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Speaker 3: Oh hey, okay, so it's me. I'm from the future.
Speaker 3: I'm from the Final Breaths of twenty twenty, giving you
Speaker 3: not one, but two episodes this week. I told myself
Speaker 3: I would take a couple of weeks off, and so
Speaker 3: instead of doing that, I just created a couple bonus
Speaker 3: episodes because I'm just very bad at resting and I
Speaker 3: like my job too much, so deal with it. Okay.
Speaker 3: So there's this one and a bonus update episode to
Speaker 3: the Dendrology episode that's coming out the same day. Okay,
Speaker 3: so listen to both. Here's the deal. This is a
Speaker 3: refreshed encore of a May twenty eighteen interview that turned
Speaker 3: out to be just a runaway fan favorite. It's probably
Speaker 3: the most recommended Ologies episode ever in the history of Ologies.
Speaker 3: So listen again or for the first time if you've
Speaker 3: never heard it, and then close out this year on
Speaker 3: a tree huffing high note because I love this topic.
Speaker 3: I adore this ologe is so much that your cue
Speaker 3: also has a bonus interview I just did last week
Speaker 3: with Casey Klapp. It's so good. He's just pure joy.
Speaker 3: There are so many updates about his life, and by coincidence,
Speaker 3: he has a new podcast launching in a week I
Speaker 3: didn't even know about, and so I want to hear
Speaker 3: all about it. So there's this one and then the
Speaker 3: bonus episode. Okay, let's go. Are you ready? Okay, here's
Speaker 3: the probably scenario. This is what I'm thinking is happening.
Speaker 3: You either fucking love trees and that's why you're here,
Speaker 3: or you're like, good lord, podcast dad, What is this
Speaker 3: long ass episode about trees even going to cover? I'm
Speaker 3: going to dive in, but only if it's full of
Speaker 3: infectious enthusiasm. This episode will make you so pumped about trees.
Speaker 3: You're going to be bummed about having skin and blood.
Speaker 3: You me so jealous of bark and sap, and you'll
Speaker 3: have new scrabble words and you'll start questioning if you
Speaker 3: should just string a hammock up in the backyard and
Speaker 3: live outside like a big ape squirrel. But first, let's
Speaker 3: get some business out of the way. I'll speak fast, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's important business, like telling you you can be an
Speaker 3: ologite who proselytizes with an Ology's shirt or pin or
Speaker 3: tots if you wear tots at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank
Speaker 3: you all for buying and wearing merch. Patreon dot com.
Speaker 3: Slash Ologies is a portal through which you can also
Speaker 3: ensure that this podcast exists. Patrons, I love you, I
Speaker 3: want to put you in the front pocket of some
Speaker 3: overalls and hug you so much. Also here in December
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, Ologies this week number two in the science
Speaker 3: podcasts number two, So rating and subscribing and reviewing this
Speaker 3: week this week might just bump Hidden Brain add the
Speaker 3: number one spot, if only for a leading moment. And
Speaker 3: also I read all your reviews, such as this fresh
Speaker 3: one from old rat Wizard who said I have been
Speaker 3: using Ali's mom's trick to fall asleep ever since the
Speaker 3: Somnology episodes, and it works like a charm. I appreciate
Speaker 3: how you learn big facts and small day to day
Speaker 3: tricks from this delightful host. Oh rat wizard stop. Also,
Speaker 3: if you want to learn that fancy Nancy insomnia buster trick,
Speaker 3: listen to both Somnology episodes. It will change your life.
Speaker 3: Thank you, mom. Okay, Now onto dendrology. Okay, the trees?
Speaker 3: You ready for trees? Okay? So dendro comes from ye
Speaker 3: old Greek meaning tree. And if you're like that, why
Speaker 3: does that remind me of brain stuff? Well, that's because
Speaker 3: the dendrite is a part of a nerve cell that
Speaker 3: looks a lot like a tree. So dendra, there you go. Trees.
Speaker 3: So you've got trees in the brain. You're gonna have
Speaker 3: trees on the brain after this, I'll tell you that much.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be pining for more arborist facts. Okay, So
Speaker 3: the term dendrologist is a little funky. So technically is
Speaker 3: anyone who studies trees, which this human being I interviewed
Speaker 3: has done. I have never met anyone with such a
Speaker 3: raw zeal or deep knowledge for and of trees. You
Speaker 3: will love him. He's been studying tree biology and dendrology
Speaker 3: since two thousand and seven and he's currently a tree
Speaker 3: inspector for the City of Portland, Oregon, and he gives
Speaker 3: talks all over the world about trees. He teaches sold
Speaker 3: out classes. I was like, so, yeah, so you're a dendrologist, right,
Speaker 3: and he demurred at the title of dendrologist. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 3: this is like when I was goth. I didn't realize
Speaker 3: I was a goth until I look back at pictures
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, I was definitely a goth.
