12 Jul 2012 – Dedicated to Trees Around The World

This post will be edited and updated as interesting pix, etc crosses the path. For all tree lovers, myself included, and AT fellow-hikers especially Mike Freed/LOON, retired professor in forestry.

Will need Mike to identify some of these trees when needed. Pix taken by me except when stated downloaded or when permission is granted by others.

Singapore: Bukit Brown cemetery has one of the many magnificent trees, hopefully the highway will be constructed around them as they are part of our ancestors!!

Singapore: Marine Parade Rd (2022, no longer due to MRT-constructions) Pulau Ubin and SIN Botanic Gardens/SBG.

29Jul2017: Trees of the Fort Tour in SIN.

Couroupita guianensis Cannonball Tree and do not get under it, Ficus benghalensis Banyan Tree, Caesalpinia ferrea Leopard Tree, Ceiba pentandra Kapok Tree with a thorny trunk,

Melaleu cacajuputi Paper Bark Tree and the sap is non-sticky oily with no fragrance, Pandanus tectorius Screw Pine, Phaleria clerodendron Rosy Apple with lovely fragrance but poisonous, Delonix regia The Flame of the Forest-if only we could plant them at Orchard Rd and get them to  flower at Christmas!

31 Jan 2019: hope that the old BukitTimah Railway Station+the station master lodging (just assuming that is what it is, will edit if incorrect) will be restored to its heydays when the constructions of the MurnanePipelineProject is completed. And that the beautiful big old trees are here to stay.

23Apr2022: tkx to FrancesW for his Crateva religiosa 加羅林魚木 from HKG.  And another beautiful yellow-flame-tree/Peltophorum pterocarpum(tkx to Wendy for the name)located at junction of MarineParadeRd&MarineCres by the ongoing MRT-constructions to cheer me after 2nd-born&#6’s visit.

2008-2018: Malaysia: Kuching, Sarawak at Jalan Reservoir, Main Bazaar, Astana

2009-13: Hong Kong & 江门Jiāngmén/China:  where ancestral village and home is located

15Mar2021: appreciations to YeeSengHock for sharing his 2above pix from Scotland & China which can be found in his photo books@CC

Aug2009: Australia: Karri Forest and the Margaret River area in WA

2012: Ireland: Co Dublin, Kerry & Meath

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far – John Muir

17Dec2021: pix credits to Geoffrey Keating, former Irish Ambassador in SIN – this magnificent tree is located in Rathgar, Dublin/Ireland directly outside their bathroom window and it forms a thick green curtain in the summer to spare their modesty! It has a distinctive and regular pyramidal shape – almost like a child’s drawing of a tree. It is quite a popular choice for Dublin City Council as a street tree. I had originally identified this as a Tilia cordata Greenspire but it is, in fact, a Corylus colurna or Turkish hazel (and thanks to Phil Grant for helping me with the identification). 

Fri30Jul2021: update for spring&summer – pix credits to Geoffrey.

2012Norway: OSL, Frognerbadet, Ole Vigs gt, Jacob Aalls gt, the only tree (birch) seen from the window where I sleep with a Buddy Car parked there for a few hours, an ideal car for cities! It is a nice surprise to see how these trees (excluding the one in Frognerbadet!) can grow in the middle of this concrete blocks and hard pavements!

Have been blessed with the above trees crossing my path

USA: South Carolina: Sweetgum trees in the fall in SC (Liquidamber Styraciflua).  Flows off the tongue when you say it like sugarcane molasses – LOON 

Angel Oak is a Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) located in Angel Oak Park on Johns Island near Charleston, SC. Angel Oak is estimated to be 500yrs old. It stands 66.5′(20m) tall, measures 28′(8.5m) in circumference, and produces shade that covers 17,200sq’ (1,600sq m).

USA: Honolulu, HI – Eucalyptus on the left and a Banyan Tree or ‘Strangler Fig’ on the right.  Banyan trees can start as a small plant in the crotch of another tree and grow down to the ground with its twisted roots as you see in this photo.  Eventually it can outgrow and completely surround the host tree, in effect it will strangle its own host – LOON 

Mar2019: Monkey Pod & Bayan tree@Hilo, Big Island/Hawai’i, HI/USA. Monkey Pod trees. Some near my house were planted by Mark Twain in the 1800s – LOON 13 Jul

The amazing yellow flowering tree is a Saraca asoca tree, also know as Sorrowless tree. It is believed Shakyamuni Buddha was born under an ashoka tree in Lumbini Garden. In Hinduism the ashoka is considered a sacred tree@Kaneohe, cousin Wilki’s garden; Rainbow Eucalyptus@Dole Plantation & Bayan Tree@AlaMoana RegionalPark. HNL, HI.

