Nature Note #207: Thoughts of a Nemophilist

One of many live oaks on Bogue Banks. Personal Photo.

When you think of an oak, you might envision a mighty tree standing proudly among its fellow trees, its branches brimming with acorns. Squirrels and jays hop betwixt its limbs in a fervent collection spree to supply themselves with food for the harsh winter ahead. When I think of an oak, I'm used to the oaks of New England especially the towering red oaks that lined a back corner of the yard at my parent's old house in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

Over the years that we lived there, we were witnesses to many of nature's little moments that sometimes play out at the right moment. One winter, those trees hid a barred owl that gazed at my dad and I with its deep brown eyes. After my parents had the smelly chestnuts removed one spring morning; later that fall, squirrels and chickens alike scampered over their leaves looking for acorns and other fallen treasures. While the chickens were an addition to the oaks domain, the squirrels were certainly here long before the birds arrived. They must have been relieved that while one nut source had vanished, their beloved oaks still stood where they grew. Perhaps their own journey started many years before, thanks to an ancestral squirrel forgetting the acorns they grew from.

And just before they sold that house and moved away this summer, I told my parents I wanted to look around the yard once more. It wasn't a huge space, maybe a little under half an acre. I looked at the small cedars along the log pile and remembered how the chipmunks would scrabble on top of the logs and how chickadees and titmice would chatter in its fragrant branches. I walked down the slope that marked where the previous owners had filled in a swimming pool and gazed up at a stately white pine that loomed large over the yard. It stood like a sentinel, stoic and literally larger than life. Finally, I looked towards the backwoods. Barely a fifty foot section of wood separating my view of the neighbors yards beyond. In previous years, I had heard turkeys gobbling in late spring along the telephone pole corridor, watched a great crested flycatcher (Myiarchus crinitus) sing its simple whistled "wheep, wheep, wheep" over the woods, and seen fireflies in their flash dances along the fence later in the summer.

When you live on a barrier island 2.5 miles off the North Carolina mainland and that's at least 1700 feet across, the elements have a massive effect on the plant life. In our maritime forest class, we teach about limiting factors; abiotic features of the environment that slow growth and make life especially difficult for trees. Abiotic features include things like salt spray, wind, sand, and other non living elements.

The definition of a maritime forest is simply a forest that grows near the ocean. One of those abiotic limiting factors that prevent trees from growing as tall is salt spray. As the high tide creeps up the beach, wind will often toss salty water into the air and cause it to land on the leaves of nearby trees. As anyone who has eaten a whole bag of salt and vinegar chips can attest, the salt has a desiccating effect on one's mouth and without a nearby drink to prevent your thirst, it can leave your mouth high and dry.

Crown shyness as exhibited by live oaks at Trinity Center. Personal photo.
Similarly, this is how trees feel when salt spray hits their leaves. It hurts them, burns them even and can cause the tree to lose those leaves. That's where the live oak shines as the mascot of the maritime forest. It gets its name from its evergreen leaves which is loses throughout the year rather than gradually throughout the fall. When it gets hit with salt spray, the branches and leaves get burned. As a result, the wear and tear makes the tree look gnarled and bent. Trees along the top of the main dune that borders the ocean may get hit by wind and water while having to dig further down through the sand to reach the freshwater they need to survive.

As a young tree, live oaks send shoots up towards the sunlight and those shoots, if exposed to a blast of wet, salty air, might be burned to the point where all but one shoot survives. If this happens, that shoot may grow until it has its first branches and starts sending out new limbs. Each time it gets burned, any surviving shoots will continue to grow. This is how the trees get their gnarled, twisted appearance. They might not become the tallest trees (in fact they may only grow to be 35-40 feet tall in the maritime forest), nor the most attractive to look at, but they are a nemophilists dream.

One of the reasons I chose to live where I do was because of the trees. I am drawn to trees in a way I cannot quite describe. I guess after living in New England for over twenty years, hiking through reclaimed farmland with trees growing around old stonewalls marking properties long since abandoned and birding along trails edged through towering maples and pines in Central New York, I gained an appreciation for the forest that few other habitats can create for me (although if I had to choose another, it would probably be freshwater marshes). I feel like I'm watching decisions take place on a slower time scale. I feel like the way we make decisions in life resembles the way that salt spray cuts off opportunities for the tree to grow in a particular direction. It still grows. It just grows in a different way.

That's how I feel right now. I feel like I've been growing in a particular direction for part of the season, then something happens and you have to readjust. And the track we take creates the shape of our life, the growth of our tree's journey. I wonder what my tree looks like, what events have helped to shape it, what kind of tree it would be.

I know this sounds like a question Barbara Walters would ask, but if I could be any sort of tree, I would love to be an live oak. They fulfill so many important roles in their forest homes and stand through constant adversity. Sometimes I wish I could emulate that strength, that resilience. In some ways I already am. It takes a lot of bravery to move to a new place and leave the familiar behind, to adapt to new surroundings and people. I'm not the same person I was four months, six months, even twelve months ago and I can safely say for my mind, body, and soul that is wholly and unabashedly welcomed. Here's to another year of struggle, of growth, and of life.


Towering white pines at Lincoln Meadows in Sudbury, MA. Personal photo.

"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." - Abraham Lincoln

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