Universitree - a tree's look on life

Universitree

The people of Peterborough asked an old tree a question and the staff at Nene Park and other organisations have answered them on behalf of the trees.

Universitree

A Trees look on life....What would you ask?

Can their fruit and nuts be eaten?

By Susan Evans

By David Radley

(NPT Project Officer – Access)

(Nene Park Trust (NPT) Project Officer –

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.”

Community)

Yes they can, many trees produce fruit and nuts which can be eaten by humans.

Pic 1

What many people don’t realise is that the young leaves of many trees such as lime trees (pic 1) Pic 2 and hawthorn trees (pic 2) can also be eaten.

What is the wisest advice?

I think a tree would quote this proverb I came across on the internet as wise advice. It should make us all think not just about our contribution to trees and woodland but about our own lives - it’s never too late to make a positive change!

Picture (below shows) us planting 3,000 new trees and shrubs.

What causes damage to trees?

How deep are your roots?

By Ashley Wheal (NPT Park Ranger)

Most people think that trees have a large tap root (primary root that grows vertically downward) to anchor them down, and indeed this is true, but only for a few years after germinating from seed.

They soon dispense with this and rely on foraging roots that spread to the side.

These roots spread large distances; on average three times the diameter of the tree crown.

But how deep do they go? The answer is 60 cm or 2 foot on average. Some roots may occasionally be found deeper, but this is not the norm. There is a fundamental reason why this is – tree roots require oxygen to function so if they grow deeper, the oxygen in the soil becomes less. This is why the roots of a tree are shallow not deep.

Go and learn from nature yourself and have a look at a tree that has blown over; and you will see that the need for oxygen results in that most roots are just under the surface.

Humans, insects, fungus and squirrels.

Any damage to the bark and roots, puts a tree at risk. Picture (right) shows how grey squirrels are a nuisance to our trees - they nibble through the bark to get to the tree’s sap.

How can I tell your age without cutting you down?

Luckily, there are a number of ways to work out our age without chopping us down to count our rings.

It is possible to get rough estimate of a tree’s age by measuring the circumference of the tree trunk in centimetres, at approximately 1.5 metres from the ground. Then divide the circumference by 2.5, if the tree is growing alone, or 1.25, if they tree is growing in a woodland. Round the answer to the nearest whole number and you have the age.

Do you have genders?

What have you done for us?

By Hannah Keeley

By Rachel Thomas

(NPT Moments with Trees Project Officer)

(Environmental Project Management)

Trees do have genders, but it’s not as simple as that’s a male tree and that's a female tree. Some tree species are monoecious, meaning they have male and female flowers that grow on the same tree like alder, silver birch and hazel.

Pic 1 shows both the male catkins hanging in a cluster and the Pic 1 female budding flower from a hazel. Some species are hermaphrodites, where they have one flower comprising of male and female parts like cherries (pic 2), hawthorns and lime trees. And some species are dioecious, meaning male and female flowers grow on separate trees like holly, yew, black poplar and goat willow.

Ash trees are dioecious, however, with this species, a single tree can have male and female flowers on different branches.

Trees and woods give us so much – here is a selection: • Shade from heat in summer – shelter from wind and rain in winter.

• Muffle the sound of road and rail and clean the air you breathe.

• Timber to build your houses and wood to keep you warm .

• Materials to make spoons, and rakes and handles for your tools so that day to day jobs are easier.

• Make picture frames and bed heads and all manner of things to make your house beautiful.

• To lock up carbon from the air and help stop flooding.

• Provide homes for animals and other plants from brown bears (once) to tiny looping caterpillars.

• Nuts and berries to keep you fed and leaves and browse for your animals too.

• Places to love and walk and run and be inspired – to paint and write and create music.

Pic 2

• A feast for the eye throughout the seasons and to make you feel whole.

How did you get your scars?

By Simon Belham (PECT)

It was a man named Samuel J. Bens of San Francisco on January 17, 1905, who produced the patent for a practical "endless chain saw" (a saw comprising a chain of links carrying saw teeth and running in a guide frame) He was intent on being able to fell giant redwoods. I was one of the lucky trees who only had a branch removed but remember we trees never heal, only seal by way of a callus growth over our wounds.

Is there anything wrong with talking to trees?

You wouldn’t be alone.… Just don’t expect a response!

Has love bloomed under you?

Some of our trees are 200 years old! I am sure love has bloomed under them over the years – they are enchanting and romantic. If you have a story of love blooming under a tree, do let us know!

making pottery, tiles and bricks. In furnaces and forges for smelting and working iron. In kilns for burning limestone to make cement etc.

How were trees used by the Romans?

By Chris Park (NPT Project Officer – Environment)

The Romans used trees for a whole range of purposes most of which will be familiar to us today.

The rise of the Roman Empire was driven by the demand for natural resources especially for wood and metals, which in turn fuelled yet more expansion and the conquest of new territories for more resources. As the Roman Empire expanded across Europe, large tracts of forests disappeared.

