Almost 400-year-old pear tree

How long can a tree live?  Trees are nearly immortal, the result of meristems and indeterminate growth.  Many die not because they are too old, but because as a sessile organism they are subject to accidents.  Trees get bigger as the get older and as a result big old trees sort of out grow themselves.  They become too big and their structural integrity begins to fail; they just break apart usually helped by storms.  Supposedly this pear tree was planted in Plymouth nearly 400 years ago.  Pears are slow growing trees, and they can be pruned to keep their crowns in proportion to the rest of the tree.  So inspite of many near catastrophes, this colonial pear tree has survived.  Still that's quite remarkable.  TPP has a yellow pine barn beam about 6 x 7 inches from a barn constructed in the 1880s, and one corner of the beam has a strip of bark, so we can assume the tree was cut for timber in about 1880.  The growth rings do not go to the center of the tree, but you can easily count growth rings back into the early 1500s when it was already a tree 10-12 inches in diameter.  So this was probably also a 400 year old tree, there abouts.  Actually while trees this old are now news, it's because we've become a tree-destroying, lumber and paper craving culture with no respect for our elders, big, old trees. 

Ash Bored

Our street, our neighborhood, our yard is a bit more impoverished because a large (4' diam) white ash tree was taken down this week.  It's the city's tree, a boulevard tree, and two years ago they took down it's mate in size and species from the other corner of our lot.  For the last 50 or so years these trees have shaded our street, and they would have lasted considerably longer, but they fell prey to the emerald ash borer introduced to the USA right here in Lincolnland.  Even worse an up and comer boulevard tree planted some15 years ago, sort of mid-way between these two big ashes, which were about 120 feet apart (it's a big lot), was also a white ash, so rather than come back a year from now, this much smaller tree was removed as well.  It bothers your perception when such a big landmark is suddenly removed, and it comes as a shock to actually be able to tell if there is oncoming traffic before actually entering the street (not an altogether bad thing), and it's hard to locate the driveway when such a big landmark is removed.  Our city is being proactive and planting a lot of trees interspersing the young ones with all of the ash trees that have been or will be removed.  Over reliance on one species is always a dangerous thing whether your staple food or a street tree.  Two replacements appeared last year, a swamp white oak and a new elm cultivar, a replacement for the elms lost the last time we introduced a fatal disease that decimated a wide spread and common street tree, but they as yet do not make a presence.  This is the terrible thing about trees; you do not replace a large tree except with time, decades. Unfortunately, the utility wires, cable and such are on poles on our side of the street, so big trees right on the boulevard are a bit of a problem.  Although a big tree is going to be missed, a large tree isn't actually needed or wise in this general location, so a smaller, doesn't-get-in-the-wires tree is a better choice, perhaps a Chinese lilac, but only if the city nursery has one available.  Now our yard only has three trees with trunks in the 4 foot diameter category.  So think carefully about cutting down and planting trees; you choice now is one you have to live with for quite awhile.   

How to feel young and small

TPP's old friend Stan has been doing some traveling and he writes an interesting commentary, things that few people think about when visiting sequoias or bristle cone pines.  Go give him a read, and say TPP sent you.