Tanya Gauthier

The Air We Breathe

The trees of our planet are our oxygen: they are our mothers, our protectors of life, our

saviors. We treat them like slaves when we should treat them like queens. It would only make

sense, since they are the providers of the air which keeps our lungs working and our bodies

functioning. The ignorant abuse them, use them beyond what necessity requires, tear them away

from their roots in order to make more cash.

Here is a homage to just a few of these majestic and powerful beauties, in an attempt to

show appreciation for all that they do, even though that will never feel like enough.

Hall's Hardy Almond, Prunis Dulcis

A hardy tree, she grows to be as tall as three people stacked one on top of the other,

anywhere between fifteen and twenty feet in total. She can stretch her many arms a length that is

closer to two and a half humans wide, if these trees were to one day decide to be as kind as

humans are to them and tear a human clean in half for their own purposes.

She can grow to these lengths in a wide variety of soils, for she is strong and versatile.

Her tough flesh does require, though, at least six hours daily of constant contact with the sun's

loving rays in order to look and work at her very best.

In the late spring, she can be seen decorated in a plethora of beautiful blossoms painted a

lovely pale pink color, making her a beautiful addition to any yard. The true fruit of her labors,

though, is the nutritious almond, that golden nut which provides sustenance to those grateful

deer, squirrels, and birds, and even to those humans.

This delicious specimen was supposedly named by a nursery owner who was blessed

with a taste of her apples, mildly sweet, sent to the nursery by the lucky Iowan soul who found

her in the 92nd year of the 1800s. She is the taller relative of Prunis Dulcis, typically by about

five feet, although she has the potential to be born a dwarf who will grow to a mere ten feet tall

by adulthood.

A tough tree, she thrives best when raised in acidic soil that provides her plenty of rain

water. She requires daily sunbathing, however anywhere between six to eight hours of it, and

with no obstructions to its light shining onto her bark, or else she gets weepy and sick.

If raised properly, she will reach fruit-bearing age between the ages of six and ten, or

three and four if she is a dwarf. All kinds of creatures, birds and mammals alike, enjoy sinking

their beaks or teeth into the crisp red apples that sprout from her branches during the similarly

crisp fall months of September and October. She puts so much effort into producing bountiful

harvests for all to enjoy that the year after she has to take it easy and recuperate, creating only a

few tender fruits, but then the year after she is in prime working condition once more. Nectar and

pollen will gather within her pink-tinged blooms in the spring, attracting bees to her who rejoice

in her creations they can live another day, thanks to her nectar.

Early Golden Apricot, Prunus armeniaca

This delightful child of mother nature grows to be as large and lovely as Prunis Dulcis,

encouraging three grown humans to climb on each others shoulders in order to pick her juicy

fruit from the very top of her wide-spread branches. She can stretch these branches as wide as

she is tall, making her an adorable rounded shape at full size perfect for cuddling.
 She will fail to grow up to be a healthy tree unless she has a very particular kind of soil;

that is, she requires acidic, moist, and rich soil that will pamper her and raise her like a queen

from seedhood and onward into her old age. Furthermore, it must be loamy and embrace her

roots, soak her feet in equal amounts of sand and silt, forty percent each, and the remaining of

clay which thickens her mighty soil into a sturdier home to make her tough. She also requires

extensive tanning in the sun.

If she is raised in the proper manner fit for the royalty that she knows she is, she will

sprout apricots from her arms in order to repay all of the world and its creatures for their love

and care during her childhood. She will grow them large and golden in color, reflecting the ray of

the sun she has soaked in all these years, and her apricot will blush with a red joy for the smiles

they bring. Humans will pluck them from her arms and bite directly into their soft, forgiving

flesh, or they will gather several of them and bake them into a hearty pie. The smart and

appreciative ones, though, will can them, in order to preserve their beauty to be consumed in the

dead of winter as a sort of homage to their mother, who is sleeping off all the hard work she put

into birthing them in the summer, in order to raise yet more juicy fruits the following year.

