Those who read The Plant Messiah will perhaps remember that the author, Carlos Magdalena, was greatly enamoured of water lilies. Since landing his dream job at Kew Gardens (a most inspiring story), he has been able to indulge his interests, which aren’t limited to water lilies.
I read with interest that research he and many colleagues have been doing has led to the identification of a third species of giant water lily. The link to the article is here. One thing that makes it a very interesting read is that the long paper (31 pages) covers the issues that make plant identification important for conservation and how this team wove together historical records, contemporary citizen science, and state-of-the-art genomic techniques of living samples to make their determination.

Although we have just finished five months and five books focused on trees, this morning I learned that it’s Tree Week and one of my favorite websites has a very cool article on Eight “Extraordinary Pieces of Architecture Grown from Living Trees.”
Called arbortecture, the article has brief descriptions and impressive photographs of arbortecture from around the world. Including three tree cathedrals or chapels and two root bridges, the article also has a number of images from Gilroy Gardens. We have talked about the Circus Trees of Axel Erlandson several times, most recently as a topic related to How I Became a Tree.
The Atlas Obscura piece ends with the art of Richard Reames who, fittingly, was influenced by Erlandson and uses trees as a sculptural mediaum. Pretty cool!

One thing mentioned during the April discussion that I forgot to look into was tree law. Luckily for me, at the bottom of the arbortecture article, there is a link to tree law and the lawyers who specialize in arboreal arbitration! As you might suspect, this is a topic that is mostly about cutting back overhanging limbs and who has to pay when a tree falls on your house. As one lawyer who was interviewed wrote: “I thought, as most lawyers do when they get their first tree case: ‘How hard can it be?’” Bonapart says. “I quickly learned it was very complex and very nuanced.”

So, check out the articles, let me know if you find other interesting plant and tree related information, and have a happy tree week!

The book club met to discuss Sumana Roy’s How I Became a Tree on 4 April 2022. For our hybrid meeting, I was broadcasting live from the Albuquerque Garden Center with a few people joining me in person (socially distanced, etc) and several people attending via Zoom from different locations throughout the US as well as in Albuquerque. Among the cool things we discussed were Axel Erlandson’s Circus Trees and the city of Melborne’s tree email system. Read more about it all here.

Next up, on Monday 2 May, is Journeys of Trees. Among the interesting bits I’ve read so far is the story of the Emerald Ash Borer, which includes how it came to be called Emerald rather than just, you know, Green. Come join us virtually or in person if you’re in Albuquerque.

The rest of the year will have us reading non-tree books because trees aren’t the only plants although they are very impressive and amazing. And, we really, really, really need to understand that and take care of them.