is independent or a part of grabbing mainland China, or whether Kosovo is an independent nation, as considered so by the USA and other Western nations, or not by the likes of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – all asshole countries, aren’t they? – or merely a province of Serbia. Despite dubious Chinese “historical” justification, Tibet is not “part” of China, but rather an independent country that happens to currently be under the heel of Han domination. And speaking of “historical,” shouldn’t we consider the Navaho and Nez Perce and other Native American nations as independent countries too?

Pseudotsuga menziesii

Tsuga heterophylla

Tsuga canadensis

A couple of weeks ago I listed America’s “State” trees, where Oregon “decided” on the “Douglas fir,” Pseudotsuga menziesii, Washington chose the “Western hemlock,” Tsuga heterophylla, and Pennsylvania went with the “Eastern hemlock,” Tsuga canadensis etc. I suppose some grandstanding politician made a tree proposal and it was voted aye and thus it became so. What do you think is the National tree of the United States? Stop…and think it over first. Stop, think.

Quercus

The process of deciding seemed quite democratic: The National Arbor Day Foundation conducted a poll in 2001 and the oak, and all of the American species of the genus Quercus, was the winner, and collectively it is considered The Mighty Oak. Of course the process involved further BS, and five years later it took a Congressional passage and a Presidential signing to become official. I didn’t vote – I didn’t know how to – but I don’t have a problem with The Mighty Oak, and Oregon is home to a few Quercus species, with Q. garryana being the most notable.

Acer saccharum

Likewise, Canada goes with a conglomerate, and not surprising the choice is the maple genus Acer, but we all suspect the “Sugar maple,” Acer saccharum is the prototype. Remember that a few American states proclaimed Acer saccharum to be their state tree as well. The species ranges in Canada from Nova Scotia all the way west to Manitoba, and in the USA from Minnesota eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. Besides being a famous source of maple syrup, horticulturally it is prized for brilliant autumn foliage, and a sizeable tourist industry has been based on it in the Northeast. They are spectacular in Oregon at the Flora Wonder Arboretum, but sadly in gloomy England they are reportedly (Peter Gregory) not reliable for noteworthy autumn color.

Taxodium mucronatum

How about Mexico – which tree do you think? There could be 100 valid choices I suppose but amazingly the designation is based on a solo specimen of Taxodium mucronatum, the “Ahuehuete,” considered the world’s champion tree in circumference. I have seen this wonderous specimen in Oaxaca, and it was on my list of the top ten accomplishments in my life before I checked out. Only marriage to Haruko and the birth of my five children rank ahead of it. Honestly, the Taxodium amazed me more than the Grand Canyon or standing at the foot of Mount Everest. The Arbol del Tule is located on church grounds in the center of Santa Maria del Tule, and is commonly known as the “Montezuma cypress” with Ahuehuete meaning “old man of the water” in the Nahuatl language. It is slightly more round (119 feet) than tall and is thought to be about 2,000 years old. If you believe the local legend, the tree was planted by a priest of the Aztec storm god, Huracan, who also presided as a Mayan diety and was present at all three attempts to create humanity under the direction of Kukulkan (known by the Aztec name Quetzalcoatl). So, take that, Darwin!

Quercus robur

I think the most common country-shared national tree – not necessarily preferred by me, but by the dignitaries of various European countries – is Quercus robur, the “English oak.” Obviously it is indigenous to the B. Isles and is also considered the Royal Oak, but countries flung far-afield from each other such as Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, probably Germany (since they just select “oak”), Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Serbia. (for an undesignated species of oak), all foremost champion Quercus robur. No! – not Q. rubra (the American “Red oak”) which I have no trouble differentiating from Q. robur – but we should agree that the novice might have some confusion trying to figure out the difference between the two similar-sounding specific epithets.

