Book Review: Elderflora: A Modern History Of Ancient Trees

Science Book Review: Elderflora: A Modern History Of Ancient Trees Rebecca Coffey Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I’m interested in evolution, health, the environment, and behavior. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Oct 24, 2022, 04:00am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Cover photo, Elderflora Photo credit: Basic Books University of Pennsylvania professor Jared Farmer ( Trees in Paradise: The Botanical Conquest of California and On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape ) describes himself as a geohumanist and place-based historian. In his new book, Elderflora , Farmer wonders about Earth’s “oldest living thing[s]. ” Arguably, they include trees, for while each tree is an individually functioning organism, many are also clonal parts of branching (and constantly re-generating) underground root systems.

Given trees’ reliance on their networked roots, even non-clonal ones are parts of superorganisms. The span of a tree’s life might therefore be counted as the span of life of the root system upon which it relies. Aboveground, each tree has its own history.

Below ground, even the “oldest” trees may be tens of thousands of years more ancient than anyone has guessed. Elderflora begins with Framer relating the biological history and rich cultural traditions that surround some of Earth’s most cherished tree species. While his examination of biology and botany seem expert, the cultural histories that he paints for five tree species are extraordinary.

The history of the cedar, for example, begins with the Cedars of Lebanon, mentioned in the Torah and, before that, in the 8 th century BCE Epic of Gilgamesh . Farmer goes on to describe cedar trees’ role as witnesses and occasional participants in social upheaval from Biblical through modern times. He then applies the same “trees through history” approach to the other venerable tree species, most specifically olive, ginkgo, pipal (a/k/a ficus or sacred fig), and baobab (also known as the “elephant” tree because it’s fat and the “upside down” tree because its branches look like roots).

Throughout, Elderflora offers pearls of trivia and insight. Some of my favorites: The word “scientist” wasn’t coined until 1834. In the 1960s, the radiocarbon dating methods upon which archaeologists and botanists now routinely rely were calibrated on old conifers of the White Mountains of California.

The world’s oldest known tree is a 4,700-year-old bristle cone pine known as Methuselah. It’s in the White Mountains of California. Discovered in 1957 by Edmund Schulman, a dendrochronologist (scientist who studies tree rings), its precise GPS coordinates are kept secret to protect it from tourists.

It was Schulman who realized that the tree rings of ancient trees hold climate data for centuries and millennia gone by. Unfortunately, three years prior to Schulman’s discovery of Methuselah, a 3,100-year-old bristle cone (at the time the oldest known living tree) was felled by another scientist in order to study it. As a rule, the oldest trees have biological mechanisms that allow them to recover from calamities like fires and floods.

In Elderflora, Farmer notes that such trees don’t so much live longer as die more slowly. It almost goes without saying: the oldest trees of many tomorrows are alive today. Gnarled and ugly trees like the goblin-shaped Methuselah get anthropomorphized, lovingly nicknamed, and showered with respect and love.

Gnarled and ugly humans, on the other hand, are often the recipients of contempt. Nowhere in the four Gospels does the New Testament refer to an “olive garden” to which Jesus repaired on the eve of his crucifixion. That’s a creation of myth makers in the 19th century.

“Rather,” writes Farmer, “the evangelists mention an undefined place called Gethsemane near the Mount of Olives that Jesus frequented during the last spring of his life . … In Jesus’ time, the Mount of Olives contained an oil-processing facility within a cave. The owner of this underground facility may have rented the space to Jesus in the off-season.

” Perhaps because I live in a tiny apartment and frequently fantasize about seasonal out-of-city rentals, item #10 (above) is my favorite of these pearls. Gingko trees as a species have been morphologically stable for 120 million years. The fallen seed coats of gingkoes decompose, and, as they decay, they smell like rotting meat.

You can’t tell the age of some trees by counting rings because, as years go by, the trees of some species hollow out. The leaves of a pipal tree are so big that, when they rattle in the wind, they sound like a flock of birds taking flight. Buddha stared unblinkingly for seven days at a Pipal tree.

Baobabs are the longest-living flowering plants. The wood of a Baobab contains over 80% water , making it worthless to harvest for burning or building. Yet a Baobab can heal over wounds that are on its surface.

Baobab is one of the tree species in which older specimens become hollow. A fourteenth century scholar wrote that one artisan used the roomy inside of an old Baobab as his weaving studio. Jared Farmer.

Photo by Annette Hornischer / American Academy in Berlin 2019 01 25 Annette Hornischer / American Academy in Berlin Jared Farmer’s Elderflora is a fascinating history of the world’s oldest trees as they’ve marked and been marked by climate and people from prehistory onward. Its scope runs far beyond Farmer’s five “venerable species” (cedar, olive, gingko, pipal, and baobab) to include yews, cypress trees, sequoias, the old trees of the entire Pacific Rim, trees of North and South America, and trees of Europe and Asia. Elderflora is a sweeping, exceptional tribute to the oldest living organisms on Earth.

It’s also a reminder that, even though many trees have ways of healing over superficial wounds, ancient trees and the cultural histories they signify need protection as Earth dries out and heats up. MORE FOR YOU Juan Soto Contract Rejection Could Make Orioles A Better Buy Than Nationals Meet 11 Female Scientists, Innovators And Entrepreneurs Changing The Narrative On Menopause Xi Jinping’s Power Grab Spooks China Investors Follow me on Twitter . Check out my website .

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