Think of all the uses of timber in our modern lives and the Romans would have been doing the same. One of the main difference between Roman lives and ours is their source of fuels we use.

Our modern world is largely fuelled from fossil carbon sources, coal, oil, gas etc. whereas everything in the Roman Empire was fuelled by wood. It is estimated that 90 percent of wood cut by the Romans was used for fuel. This would have been either burnt as wood or converted into charcoal and used for domestic cooking and heating, heating water in public baths, for underfloor heating in their villas.

Roman industrial uses of wood included buildings and ships etc. Large quantities of wood were converted into charcoal that was needed to generate the high temperatures in industrial processes including firing kilns for

Our modern buildings are very similar to Roman buildings. Think of how timber is used in your own home? The Romans used wood for all of the same purposes, for flooring, roof timbers, doors, window frames and shutters, glass was rare and expensive so not often used for windows.

During the construction of buildings, wood was used for ladders and scaffolding. Anything the Romans made or built would have used wood somewhere in the process. The Romans even used the hollowed out trunks of elm trees as water conduits.

When Roman soldiers arrived in the Nene Valley (around AD 46), they found the land was already settled by Iron Age tribes. Initially, some tribes would have resented the invasion with open hostility.

To protect themselves, the soldiers built a large fort where the Thorpe Wood golf course is today. This fort has been excavated so we now know that it would have contained barracks mostly built of wood and surrounded by a wooden palisade on top of an earthwork bank and a ditch. Julius Caesar himself ordered troops to cut down forests around the forts to prevent sneak attacks. As the armies moved north, new forts sprung up and the forests around them would have been felled to provide the materials to build the forts and to create open space for visibility. The invasion and military campaigns to quell rebellious tribes would have initially been devastating for the countryside and the people who lived there.

Pliny, a Roman author and naval commander who died in 79 AD, produced a series of 37 books, organised into ten volumes on the Natural History.

He devoted books XII to XVI of this work entirely to trees and recognised the importance of forests for human existence: ‘The trees and forests were supposed to be the supreme gift bestowed by her on man. These first provided him with food, their foliage carpeted his cave and their bark served him for aliment.’

The Romans introduced trees to Britain including box, mulberry, walnut, almond and sweet chestnut and there is still some debate over them introducing English elm. Recent genetic studies however have shown English elm is identical to the Atinian elm in Italy and elms from Spain suggesting a Roman connection. A more tentative local connection, the four elm trees alongside Ham Lane were once part of a road that was lined by elm trees. It has been suggested by archaeologist that Ham Lane was possibly the original line of the Roman Ermine Street until it was later realigned to pass through the nearby settlement of Durobrivae. Now here’s a thought; are the Ham Lane elm trees a living link to tree that were introduced by the Roman settlers in the Nene Valley? If only the trees could talk!

Picture (below) Ham Lane elm trees.

Can trees become famous?

By Susan Evans (NPT Project Officer – Access)

Yes absolutely!

Certain trees have become very famous because of their part in history through their connection to famous people or places or their use in films, books or music.

Some of our favourites include: 1. The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire.

For more information click here.

2. The Royal Oak at Boscobel, Shropshire – the place where the future King Charles II hid after defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The tree you can see today is a descendant of the original tree.

For more information click here.

3. The apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire, where Issac Newton lived and developed his theory of gravity.

For more information click here.

How do you feel about deforestation?

By Kristine (NPT Education and Events Officer)

I feel upset, angry, defeated, saddened, distraught, troubled, wounded, hurt and most of all I feel heartbroken.

Forests cover about 30% of the planet, but deforestation is clearing these essential habitats on a massive scale often resulting in damage to the quality of the land, loss of habitats and extinction of species both in animals and plants.

But deforestation isn’t just about the rainforests, it is the ‘action of clearing a wide area of trees’ and this too is happening all over the United Kingdom. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e nvironment/globalwarming/deforestation/ The UK’s woodland is under threat.

More than 1,000 irreplaceable ancient woods have been threatened by development over the last 10 years.

UK deforestation facts: (The effects are devastating) • Just 13% of the UK is covered with trees. That’s low compared to the average European country that has 37%.

• This rich, complex habitat dates back to medieval times and once

swept in vast swathes across our countryside; today it covers just 2% of the UK. • Since the 1930s, more than half the UK's ancient woodland we had has been destroyed.

• 60% of our animal and plant species have declined in the past 50 years.

Many are now endangered; some face extinction.

• And we stand to lose even more as airports, roads and railways expand, houses are built and diseases attack. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/abo ut-us/what-we-do/ From this information, I hope you the human race can see my concern not only for my species all around the world, but for every species and their future on this one and only planet. We as trees provide so much for everything and everyone on this planet to stay alive (i.e. clean air and water, flood control, food production, shelter, habitats, tools, medicines, healing, etc.) and yet we are being destroyed and used up so quickly and without dismay by so many. Our landscapes can't cope with these pressures.

So please, take a moment to think about us, the trees, and how we help to keep this planet running and everything alive, because once we are too low to sustain the world, we won’t be able to help so many of you to stay alive.