Olea europaea

Olive branch

Also highly sought for national tree preference is Olea europaea, the “Olive tree,” which is native to the Mediterranean, Africa, southern Asia, and Australasia. It is an evergreen tree or shrub and I saw plantations of them in Greece where I explored the countryside by car in the early 1970s. The four most memorable occurrences for me at that time was feta-cheese salads, tobacco fields, olive orchards and hitch hiking lesbians. I also grew sick of baklava, and have never been able to eat the honey-drenched paper-thin dough since my Grecian fling. As far as the lesbian pairs are concerned: one can be alluringly attractive, but her partner always seems to sport dark-cropped hair and a mustache – a deal breaker for me. Well, you don’t care about those details, but the European olive is the national tree of Albania, Greece, Israel and Palestine. Extending the olive branch is a symbol of peace in modern Europe and also in the Arab world, but it originated first in Ancient Egypt before arriving in Ancient Greece, one of the few examples where the Greeks were not original. Eventually, in Greek tradition, a hiketeria was an olive branch held by supplicants to acknowledge their inferiority when approaching persons of greater status or power.

Pinus sylvestris 

Pinus sylvestris is commonly known as the “Scot’s pine,” so its not surprising to learn that it’s the national tree of Scotland. And once you encounter a few Scotsmen in your life you’re not surprised that the country’s national flower is a thistle, as the northern tribe can be rather prickly to deal with. Sylvestris – meaning “of the forest” – is the only pine native to Britain, and while once common in England and Wales, now the only wild stands can be found in northern Scotland. I’ve purchased a couple hundred thousand P. sylvestris seedlings in my career as it makes a suitable rootstock for most two-needled pine cultivars. It is adaptable to container culture and it makes a decent rootstock for harvesting ball-and-burlap trees from the field. Since the species is native to northern Europe, all the way to Asia, there exists a number of geographical varieties, and growers develop a preference for attributes such as hardiness, or best winter color retention, or for the most fibrous root system etc.

Ceroxylon quindiuense

A fun tree that is the symbol of Columbia is Ceroxylon quindiuense, but don’t feel bad if you’ve never of it because when I sent the photos above (a dozen years ago) to the late tree expert, Dick van Hoey Smith of Arboretum Trompenburg, he was baffled by it’s identity. Well, it’s a non-hardy palm so of course he didn’t know it. I encountered it at the Strybing Arboretum of San Francisco and I was certainly taken with the whimsical nature of the trunk. The related species hexandrum was growing nearby, also barber pole-like but not quite as exaggerated. Of course the trunk markings are the result of excising leaf fronds which is common with palms. The “Andean Wax Palm” is native to montane forests of Columbia and Peru and can reach an astounding 200’ tall. The genus name is derived from Latin cera for “wax” and Greek xulon for “wood.” In the past the stem wax of C. quindiusense was used for making candles, but later was replaced with artificial wax or by the arrival of electricity. Everything you could ever want to know about the genus can be found in Phytotaxa 34, A Revision of the Andean Wax Palms, Ceroxylon (Arecaceae) by Maria Jose Santin and Gloria Galeano. The genus is of particular interest to me because specimens dotted the landscape in Peru when I visited in the early 1970’s and I guess I wasn’t expecting to see tall palms in the Andean foothills.

Prunus serrulata

The national tree of Japan is the “Flowering cherry,” Prunus serrulata, locally known as the tai haku. It is also called the “hill cherry” and is native to China, Japan, Korea and India and the flowers can range from white to pink. The fruits (Sakuranbo) are small and bitter and are not eaten unless processed as a preserve, and it’s a taste my wife doesn’t like, but a snappy delicacy to me.

Podocarpus latifolius

I was initially surprised that the National tree of South Africa – Podocarpus latifolius – is not mentioned in either Hillier (2014), nor in Rushforth’s Conifers, but I suppose the reason is that the latifolia species (meaning broad-leaved) is not sufficiently hardy for the British Isles (only to 25-30F). Also known as the “yellowwood,” it is a slow-growing evergreen that can nevertheless reach 100 ft. tall in its natural habitat. The foliage appears gray from a distance, but the bluish-gray needles are coated with a powder, and as we saw in the recent Flora Wonder Blog post, ‘Glauca’, the covering can be rubbed off which will expose the underlying green leaves. If I remember correctly, the photo above was taken at the Los Angeles Arboretum, but unfortunately I didn’t document the beautiful trunk with its peeling bark. The species is dioecious, with male and female cones on separate plants, so you can see that the above specimen is female. The male cones resemble catkins which is adapted for wind pollination. My photo was taken in spring, but the female’s round, gray-blue seeds mature to purple in winter. I actually grew one indoors as a “house-plant” when I was young, but I don’t remember what happened to it.

