A Tree Mutilated

In October, my new neighbors had a wedding party at their house, a noisy affair that disturbed the tranquility of the neighborhood. But what was worse was that the happy couple carved a heart into one of the oldest trees in our little community  (and also draped a white sash around the trunk). It’s a ponderosa pine, its diameter so wide that it would take three people to wrap their arms around its trunk. While this is not  large compared to the redwoods on the west coast or some of the oaks in the Midwest, in arid Colorado not only is it a huge tree but an old one—more than a hundred years, at least—and worthy of veneration.

So noteworthy is this tree that, in the realtor’s ads for this house, the tree was mentioned as a selling point. In Meeker Park, old timers speak respectfully and lovingly of this giant ponderosa and might tell new visitors about it in the same way we would recommend a walk to the waterfalls or seeing the moose along the creek.

Carving your initials into a tree is an ancient tradition—especially to celebrate lovers’ relationships; there’s even a name for it—arborglyphs. All over Colorado you can see aspen trees carved with initials and other symbols. Aspens’ bark is soft, easy to cut into, as well as to chew. When other food is scarce, bears, elk and moose eat the nutritious bark (left are their teeth marks).

Some of the aspens don’t survive their wounds, but aspens have short life spans (50-60 years) and are quickly replaced by new saplings. But ponderosas can live hundreds of years. Cutting into tree bark is like cutting into skin that protects the tree’s cells as well as the xylem and phloem that transports water and nutrients between the tree’s roots and its crown. It leaves the tree more vulnerable to pathogens. I once read that the right conditions for a ponderosa to successfully grow occur only once every 60 years. If this tree dies, it won’t be replaced anytime soon.  

When I visited the tree a few weeks after the carving, sap was running from the wound. It hurts to see this ancient, venerable tree treated like this. Because this tree is on private property, this couple could defend their actions by saying the tree “belongs” to them, and they can do what they want. But, in truth, the earth isn’t private property. Native Americans believed we all shared the earth; it wasn’t until non-native  people started erecting fences that the idea of private ownership started. That tree doesn’t belong to any individual, just as the sky or the mountains or the moose don’t belong to us.

We’re all visitors here, walking the same ground and breathing the same air, each of us trying to survive the best we can. I hope the tree survives, just like I hope we all survive our continuous assaults on nature. It's time to be caregivers of this earth rather than destroyers.

 

Comments

[Brent]

I really dislike the carvings on trees and rock formations on my hikes. Some of the rock formations are often spray painted too. Another thing I don't care to see are the tiny painted rocks that folks leave along trails like Easter eggs. One other thing I dislike are rock cairns. I see a lot of them on my hikes too.

[Jennifer Woodhull]

This is so sad—and so common. Carving your initials, or anything, on a living tree seems to me just one example of the urge to impress our egos on our environment. At its worst, acting out this urge causes air and water pollution and climate change. Wounding this tree might seem a trivial violation, but it's exemplary of the mindset that is killing the natural world, itself so endlessly patient with and generous to us bumbling humans.