Trees and the Nexus

Source: https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2019/07/angeltree.jpg.1200x0_q70_crop-smart.jpg

“He that plants trees loves others besides himself.”
—Thomas Fuller

A tree is something that outlives us, and offers its full benefit to people we may never meet. Planting trees is a gift to the future.

Source https://i.ytimg.com/vi/p-meNEblN0E/maxresdefault.jpg

What is a tree? It is a living being that transforms solar energy into valuable materials that form the base of the food chain, including fruits, nuts, roots, bark, wood, and leaves. All of these materials are embodied energy - their chemical energy can be transformed into metabolic energy by digestion, into methane by methanogenic bacteria, and the methane or raw material can be transformed into kinetic energy (heat) when burned.

Source: https://s3-production.bobvila.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Burning_Leaves.jpg

Natural wooded areas provide important habitat for wild pollinator species, whose services improve the productivity of many species of food crops. Additionally, honeybees provide food in the form of pollen, honey, and royal jelly.

Source: https://media.sciencephoto.com/c0/46/27/33/c0462733-800px-wm.jpg

Leaves and woody detritus build soil as they decompose. Soil is more precious than we often consider, building up over millennia where once was barren rock, a carpet of life. Tree roots stabilize slopes while holding soil in place. Soil is itself a rich biotic community, filled with fungi, bacteria, and decomposers like worms and insects that keep the wheel of life turning and transform death into a fertile new beginning.

Source: https://cdn8.dissolve.com/p/D256_49_152/D256_49_152_1200.jpg

Trees purify water, as rain and runoff percolate through roots and soil. Forests also create a microclimate: leaves evapotranspirate moisture, which is captured by the tall forest canopy and rains back down, where moisture is held in the soil. This is one reason rainforests are so valuable - but once they are cut down, the microclimate is no longer wet enough to generate rain forest conditions, and savannah prevails. This in turn affects water held below the soil in aquifers, and watersheds that feed rivers. Rain runs off rapidly over land surface without vegetation to slow it, making rivers flood more easily and carrying valuable soil, sediment, and pollution into waterways. Forests and rivers are intimately connected.

Source: https://savesutro.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/forest-6.png

Trees also purify the atmosphere. Trees sequester carbon (as does soil!) while generating oxygen. Oxygen is used in common by us all, and by all forms of life.

Source: https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/sites/sbs.com.au.topics/files/styles/full/public/black-forest-1476021_1280.jpg?itok=WSdPNnUt&mtime=1476231158

Trees are a source of food and habitat; as they grow they become like cities, inhabited by birds, mammals, salamanders, frogs, arthropods, snakes, and even aquatic communities such as thrive in mangrove forests. Trees are home and shelter, refuge and nourishment. When trees die and fall, they become nurse logs as seeds drift down upon them and are nurtured by the rotting wood.

Source: https://i.redd.it/7ewbo9rntvl21.jpg

To plant a tree is to love life and all living things.

Source: https://www.paulmarcellini.com/images/xl/IMG_8249lab.jpg