I’m writing this just before Christmas, and I got thinking about Christmas trees. A bit of research revealed that our pagan ancestors worshipped trees, and this worship survived their conversion to Christianity in the form of Christmas trees. Pretty cool, huh?
It’s been extremely dry, and as a stress response some of our trees have produced spectacular floral displays, such as the Flame trees, Brachychiton acerifolius, and Poincianas, Delonix regia, along Macadamia Freeway and Beech Street in Maleny.
I feel that the root systems contract in this dry time, and when the big storms that will inevitably come arrive, the trees will be less able to support themselves.
I include the botanical names of trees in the hope that it might inspire some of you to also learn them, and to resonate with those of you who already know them. Once I began to learn the Latin names of plants, I felt so much more plugged in to the environment around me.
Instead of being a green mass that I drove past, they became a collection of fascinating individuals, all with their different foibles and functions, and the intricacies of their connections led to a growing feeling of being totally awestruck by the miraculous nature of this creation that we find ourselves partaking in.
Look for yourself, and touch a tree.
