Category Archives: Photography
How demand for wooden drinking cups diminished an ancient yew
Ash, at treeblog, gave himself a tree-tour of a birthday trip. In the first part of the journey, Birthday Tour (Part 1): Loch Rannoch – the Fortingall Yew – Bridge of Balgie, he meets a truly charismatic ancient tree in a post rich with historical illustration:
The Fortingall Yew is one of the oldest known trees in Europe. Allen Meredith (whose estimates according to The Tree Register Handbook “are as well-informed as anyone’s”) has suggested it could be as old as 5,000 years (along with the yews at Discoed in Powys and Llangernyw in Conwy), which is certainly something to think about. But what I find truly incredible is the gargantuan size it once reached. Forget the Yew as it stands today, so small, so utterly destroyed by ‘tourists’ in the 18th and 19th centuries, and try to wrap your mind around this: in the mid-1700s the Fortingall Yew had a girth of 56 and a half feet (17.2 m): a diameter of 5.5 metres (18 ft)! Consider that the thickest tree in Britain today is probably the Marton Oak with a dbh of 446 cm when measured around the three remaining sections of its trunk (although there are giant sequoias 7 m thick where their flared boles meet the ground). A five-and-a-half metre thick yew is phenomenal!
Sycamore in a road drain
The tree grew so well, the space available to it became a little congested. At the top of the tree (which, I would guess, is about two feet high) leaves would rise above road level, only to be sheered off by the tyres of cars running over it. It isn’t a busy street so leaves would have time to grow and poke up — but they never lasted.
Rainbow eucalyptus at the Huntingdon Botanical Gardens
Gillian Ware shares a photo gallery of rainbow eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta) at her Tree A. Ware blog.
Apart from being a magic tree, it has two magic common names: Rainbow Eucalyptus and Painted Bark Eucalyptus, both descriptive of its multicoloured bark. Like other Eucalyptus’ it sheds its bark— but in this case the lower layer is a vivid green. As different layers mature, they change colour— to orange, purples and blues, dark maroon being the final colour— resulting in fantastic paint brushstroke-like streaks.
A visit to one of Britain’s tallest trees
Ashley Peace at treeblog visited the Hermitage, Dunkeld (in the Scottish Highlands), to see Britain’s 3rd tallest tree, and came back with some fine black-and-white photos of the tree and the surrounding area.
A worship-worthy tree
Field biologist and photographer Jill Wussow shares some lovely photos of Texas madrones at her somewhat alarmingly titled blog Count Your Chicken! We’re Taking Over! “If you haven’t seen the glory of these bad boys,” she says, “I suggest you book it over to Texas or New Mexico when you get the chance and worship them just a little bit.”
Planting tree-photos on Google Earth
Flickr and other photo-sharing sites welcome geolocation data, but Brazilian tree-blogger Juilana at Árvores Vivas demonstrates how to incorporate pictures of trees with detailed captions into the most widely used online mapping tools, Google maps and Google Earth, through Panoramio. Though photos may be browsed withion social groups, getting them onto Google maps and Google Earth is not automatic, as Panoramio’s Help page on the topic explains.
Needless to say, we strongly encourage tree lovers all over the world to give this a try. For inspiration — and just for general interest — here are Juliana’s photos. Click the link at the top of that page to view them on Google Earth, if you have the software on your computer.