Speaker 3: You study trees, You're a damn dendrologist, accepted, but he
Speaker 3: was like, we'll get to that. So I was headed
Speaker 3: to Seattle for a day to shoot this show called Innovation,
Speaker 3: that's one of my other jobs, and I thought, I
Speaker 3: bet there's got to be tree people up here. There's
Speaker 3: so many trees. So I did a little googling and
Speaker 3: I saw there was a sold out tree workshop the
Speaker 3: day I was there, led by this Portland based dude,
Speaker 3: and then I began very gingerly stalking him online to
Speaker 3: try to get in touch. The only social media I
Speaker 3: could find was a Facebook account, and after following like
Speaker 3: a few leads, I emailed his bosses and then Presto.
Speaker 3: The next day, I creepily invited him to hang out
Speaker 3: in my hotel room. I figured his bosses knew where
Speaker 3: he was, and I hoped he would not abuse his
Speaker 3: access to chainsaws. He did not. He was great. So
Speaker 3: we talked for literally two hours, which was very difficult
Speaker 3: to cut down. No tree pun intended about so many
Speaker 3: burning curiosities. Do trees feel pain? How do they talk
Speaker 3: to each other? What's up with crown shyness? Does he
Speaker 3: have a favorite tree? Will trees make you write your
Speaker 3: novel any faster? Does he get sad when he looks
Speaker 3: at wooden objects? What is tree porn? And are there
Speaker 3: any super sad stories about trees? Spoiler yes and also
Speaker 3: great ones also yes. So I'm gonna go out on
Speaker 3: the lamb and say this is a great episode, So
Speaker 3: stick around for some really wonderful tree facts. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: lumber up, I swear to God, that's gonna be the
Speaker 3: last tree punt. Please trust me. For a person who
Speaker 3: is somewhat in denial about being a dendrologist, Casey Clapp.
Speaker 2: I've never done anything like this.
Speaker 3: Yay, that's gonna be great. So this is your mic
Speaker 3: you were you weren't the easiest person to to gently
Speaker 3: stalk online.
Speaker 2: Oh that's fantastic. So I didn't know I could be found.
Speaker 3: Yes, anyone would ever. Look, I was like, I must
Speaker 3: at trees with him.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is so flattering. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I have a question, Yes, go ahead. Arborist
Speaker 3: versus dendrologists, Yes, what's the difference?
Speaker 2: So an arborist specifically focuses on trees in the urban area,
Speaker 2: but most of the time and arbus is the one
Speaker 2: who manages a tree in the urban area. So if
Speaker 2: they're going to cut a tree, remove a tree, plant trees,
Speaker 2: they're the ones usually have something to do with it.
Speaker 2: But then a dendrologist is usually someone that's more on
Speaker 2: the research side of the world, and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna study this plant its characteristics, or this tree
Speaker 2: more specifically it's characteristics and where it fits in with
Speaker 2: the rest of all the other trees in the world.
Speaker 2: So dedrologists basically work on the back end of things,
Speaker 2: classifying all the different trees into certain organizational standards.
Speaker 3: So can you call if you study and you love trees,
Speaker 3: can you call yourself a dendrologist?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, I would say so.
Speaker 3: So Casey got his Bachelors of Science in forest management
Speaker 3: with a focus on urban forestry, and then he went
Speaker 3: and got a master's focusing on arbor culture. So it
Speaker 3: seems that an arborist deals with trees, knows a lot
Speaker 3: about trees, and a dendrologist studies identifying trees specifically. So
Speaker 3: Casey studied dendrology but is now an arborist. But you, guys,
Speaker 3: anyone who knows his damn much about trees is adendrologist
Speaker 3: in my book, Okay, let's just agree there are bigger
Speaker 3: issues in the world. Okay, this is why I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Make sure to listen to today's bonus episode. It's an update
Speaker 3: to see if he has changed his stance on this.
Speaker 3: I mean, of course, I asked when you were going
Speaker 3: about your education? Yes, so Casey's deciding to study trees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, beautiful time.
Speaker 3: Where do you start?
