I have a reputation as a precise estimator. I’d say that the spruce trees separating the practice range from the adjacent fairway were planted, oh, a while ago. They are, after all, pretty tall.
Ahem. Assuming they are not in destructive-testing mode (counting the growth rings after chopping the tree down), it turns out that experts do not use the height of a tree to estimate its age. They use the diameter of the trunk after measuring its circumference (about 4.5 feet from the ground) and then applying the growth factor applicable to the species.
However, even if I had known this technique at the time, I doubt that I would have used it: my tape measure was at home with my knitting kit and those branches are densely packed and sharp besides. So. The trees were likely planted during the development of Hylands Golf Course, which opened in 1961. That doesn’t seem like a long time ago–I mean, I remember 1961–but it would make them 64 years old if they were planted from seed and does that seem probable? No, they were likely transplanted as saplings of some sort, with several years or even a decade of growth already under their belts.
Anyway, what struck me about these trees was more than their irrelevant height and their unknown age. When I looked at them from a distance, I saw, you know, a row of individual trees. But when I looked at each tree up close, scanning for photo opportunities, I saw a community of life.
There were the aforementioned sharp branches, of course, and (on different trees) what seemed like two kinds of seed cones: a tree of today and trees of tomorrow, just hanging out together.
There was something very like lichen growing on the branches.
The world’s tiniest ants scampered along the branches, and mystery insects flitted among the needles. One was a drab flyer about a half-inch long and a sixteenth of an inch wide when the wings were folded. A moth? Maybe, but too small and featureless to photograph. Another was a longish bee-like insect with a distinct white butt, but too flitty to photograph. In these parts it might have been a gypsy cuckoo bumble bee, but I don’t remember seeing a yellow stripe, so who knows?
Were there other insects in and under that tree? Undoubtedly. Birds? Maybe. Wee mammals? Probably. Other plants? Possibly. Microbes? Absolutely. Some of these non-tree organisms would be just resting on the tree, but some would be truly living with it: taking and/or providing sustenance and/or protection in some form.
In addition to the trees, there was another line of beings there that day: the golfers whacking balls into the practice range. As with the trees, their heights were not a reliable indicator of their ages, but going by other indicators they ranged from 20-ish to almost 80. They also certainly looked to be tidy individuals, but appearances here were as misleading as they were with the trees.
I saw no lichen on anyone’s arms or legs, but in the human body microbial cells outnumber human cells. The initial estimate of the ratio was about ten-to-one; it’s since been revised downward to something closer to one-to-0ne (56 to 43%, with the advantage to the microbes). That’s just going by cell count: looking at genome, though, the microbes outnumber us by somewhere between a thousand and ten thousand to one. It seems like I’m not the only precise estimator.
Prof Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist from Caltech, argues: “We don’t have just one genome, the genes of our microbiome present essentially a second genome which augment the activity of our own. What makes us human is, in my opinion, the combination of our own DNA, plus the DNA of our gut microbes.”
Can each apparent individual–tree and human–be understood as a community? It seems so.
Can each row of similar individuals also be understood as a community? Probably: some foresters think that trees communicate and collaborate and there is some evidence of inter-human communication and collaboration.
Can all the rows of different organisms–trees, humans, mystery insects with white butts–be understood as a community? I’m guessing yes.
Indeed, I’m guessing it’s community all the way down.
It’s wonderful the way you can start with row of spruce trees on a golf course and take us down the path you just did.
Jim R – Many thanks!
Micro-connections and macro-connnections, both at once. Well done, Isabel!
Jim T – Thank you kindly.
Lovely. It’s always worth looking closely at something.
Steve – Many thanks. In the same vein, I remember one of my sons coming home from school after a field trip to an art gallery. The docent had told them they should look at a picture for at least 10 seconds before moving on. Honestly, that was a revelation to me as much as to the grade-schoolers. Art, spruce trees, people – it’s a rule with wide potential application.
True about art, for sure. I keep meaning to post something about what happens when you spend time scanning one of those Flemish/Dutch still lifes – like your spruces, they often turn out to be full of little details, tiny insects, etc.
By the way: not to correct you, because folks might be interested – there is a way to age trees intermediate between “measure diameter and approx correct” and “cut it down”. We core them! There’s a device called an increment corer (or borer) that takes about a pencil-size round sample of wood, and when you pull it out you count rings in that. It does very little damage to the tree – it’s rather like tapping for maple syrup. The only hitch (vs. cutting the tree down) is that if you don’t hit the very middle, you miss the first (earliest) rings. You can even do this with historic timbers, for example in a cathedral, and this lets us reconstruct things like past climate or even the history of past insect outbreaks!
Here’s what it looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increment_borer
Steve – Hey, many thanks! That sounds better than taking the axe or chainsaw to them, for sure. (And who knew that people study “past insect outbreaks”? :-))
I’m fascinated by the tiny ants.
Thanks, Isabel.
Tom
Tom – IKR? They were *really* small. And I guess they might not have been ants: Class Insecta is not my forte either.
Observant, funny, interesting, thought-provoking, and reflective on bigger pictures. But only 10 seconds in front of an artwork? I guess that’s how I lost the rest of the class/my travelling buddies/the tour guide and tourists/my family, while exploring museums, art galleries, the Smithsonian, and other such venues. Every so often, I have been transfixed and have gazed at a work for an hour, then circled back to learn more. Following someone knowledgeable about particular works, such as Chris Jones https://www.chrisjoneswrites.co.uk/, gives one analytical skills that can be applied more widely. Like your analysis of the tree community, Chris’s deeper looks at artworks awaken the senses to the created environment.
Laurna – Many thanks. I think the 10 seconds wasn’t a ceiling but a floor, meant to replace/overcome a tendency to glance and keep walking. I expect that once you spend 10 seconds, you’re likely to spend a lot more.