American Arborvitae, Thuja Occidentalis

This massive North American tree grows to forty or even sixty feet tall at full maturity,

entirely dwarfing any human who dares to stand next to her. She is the l'arbre de vie, the tree of

life. Her evergreen leaves emit a lovely aroma when they are squeezed or otherwise disturbed.

The branchlets are covered in several feathery scales that are her leaves, fanning out from her

arms in gently curving rows. Her arms stretch out to no more than fifteen feet, making her a very

tall and slim tree perfect for humans to line up into hedges to protect them from the wind.
 She is as much royalty as Prunus Armeniaca is, desiring the highest quality soil

containing only the most specific amounts of sand, silt, and clay in order to be raised properly

into the majestic evergreen giant that she has the potential to be. This American, however, grows

no more than two feet per year, taking her time in maturing in order to soak up all of the soil's

and the sun's nutrients so she can grow into the best and the biggest.

Since she takes more time to grow, she also works the hardest, taking it easier but never

fully resting during the cold and bitter winter months meant for hibernating. Some of her

multitude of leaves retain their green color, while some shift to brown and yellow hues which

shiver to the ground in the cold. This tree also grows cones from her arms, which are typically

light brown in color, sometimes with a reddish hue to them. Their scales are blunt and somewhat

rounded, their tough shells protecting them even from bitter winters and keeping them intact

when they fall from their mother's arms. Much like a mother, she is also one of the protective

trees of the forest, providing safe nesting sites for birds in the summer and warm, cozy homes in

the winter to keep mother nature's creatures safe from the elements.

Quaking Aspen, Populous tremuloides

Her trees tremble in the very smallest of breezes, giving her her name. She has the largest

range of natural growth in North America out of all the trees, also capable of growing in a very

wide range of elevation levels. They grow in clones, making many of these quaking trees

connected and considered to be one massive organism living on the earth; one clone found in

Utah has forty-seven thousand stems. She is considered to be one gigantic creature who weighs

several thousand tons, although on the surface she appears to be one massive forest made up of

many, many aspens. The aspen is a tall tree, too, much like her sister Thuja Occidentalis,
although she can only reach up to fifty feet tall. She is wider than the arborvitae as well, her

limbs capable of reaching out to a full thirty feet in diameter.

This tree is as picky when it comes to soil requirements as the previous two discussed,

plus one added requirement: her home soil needs to contain mass quantities of moisture. She

would thrive well in a much rainier environment. However, she does require some shade to

reduce the amount of harsh rays from the sunlight that reaches the pale creamy skin of her

narrow trunk; typically though, she requires at least four hours of direct sunlight.

She will often hang catkins from her arms in the lovely months of April and May, furry

soft clusters of flowers. The shape of the leaves are a mix of circles and triangles, softening the

typical sharp corners of the full geometrically angled triangle, which shift into a brilliant shining

yellow in the fall and make the forest a bright array of whites and yellows. These beautiful leaves

also serve as food for many creatures of the wild, including deer, snowshoe hares, beavers, and

elk.

Baldcypress, Taxodium distichum

This deciduous conifer, poetic state tree of Louisiana, can grow up to seventy feet tall at

adulthood and can circle her long arms in a twenty-five feet diameter. She is poetic in that she

has inspired many poets in her time, including Longfellow and John Muir. Furthermore, nobody

knows where she originally received her name from, making her a mysterious beauty of the

forest.

She is slightly less picky than the last few beings mentioned, considering that she is more

durable to flooding; or on the contrary, she is also more likely to survive a drought, as long as

she has the right kind of soil encasing her roots. Swamps are her ultimate favorite areas to build
her home in.

The miniature needles covering her arms shift in color throughout the year from

yellowish green to green to a very reddish brown that makes her a rather colorful tree in the

autumn. She grows tiny cones as well, typically around an inch long, which help to feed tiny

creatures with the tiny triangular seeds which cling to the insides.

Red Buckeye, Aesculus pavia

This red tree is so named because the scars in her seeds resemble the eye of a curious

young buck. She is the smallest of the specimen listed so far, although her size varies widely;

sometimes she will grow to ten feet, and sometimes to twenty. She is a short rotund tree, nearly

as wide as she is short.

