Category Archives: dendrographia

Dendrographia (den-dro-graf’-ia): Creating an illusion of reality through vivid description of a tree.

We had a stand of redwoods in North-Western California They were Giant Sequoias that had been in my family for over one-hundred years. There must have been at least 200 trees scattered over 4,000 acres of forest—everything from saplings to mature trees. We just let them grow. We would harvest blowdowns or dying trees, but didn’t harvest the others. We could sell the wood for as much as $10 per linear foot.

The seed cones are about two-three inches long and are shaped like eggs. It is amazing that they produce trees 165-275 feet tall. Every time I think about this, it seems almost unbelievable—in a way it is magic, and can supply an apt metaphor or simile for stunning growth and development —from small to huge—I guess any seed can symbolize that, but the Sequoia does it on a massive scale!

The bark almost looks like a skirt, flaring out to a thickness of nearly three feet at the trunk, and supposedly protects the tree against fire. The bark is brownish with deep ridges running up and down the tree, almost like external veins. With a diameter of 25 feet, it is hard to give mature trees a hug, but the little ones are fair game.

The Sequoia has a crown of evergreen branches. The rest of the trunk is bereft of foliage. Standing by a full-grown mature Sequoia, you have to crane your neck to look up to the tree’s top. A given tree may be as old as 3,000 years. That’s old! To stand by, and touch, the huge trunk can feel like one is channeling antiquity. Standing alongside a living being that may be 3,000 years old drives home how short our sojourn is on planet earth. Compare our 80-some-year-run to a sequoia’s 3,000 years!

What would it be like to live for 3,000 years?

The factual information about Sequoias above is gathered from the internet, the rest is fictional.

Dendrographia (den-dro-graf’-ia): Creating an illusion of reality through vivid description of a tree.

Here we go again. The one-hundred year old oak is a pain in the ass—especially in autumn. It’s probably at least fifty feet tall and three feet in diameter. On average it probably grew about six inches per year. It’s bark is nearly black with a tinge of light grey and some gray-green lichens attached to it. At its base is a little hollowed-out arch where I sometimes see a Chipmunk peering out when I ride by on my mower.

But, the hell of the oak tree is it’s leaves: turning reddish brown and falling off the tree by the friggin’ truckload: it’s a leaf storm that lasts about two weeks. I call it Fall Flutter Down. Cleaning up the fallen leaves is a family affair: three rakes, one tarp, one whining teenager with “better things to do.” We load the tarp over and over, and drag it to the curb and dump it over and over. The city has a giant vacuum cleaner to suck up the leaves.

Raking leaves is a pain in the ass with no redeeming value, except, I guess, getting it done and keeping the family intact while doing so.

In November, the acorns start falling and a pack of gray squirrels shows up to bark and chatter and eat, carry, and bury the nuts all over the yard. All winter, they’re out in the yard digging them up, and pooping and peeing on the fresh fallen snow, giving the front yard the look of a wildlife restroom. Some of the buried acorns sprout and I enjoy mowing over them in Spring as a kind revenge.

Now the old oak tree is undressed: branches naked, acorns on the ground, it casts shadows that move in the wind of Autumn’s final weeks. The squirrel’s nests are revealed now. There will be babies born, and I must admit I enjoy watching the little ones play on the tree and front lawn.

In a red sunset the tree’s shadows seem alive or maybe like the soul of the old tree caressing the earth—the home of its roots and womb of its birth.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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