Fri9Sep2022: spanning 1.94acres and rising more than 60ft in the air, Lahaina’s famed banyan tree is a quarter of a mile in circumference and possesses 16trunks, making it the largest banyan tree not only in HI but also in the USA (and one of the most massive in the world).

Some of these trees below are on my bucket list to see.

24 Oct 2015: African Baobab – pix downloaded. Baobab is the common name of a genus of trees (Adansonia). There are eight species. Six species live in the drier parts of Madagascar, one in mainland Africa, and one in Australia. The national tree of Madagascar. Known as the tree of life, with good reason. It can provide shelter, clothing, food, and water for the animal and human inhabitants of the African ‘savannah’ regions. The cork-like bark and huge stem are fire resistant and are used for making cloth and rope. The leaves are used as condiments and medicines. The fruit, called ‘monkey bread’, is edible, and full of vitamin C.

Also this tree is in my bucket list to see!

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/02/06/ancient-trees-woman-spends-14-years-photographing-worlds-oldest-trees/

8 Nov 2016 – pix downloaded. The soils of Borneo are notoriously poor in nutrients, even among rainforests. Plants have many adaptations to cope with this, but paramount to many strategies is having a shallow root system that collects the nutrients as soon as they are freed from the decaying leaf litter. Roots also don’t need to be deep as moisture is almost never in short supply. Because of this, many large rainforest trees utilize the addition of buttress roots to keep them stable. Some research also indicates that these buttresses may also help the trees to competitively exclude nearby neighbors. I couldn’t resist photographing this stunning specimen in the swampy forests of Mulu National Park in northern Sarawak. Nikon D810 | 17-35mm f/2.8 with polarizer | ISO 200 | Aperture f/11

Chien Lee Wildlife Photography

9 Jun 2017: pix downloaded. The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is home to the oldest trees in the world, Bristlecone Pines.  Some of these living trees exceed 4000 years of age and exhibit spectacular growth forms of twisted and beautifully colored wood. The visitor center at Schulman Grove, CA is open in summer.

Pix downloaded. The Tule Tree, or El Árbol del Tule, is a Montezuma cypress tree on the grounds of a church in Santa María del Tule in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It measures ~119ft,60m around but is ~116ft,42m high. It’s believed that the tree is ~2,000yrs. Local legend holds that the tree was planted 1,400 years ago by a priest of the Aztec storm god. According to National Geographic, it is the inspiration for an annual festival in Oaxaca – the tree with the largest trunk diameter in the world. 

Pix downloaded – Boab Tree – Derby, Australia: The squat, bulbous boab has provided water, food, medicine, shelter, even burial crypts for Aboriginals, some of whom regard the tree as sacred. This boab in W Australia is known as the Derby prison tree—erroneously, according to U of Tasmania historian Kristyn Harman and U of Adelaide architectural anthropologist Elizabeth Grant. Though the tree was reputed to be a holding cell or staging area for Aboriginal prisoners en route to Derby, Harman and Grant debunk the story as ‘a deliberate move to present it as a dark tourism site displaying colonial triumphs over Aboriginal people.’

7Jun2021: tkx for the below Prison Boab Tree to Garry who is driving around the OutBack in Australia and now in Wyndham, the northernmost town in the Kimberley region of W-Australia, located on the GreatNorthernHighway, 2,210k NE of Perth.

Pix downloaded, Mango Tree – Naunde, Mozambique, provides more than just shade from the sub-Saharan sun. Like other so-called palaver trees, it’s a traditional setting for storytelling, ceremonies, and regulating village life. ‘A place to meet and talk, to seek compromise and settle disputes, to bridge differences and foster unity,’ wrote Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, from Ghana, in his memoir. ‘If you have a problem and can’t find a solution, you meet again tomorrow and you keep talking.’

