Just before heading away last weekend to a remote village accessible only by boat, far away in the Cascade Mountains, I happened across photos of a vintage book called Trees Every Child Should Know. My favorite chapter title: “The Disappointing Hickories”—which, a friend suggested, could be the name of our bluegrass band. (Should we form one, we would definitely live up to the name.)
As a child my family lived in a small town on the mouth of the Connecticut River, on Long Island Sound. I spent a great deal of time outside exploring the marshy area and woods and beaches in our neighborhood. But I did not learn the names of trees, aside from the maple and the weeping willow—and I have fond memories of the willow across the street, in Lisa’s front yard, where, once, water collected in a hollow just before a severe freeze, forming a perfect ice skating pond. I snuck out of the house to skate alone early one morning in the thin winter light, resting in the “house” under the willow branches before going home to warm up.
Later, one summer when I was about fourteen, visiting in Ohio with my grandmother, we strolled over to Lake Erie. It was sticky-hot. Along the way, my stepmother pointed out the homes of her chums and various significant places from her childhood. These houses, her elementary school, and, curiously, several trees—all had been marker points, and stories of adventure were connected to each.
At one point, she and her mother mentioned a particular tree that was now gone, perhaps lost to Dutch Elm Disease—I can’t quite recall. But I do distinctly remember saying wistfully that I wished I knew the names of trees. “I guess they don’t teach that in school anymore.”
My stepmother was quick with her retort: “We didn’t learn that in school! Everyone just knew the names!” I felt somehow scolded and cheated at the same time. And I have since been haunted by a feeling of inadequacy concerning my knowledge of the natural world. Although, as an adult, of course, I have been curious, asked questions when I’ve met knowledgeable people, and I generally consult various guides, trees, birds, etc. And! I read aloud a few of Bernd Heinrich’s books to my younger son, Summer World and Winter World. Delightful.
Still. The feeling remains, this idea that “everyone” should know… this or that. The names of trees. Or flowers. Or animals.
And then last weekend at the village with my friend Tamara, I thought about this again, that I wanted to learn the names of trees. The Wolverine fire of 2015 had originated not far from the village, and it was only through heroic effort that the village itself was saved.
We had a few walks, but the one day we were free to have a proper hike the visibility was so poor and the snow so thick, we had to abort the mission. Back at her chalet, Tamara showed me a guidebook—she had just read a quirky little blurb about the Douglas squirrel.
And that reminded me of a moment during my book purge last summer. For a hot minute I had thought about ditching my father’s old “history” books. I flipped through the pages, curious to see whether the musty old thing would spark joy, and, indeed, I admired the gorgeous and problematic color plate illustrations. Then I noticed an article about David Douglas, the botanist.
The language is deliciously florid:
Romantic and interesting his life, tragic and melancholy his end: it is well that one of the most widely distributed trees on our coast should bear his name, and perpetuate the memory of his noble and self-sacrificing labors.
“An Early Hero of the Pacific: David Douglas, Botanist,” by T. Somerville in Frontier Days by Oliver G. Swan
I had made a mental note to look him up, put the book in the “keep” pile, then promptly forgot about Douglas altogether.
Reading about his squirrel last weekend, I made another mental note, and this time I remembered, partly thanks to Tom. (Poor Douglas. He did, indeed, meet a tragic and melancholy end—trampled to death by a bull after falling into a pit trap on the Big Island of Hawaii.)
The weather had been so grim that getting to the village was positively grueling. Of course, on the day I left, it was glorious—a windstorm had blown through the previous night. Tom, a forestry guy volunteering at the village, made the ten-mile trip down to the boat landing, bringing along his chainsaw. Which he needed. We stopped four times to clear a fallen tree from the road.
After we finally made it down the mountain, we piled out of the bus. Several of us were milling about on the beach waiting for the boat to deliver the next batch of visitors off the boat when Tom approached with a branch.
“Do you have something to show us?”
“I do!”
It was a fir branch.
“Do you see these?” he asked, pointing to the nodules along the branch. “They’re dwarf parasitic mistletoe.” And then he told us all about them, how they build up a sort of pus pod for the seed until there’s so much pressure it bursts out, shooting the seed as many as eighty-five feet in a second.
They also divert nutrients to the areas of the tree where they are latched on, and that area becomes lush. But that will cut off nutrients to the rest of the tree, and the topmost branches will eventually die. The bushy bits of the tree are called witches’ broom.
Later that afternoon, on the drive through Blewett Pass, I saw one! A fir with an enormous “broom” on one side, close to the ground, and the spire top entirely dead.
Naming and knowing stories help us to see. When we were in college, Tamara’s parents were visiting one spring, and walking across campus they pointed out that the flowering shrub was not, as I’d guessed, a rhododendron, but an azalea. After they pointed out the differences, they were obvious, but until then, the distinctions were entirely opaque to me.
I remembered this during the wait at Lucerne Landing—the boat dropped off the village’s next visitors and then left us to continue north, fetching us a few hours later on the trip “down lake.”
This long waiting, a liminal time in a liminal place, gave me the space to reflect deeply on all manner of things—a difficult semester, major life decisions looming, and, well, love and family, luminous and complicated.
The light was beautiful on the beach.
I do not know the names of the trees with the yellow leaves. Yet.
What a delicious read this was. My mother knows–by virtue, perhaps, of an Iowa childhood? although hers was urban, not agricultural in any way–the names of many different trees and plants, both generally and local to the California town where I was raised. It’s one more way in which I feel alien to the world that surrounds me, and it’s an alienation that we, as a species, can ill afford. Reading your reflections and experiences put me in mind of a most-favorite article from a few years ago on the rich and disappearing lexicon that once marked our immersion in the landscape. Not quite your point, but related: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/27/robert-macfarlane-word-hoard-rewilding-landscape
Oh! Yes, I remember now that after hearing him interviewed, I immediately bought one of McFarlane’s books. I found it a little precious, a little difficult to get through. I believe I would have loved it if I could have read it with my ears instead. I periodically check to see if they’re available as audio, and so far, no.
Somewhat related to the alienation you feel—and I feel the threat, too—before living with my stepmother, in Connecticut, I was raised by parents who were mentally ill. So they were turned inward, their reality fractured, distant, from the actual, physical world. Since the mortal peril (and subsequent survivor’s guilt), I’ve been asked and have asked myself, again and again, why I was able to survive and escape when my siblings were not? Now, today, reading your comment, Alison, I am beginning to wonder if simply spending time outside saved my life. Which seems too simple, too pat, but a cascade of memory is nudging me to think that might be the case. Hmm.
I don’t think that’s too simple of an answer. I know someone who is wise and gives sooooo much to the world who says being outdoors in the country all summer every summer (as a child) saved him from the fate of some of his siblings and most of his childhood friends—crime, jail, things like that. His grandfather had hit him with the car—he still has the dent in his skull—and ever after felt that he had to make it up to his grandson, so he brought him to the old home place in the country every summer.
Sometimes very strange things turn out to be true.