PATTERNS: A KEY TO NAMING THE TREES

People are always asking me: Jon Spruce, how would you define ‘nature’ using only one word?

One word?  That’s easy.  Patterns.  The one word is patterns.

If you said cycles, I wouldn’t kick you out of the cabin.  That’s an excellent word to describe nature but I can’t see nature's cycles in my lifetime and I certainly can’t see them tree-hunting on these city streets. 

When I stare into the shaman’s fire and think in terms of nature’s endless cycles, I see images of Pangaea dispersing into continents, India crashing into China, dinosaurs surviving as birds, ice ages melting into rainforests, magma rocks building sedimentary shelves, underwater volcanoes sprouting sandy islands, drought and rain burying fossils, a 2.5-inch cone that I can squeeze between my fingers growing into the California Bigtree we call Sequoia and, above it all, the milky cloud-cover spinning forever around our blue planet.  And moss.  Lots of moss.

I’ll stick with patterns.  When I’m out tree-hunting, I’m looking for patterns.  The patterns help me identify the tree.   

Maybe it’s the way the branches are growing – opposite or alternate?  Maybe it’s the pattern of leaf shapes and sizes.  It could be the bark or the fruit.  If I can recognize the pattern that the tree is growing into, then I got a good shot at putting that tree into a family or a group, one step closer to knowing its name.     

Patterns in trees.

I’ll show you what I mean.

THE EMPRESS TREE, THE PRAIRIE BANANA AND THE HARDY ORANGE

The best part about spring is its inconsistency. 

Summer is one long battery of heat, sun, sweat and glare.  The best part of summer is walking into air-conditioning and peaches. 

Winter? I actually enjoy winter, but I admit that it’s just one long onslaught of cold, moon, ice and snow.  The best part of winter is apple cider and wearing long johns.

When it comes to weather though, I’ll take the eager spring and its seasonal shadow, autumn, any time. This is my kind of life, this weather.  It’s inconsistent, contrary, capricious and spontaneous. 

Winter?  You know it’s cold.  Summer?  You know it’s hot.  Spring and autumn?  You better just follow the advice of Bob Dylan, America’s greatest weatherman: You want to know the weather?  Open up the window and stick your head outside.

One day, it’s hot and sunny.  The next day, it’s cold and drizzly.  That’s nice.  I like it when it takes two attempts to walk out the door for the day.  I never get the right clothes on the first time around.

Here in the Lenapehanna Delaware River Watershed, we’re only two or three day away from the next spring moon…it all depends on the frogs.  It’s been a good moon, full of flowers and adventure, but I wanted to get one more good tree-hunt done before the next rising.

Something special.  Something rare.  Something out of the ordinary.  This is going to get a little nerdy.

SOUTH PHILLY TUNDRA, WEST PHILLY WOODLANDS

The other day, I was snaking my way through the streets of South Philly, trying to avoid baseball traffic on my way back to the rat-race of Center City.  It was, typical for this week, sunny and brisk, clear and windy.

I ended up on Ninth Street, heading north, ballgame on the radio.  Stop signs on every corner kept me moving at a snail’s pace, the perfect speed for urban tree-hunting.

I might as well have been hunting underwater.  

SOUTH PHILLY STARK

This part of South Philly is an urban tundra, as treeless as a clear-cut, unwooded, unshaded and unseasoned.  Lately, all over the city, I’ve been breezing around, absolutely bedazzled by the budding trees and leafing branches, spinning in circles trying to catch all the colors like I was trapped in a kaleidoscope. 

Then this.

CALLERYANA AD INFINITUM

Arthur Plotnik writes in The Urban Tree Book:

 …most tree species are out of their element in the urban scene.  Between pollutants, drought, compacted soil, poor drainage, salt spray, bugs, dogs, heat, construction, vibrations, vandalism, and opportunistic diseases, many trees simply give up the ghost.

On my worst days, I can’t tell if Plotnik is talking about trees or citybillies.

There’s no doubt about it: trees have it tough here in the city, no thanks to that long list of obstacles quoted above. 

I’d add two more to the list.  