She is part of the lovely members of royal trees who needs very rich acidic and loamy

soils in order to grow into the beauty that she has the potential to be. Similarly, she needs some

shade during a small portion of the day to reduce her sunshine access while still needing at least

four hours of it.

Like Populous Tremuloides, she blooms during the months of April and May, growing

darling panicles of red blossoms that stretch out to the heavens from her loving arms. These

blooms are long, growing up to a full eight inches tall, and are at times tempting for the fox

squirrels to consume. These clusters are joined by beautiful deep green leaves which droop in a

rather endearing manner and fall earlier in the year than her sister trees lose their clothing she

typically sheds her clothes late during the month of September.

Black Tartarian Cherry, Prunus avium Black Tartarian

A rounded one, this cherry tree will grow to about thirty feet tall and thirty feet wide.
Like her sister Malus x Domestica, she can be raised as a dwarf who will grow to only half that

size or even slightly smaller than that. She had another name, Ronald's Large Black Heart,

lovingly given to her by a mister Hughes Ronalds who smuggled her into England from Russia

way back in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-four.

Unlike the last several trees spoken about here, the fruit tree grows best in sandier soil

with a lighter quality to it, although the soil does need to be at least slightly moist. This dark tree

cannot tolerate desert climates who will deprive her of precious rain to help her grow. She does,

however, need at least six hours of direct daily light.

These conditions will result in the tree being fully capable of birthing several black

cherries with a purple tinge to their tender skin along with gorgeous white flowers. Her cherries,

grown with care, are shaped similarly to a heart and typically grow to about one inch around.

Many small creatures, flying and ground-wandering, will gather around the tree in order to eat

her fruit and pick through her leaves, sharp-tipped and about five inches long, for ones suitable

for ingesting. Humans will also pick her cherries, either to pop directly into our mouths and

carefully chew so as to not swallow the seed, or to preserve them in order to spread on our

morning toast for our first necessary dose of daily sweetness in our otherwise bland lives.

Kentucky Coffeetree, Gymnocladus dioicus

The charming humans who first began to build homes in the area of North America

known as Kentucky believed that the seeds of this tree looked akin to coffee beans, thus giving

us her name which makes our coffee-addicted culture crave the beverage these beans can create

just by thinking about her or seeing her. She is capable of growing to an impressive seventy-five

feet in height and her arms spread out to fifty.

anything and everything. Whether the soil is acidic or more alkaline matters not to her, nor does

it matter much how wet or dry she remains throughout her life she can survive through many

droughts and floods alike. This makes her the perfect companion to our insensitive civilized

ways of living. Does pollution cloud the sky of your city? The Coffeetree can take it.

Whether she is lining the streets of your neighborhood or chilling directly in your

backyard, her long arms grow miniature arms from them, meaning that her leaves that dangle

from these small limbs are bipinnate. She also produces pods of seeds that grow to half a foot or

so in length and turn from green to brown during the winter. Keep them away from your cows,

though, unless you happen to desire taking the risk of poisoning the cattle with these seeds that

could potentially be toxic to them.

Snowdrift Crabapple, Malus 'Snowdrift'

One of about eight hundred twins of the crabapple varieties, this tree is typically rather

round in stature: she grows to be between fifteen and twenty feet high and wide. Much like with

roses, people are constantly breeding new forms of the crabapple variety of tree, resulting in both

her existence and the existence of her several hundred twins.

She is yet another tree who adores acidic and loamy soils all trees are royalty, really,

even the tough ones like Gymnocladus Dioicus. Snowdrift is no exception. If she does not

receive a specific kind of soil and at least six hours of sunlight each and every day, she will be a

very cranky tree.

If she is properly pampered, however, she will delight you by creating the illusion of

snow coating her arms during the months of April and May, when the real snow is starting to
lighten up until the next winter season. Her blossoms begin in a lovely pink color which

explodes into fluffy white as they bloom. Furthermore, she births small fruits that are painted an

orange-red color and look quite similar to miniature tomatoes. The birds enjoy and appreciate her

for this, since she is considerate enough to keep these fruits alive during the winter months when

most other fruits are rather hard to come by.