Betula pendula

Finland chose as its National tree the “Silver birch,” Betula pendula, but the species is no one’s favorite tree. The bark just isn’t white enough like with B. jacquemontii, or with some of the other Asian species. Plus, it can cover your car or sidewalk with sticky aphid juice. The bugs excrete the honeydew as they move around the foliage which can lead to gray-black mold on the leaves. One of the first projects when I bought the Buchholz Nursery property was to remove a Betula pendula next to the back door due to the sticky situation, plus the plant-idiot placed it atop the house’s septic system. Contrarion ex-wife complained that I was a brutal floral chauvinist to edit the innocent tree… when it meant no harm, but I was dutifully preventing thousands of dollars of repair later. I admit, though, that the silhouette of a B. pendula in the dormant season can be a source of wonder, and the only requirement is that it is planted a safe distance from the house.

Betula pendula 'Dalecarlica'

The Swedes take the Silver birch (AKA “Lady of the Woods”) a step further for their National tree by choosing the cultivar ‘Dalecarlica’, and I used to have one on the property… but no more. The problem was that initially – and still to this day – I underestimate a tree’s vigor, and frankly the rambunctious birch threatened some more important and commercially viable species. It’s sad when a plant collection, an arboretum (such as the Flora Wonder), must choose to keep or delete based upon commercial performance instead of leaving all in place and in peace. My life includes a lot of decisions about the killing or keeping of living creatures, and I must be certain and decisive. ‘Dalecarlica’ displays deeply-cut leaves and was originally found in Sweden in 1767 in the province of Darlana, hence the cultivar name. These dissected-leaved forms can occasionally be found in the wild, but it’s interesting that a form or a cultivar can become the National tree of a country.

Ginkgo biloba

Not surprisingly Ginkgo biloba is the National tree of China, and while very old specimens can be found in Japan and Korea, everyone acknowledges that China is the origin. On the other hand I have a Ginko adiantoides fossil from Morton County, North Dakota which is aged from the Paleocene Epoch (56-66 million years ago). The Ginko is considered a “living fossil” and has remained basically unchanged for over 200 millions years, and it’s amazing to consider that it coexisted with the dinosaurs. It is thought that Ginkgo was first cultivated about 1,000 years ago in China, and most likely for it’s nuts. An abundance of literature exists in China prior to a thousand years ago, and nowhere is Ginkgo mentioned. The first Westerner to document it was Engelbert Kaempfer who was stationed in southern Japan while employed with the Dutch East India Company. The first trees to be introduced to Europe was somewhere between the 1730’s and 1750’s. When my daughter H. was barely over two years old she was walking between her mother and me on a sidewalk in Portland. She stopped, pointed at a single leaf and said (in her cute baby voice), “Ginkgo biloba.” I looked up, and sure enough there were just a few leaves clinging at the end of autumn on a Ginkgo biloba tree. Her mother had taught her plant names as they went for outings in the Flora Wonder Arboretum, and ginkgo was the first tree she learned to identify.

Tree of Life

Saint Peter: Apostle and First Pope

Physically, The Vatican is the smallest nation on earth with an area of 110 acres and a population of about 1,000. The name comes from an Etruscan settlement, Vatica, located in an area called Ager Vaticanus for “Vatican territory,” a marshy area on the west bank of the Tiber across from the city of Rome. Some would argue that the swamp was never fully drained, at least morally. I’ve never been there, so I don’t know if there’s even one tree on the grounds, but I suppose if they had a National tree it would be the “Tree of Life.” The tree first appears in Genesis 2:9 and 3:22-24, and it is the source of eternal life, then it reappears in the Book of Revelation. Pope Benedict XVI (1927-) said that the cross is the “true tree of life,” while earlier Augustine of Hippo (354-430) said that the tree of life is Christ. Well, other cultures, including pre-Columbian America, had their tree of life too, or tree of the world. The aforementioned Tule tree of Aztec mythology is associated with the actual behemoth Taxodium in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Quercus garryana

The word “tree” is derived from Greek drys-drees, from the same root as Druid and endure, and it referred in ancient times to the oak. I don’t know if it’s a particular species or any Mediterranean oak. There are about 600 species of Quercus in the world, and those with evergreen foliage are known as “live oaks,” compared to the deciduous Q. garryana that dominates my front lawn. However, even when dormant it still radiates life: the Buchholz family’s National tree.