The first would be solitary confinement.  Only on a city street or a mall parking lot will you see trees plotted out in perfect alignment, each one confined to a small quarter of a sidewalk square, every one equally spaced between the next one down the block.  Trees don’t grow like that in the wild, and for good reason.  Healthy competition among trees encourages healthy trees.

The second obstacle is even more heartbreaking, far more dangerous and damn near impossible to control or change…and it originates from one of the most sinister, lifeless settings you’ll ever find on this spaceship Earth: a committee. 

MARCH MAGNOLIAS: BLOSSOMS BLOOMING

Tonight is the rising of the Budding Trees Moon and, with that rising, spring has begun in Philadelphia.

Sunny days, pleasant evenings and foggy mornings: that’s what it takes to make all these barren, leafless branches pop with spring.  Like most citybillies, I have an uncanny sense of weather and I predict that, by the end of next week, Philadelphia will be all leafed out.  It’s happening right now.

FIRST MOON OF WABUN 

This is the season of the Angiosperms, the tremendous clade of flowering plants that first took over the world 140-million years ago, just when the feathered dinosaurs were evolving into birds on the banks of the great super-continents.  The Gymnosperms, with their evergreen needles and their naked cones, rule the winter moons but for the rest of the year, it’s all Angiosperms and those lovely modified leaves that we call flowers.

Do I sound happy and bright?  Can’t help it.  

PHILADELPHIA STREETS

What’s the most common odonym in the United States?  Second Street.

What’s the ninth most common odonym in the United States?  Oak.

What’s an odonym?  Look it up.

Like most crowded, noisy cities, Philadelphia has a street named after the Quercus.  Philadelphia's Oak Lane is located along the northwest border of the city, and there are two neighborhoods named after the road itself: East Oak Lane and West Oak Lane.  East Oak Lane has the notable distinction of being one of Friend William Penn’s first neighborhoods, one of the many arboreous sanctums that he mapped out to surround his “green countrie towne” of Philadelphia.

East Oak Lane?  West Oak Lane?  I’ve been to these neighborhoods but I don’t know them very well.  I hope to get out there more. I can see lots of good tree-hunting grounds in these neighborhoods. 

There’s Awbury Arboretum, fifty-five acres of historic grounds right in the middle of its sprawl, and there are two great cemeteries: Northwood and Chelten Hills.  Like most tree-hunters, I am drawn to cemeteries and graveyards.  Plus, being so close to the northwest border of Philadelphia, these neighborhoods are a suburban abut to the great Catfish-Creek Woods of the Lenape Indians, commonly known as the Wissahickon. 

I’ll get to these places.  I just have to remember to bring a good map.  Like most citybillies, I have an uncanny sense of direction but there’s something about the East Oak Lane and West Oak Lane neighborhoods that really sets me adrift.  It usually happens in some weird place where 7th Street meets 66th Avenue.  What’s going on over there when it comes to street names?  Philadelphia is famous for its easy navigation when it comes to street names and numbered avenues.  But out there in the Oak Lane neighborhoods?  The benevolent grid seems to fold and bend and eat itself like a hungry oroboros. 

What’s an oroboros?  Look it up.

QUERCUS PHELLOS IN HUNTING PARK

I always knew the exact tree I wanted to hunt down for the beginning of this blog.  There was never any doubt in my mind.  It just took a while to get down there.  There's always too much to do, too many errands to run, too many hours of Law and Order on the TV.

Then, something happened.

I went to the CVS Pharmacy down the street from my urban cabin.  I needed a new hand-soap dispenser, some more paper towels, which I buy in bulk, and a new bottle of dandruff shampoo.  No matter what time I go to the CVS, there's always a line at the counter.  Walking around the store, I very rarely see anybody in the aisles but, as soon as I approach the register, there's suddenly a line of people.  It happens every time.

The person in front of me?  He was buying a 36-oz bottle of Mountain Dew, some canned soup and an assortment of candy from the impulse-buy racks in front of the register.  Then, he started filling out an application for a CVS Wellness Card to get the initial 10% discount.  That took about ten minutes and that's all it took.

It was time.  I needed to go tree hunting.  Like I said, I knew exactly where I needed to go.