Arizona Cypress, Cupressus arizonica

This desert-loving tree is the only cypress who was born naturally in the southwestern

area of the United States. E.L. Greene found her in the eightieth year of the 1800s. She grows up

to be fifty feet tall, although she can be as much as ten feet shorter than that, and her arms will

grow to about thirty feet wide near her base.

Although she can only grow in a small variety of areas, she can tolerate both acidic and

alkaline soils and while she does need a healthy dose of rain, she can thrive well in the desert

environments she tends to grow naturally in. Fitting for a desert dweller, she also needs a healthy

dose of sunshine during the entirety of the day.

Her needles, though scaly in appearance, are actually very soft to the touch and have a

lovely smell to them like many needled trees tend to have. She grows cones as well which grow

to about an inch around. Humans tend to use her during the winter time; they will cut her down

and bring her away from her roots, into their homes in order to hang strange items from her arms

and place beautifully wrapped boxes around her body. These gifts will never make up for what

we have done to her, belittling her beauty by drowning her with shiny material objects.

Kousa Dogwood (Japanese Dogwood), Cornus kousa

This beautiful tree can grow to be anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five feet tall;
unlike any tree we have seen so far, however, she is usually more wide than tall, with her arms

more often spreading out to a full twenty-five feet around. Her name is unimaginative, the word

kousa translating from the Japanese language into the English word of dogwood, making her

rather repetitive sounding in an interesting way.

Similar to her unremarkable namesake, she is also rather typical in her royal soil

preference of an acidic and loamy home for her roots to weave themselves through. She is also

quite in the middle considering her moisturizing requirements, considering that she can live

through a drought if she really feels like it, but she does need an average amount of water to

quench her thirst. This tree also needs to be shaded for a small portion of the day so that she does

not roast to death.

Although an average tree at ground level, she is perhaps one of the most interesting to

grow and shift with the seasons each year. Her wide-spread arms provide a lovely source of

shade during the hot summer months, and as the earth begins to cool, her clothes turn into

wonderful red and purple colors. During the winter, her bare arms weave so intricately around

each other that she creates the most lovely of silhouettes. Her leaved clothing actually

overpowers her spring-time flowers in beauty, since some of her leaves will grow into white stars

that only look like the darling petals of a flower; her real flowers are very miniature and light

green and are surrounded by the overpowering white bract leaves. Birds and squirrels alike are

attracted to her for the seeds she will produce.

Gingko, Gingko biloba

A fossil who is still alive and well, she is over two hundred and seventy million years

ancient, but had to be rediscovered by a human in China back in the sixteen hundred and ninety-
first year A.D. People tend to use her for medicinal purposes, probably much to her joy. She can

grow up to fifty feet, but can also remain smaller and only grow to half that height. The length of

her limbs has a smaller variation from between twenty-five and thirty-five feet around.

She is not a picky tree, as we can already see by her options in height, and this is true for

her soil preferences as well: acidic or alkaline, she cares not and can thrive well with either

variety. She cannot, however, tolerate the desert climates and will wither away and rot in dry, hot

temperatures.

Like her sister Gymnocladus Dioicus, she can handle the pollutants we carelessly throw

into the air and will come out beautiful either way. Her leaves are like little fans that grow

between two and three inches in length and which shift into a magnificent yellow as the weather

begins to turn chilly. Her seeds are yellow as well, lightly tan and round like a little plum.

The trees here are merely a glimpse into these wise, ancient beings who provide us with

the air we need and yet are daily being destroyed by our destructive powers. Although a few can

withstand the chemicals we toss carelessly into the world, we are showing disrespect for and

belittling the work they do by tainting the air they create for us and all of the other creatures who

walk this earth. This needs to be brought to a stop before we finally suffocate the very beings

who keep us breathing.

Works Cited

The Tree Guide. Arbor Day Foundation. The Arbor Day Foundation, 2015. Web. 17

November 2015.