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/03/wisdom-of-trees/

2Jul2018: pix downloaded from National Geographic Feb 2017.

5Jan2019: pix downloaded. It’s only one of seven olive trees in the Mediterranean, which are believed to be over 2,000 years old. Although its exact age cannot be verified, scientists from the University of Crete have estimated it to be 4,000 years old. 11Dec 2019: The Thinking Olive Tree in Ginosa/Puglia, Italy – both pix downloaded

https://www.greece10best.com/the-oldest-olive-tree-in-the-world-is-in-greece/

28Apr2019: pix downloaded – this bridge near Riwai village, India, was formed by training tree roots to knit together. Living tree bridges in India stand strong for hundreds of years. The entwined roots of Indian rubber trees form bridges that grow more durable with time.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2019/11/india-living-tree-bridges-stand-hundreds-years/

30Dec2019: pix downloaded – the Great Banyan Tree (pix downloaded) can be found growing in a botanical garden near Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, occupies the better part of 5acres and is more than 250yrs with branches over the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden — about the size of a Manhattan city block.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/understanding-roots-banyan-tree.htm

3Jan2020: pix downloaded – located in the small town of Belzoni, SkyLake WMA is an incredible natural wonder. The 3,500-acre area is home to some of the oldest and biggest bald cypress trees on Earth.

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/mississippi/sky-lake-wma-ancient-cypress-trees-ms/

Pix downloaded – 12,000-year-old Antarctic Beech is in Queensland, Australia. And thank goodness that it is safe from the recent fires.

https://oltw.blogspot.com/2011/12/12000-year-old-antarctic-beech.html

14Nov2020: pix downloaded –  tallest tree in Wales had been damaged by a storm and was supposed to be cut down, but a better solution was found. Natural Resource Wales, which was in charge of the site, ordered artist Simon O’Rourke to cut down the tree. He thought of a giant hand, which symbolizes the giants, and the tree’s last attempt to reach the sky. O’Rourke needed to add two pieces for the thumb and pinky as the tree wasn’t large enough to form all the entire hand.

Once completed, the sculpture was coated with tung oil, a natural vegetable oil safe for the closeness of the riverways. It’s height: 50 feet (15 metres):

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-15693962

13Mar2021: pix downloaded – when a librarian in Idaho had to remove a dying 110-year-old tree from her property, she instead transformed the stump into a LittleFreeLibrary. https://mymodernmet.com/little-free-library-tree-stump/

4Apr2021: pix downloaded – Happy Easter Sunday to those celebrating. This 10,000 hand-painted EasterEggTree in Saalfeld (between Leipzig&Frankfurt) Germany must be the most amazing one of a kind tree I have ever seen and will add it to my bucket list, even if it is only at Easter. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/50-year-tradition-couple-trims-tree-10-000-easter-eggs-n56841 

Judi Dench – My Passion for Trees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjnv_AevX4s

May2021: https://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com/blogs/ultralight/honoring-our-oldest-trees-with-brian-kelley

The above link is for oldest trees in the US (pix downloaded), while those posted on YouTube below is for the world!

15Dec2021 – pix downloaded – WhistlerTree, largest cork oak in the world. Comment from PaulK – This is one side effect of encouraging the drinking of wine. Sustainable harvesting of cork in Portugal, for example, gives a reason for maintaining a very rich semi-natural habitat. High natural history value (and carbon capture) together with economic value. This is how we should be living (and drinking wine!) and tkx for his interesting comment&share – https://www.apcor.pt/en/montado/forest/

22Dec2021: decades ago, the bottom of the thinner tree was damaged and then later cut off. While the damaged tree struggled to survive, the bigger tree began to nurture it.

Tkx to Carolyn Weatherson for this share and do really wonder if this is for real or photoshop and if real where this tree can be found? Real or not, it is nice to encourage what is constructive, good&positive.

Nurturing a feeling makes it proliferate. Choose wisely. Joy, kindness, love, & caring will illuminate your life ― Amy Leigh Mercree

29Jun2022: tkx to PaulC for his share of this beautiful Bougainvillea from Belém, Lisbon/Portugal that is tempting me to enjoy a cuppa at this cafe.

3Aug2022:

https://www.rdasia.com/culture/20-jaw-dropping-pictures-of-the-worlds-most-amazing-trees