Speaker 2: Well, for me, it started with a just a tenacity
Speaker 2: about nature. I like to go outside and I like
Speaker 2: to do things. I like to plan in the mud
Speaker 2: and climb trees. And then I did. I built a
Speaker 2: pond in my backyard, and I was like, I love this.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it forever, and then ended up being
Speaker 2: that I hated landscape architecture, like I can't do this.
Speaker 2: This is so inf functional stuff. It's all I can
Speaker 2: say freely that I don't think they gives them enough credit.
Speaker 2: They do very good work, but I was very much
Speaker 2: a person who needed to manage something and it needed
Speaker 2: to be active, and it needed to have an amount
Speaker 2: of utility in the landscape. So I was like, not
Speaker 2: even really interested. So but I was killing it at
Speaker 2: all the tree courses I was taking, I was just like,
Speaker 2: this is immensely fascinating. I want to learn more about
Speaker 2: trees for no other reason than learning it. So then
Speaker 2: I transferred over to Oregon State University and I did forestry,
Speaker 2: which was a way huge over correction because they don't
Speaker 2: do trees for anything but making money. For the most part,
Speaker 2: we're gonna we're just gonna grow these trees, to cut
Speaker 2: them down, to make pulp, make paper, make money, do
Speaker 2: whatever they're gonna do.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that's what forestry was. I thought forestry
Speaker 3: like tree hugging, like every tree had the name.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, oh, I wish this is for the people
Speaker 2: who grew up on Fernguali, where we're just like, I
Speaker 2: love this so much. It is an industry like any
Speaker 2: other nowadays where you go out to mostly clearcuts for
Speaker 2: all intents and purposes, which is they get a bad name,
Speaker 2: but they're not actually that bad. In the grand scheme,
Speaker 2: all they would do is go out and say, okay,
Speaker 2: we have these many are this many trees, they're growing
Speaker 2: this fast. We want to cut them down in fifty
Speaker 2: years and make a profit. How can we do that?
Speaker 2: So it's a really important thing, and you know we
Speaker 2: have tables and chairs and pencils and all these things
Speaker 2: that we use every single day. So it's a really
Speaker 2: important renewable resource. But unfortunately they are looking at it
Speaker 2: more or less for dollar signs, which is fun.
Speaker 3: I was wondering, is someone who clearly loves trees?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a lot of tattoos trees?
Speaker 3: Do you really?
Speaker 2: Then? Yeah? I got photosynthesis tattooed across my chest.
Speaker 3: You're a walking power point. Yeah, sometimes especially try you
Speaker 3: have photo sent this is on your chest. Yeah, what
Speaker 3: else do you have?
Speaker 2: I got a sugar maple on this arm, and then
Speaker 2: i have roots coming down off of this arm. And
Speaker 2: I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt, so obviously you can't
Speaker 2: see it.
Speaker 3: Your long sleeve shirt, by the way, has trees on it.
Speaker 2: Yes, it has don redwood on the back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're covered in trees externally. And then also
Speaker 3: from a dermatological.
Speaker 2: Perspective, yes, yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 3: Casey also has a pair of white bark pine cones
Speaker 3: tattooed on the inside of his right bicep. They're beautiful
Speaker 3: the tattoo. I'm not making a comment about his bicep.
Speaker 3: Good job either way, that's your business. He has an
Speaker 3: acorn on his other bicep, and he also has a
Speaker 3: dodo bird to represent the delicate balance between endangered plants
Speaker 3: and animals. So he's like a walking botanical garden pamphlet.
Speaker 3: Obviously a very huge advocate for more trees in cities.
Speaker 3: And for me, I'm like an la residence. So this
Speaker 3: part of the conversation made my heart choke with Longing.
Speaker 3: I was like, em, do you have trees in your city?
Speaker 3: You lucky son of a bitch.
Speaker 2: So every tree in the urban area is providing some
Speaker 2: amount of benefit to the city. Many times people have
Speaker 2: no idea, and it's a very subconscious sort of thing,
Speaker 2: But there are reasons why certain streets covered with trees
Speaker 2: or neighborhoods are more idyllic. And other people live in
Speaker 2: other places that have no trees on their streets and
Speaker 2: it's a much hotter place, it's more rigid, more sort
Speaker 2: of industrial, and everyone's like, oh, that's a little more
Speaker 2: or more of an uncomfortable space. Yeah. So basically what
Speaker 2: I do now is say, here are all the characteristics
Speaker 2: of trees. Here's how they flow, here's how they function,
Speaker 2: and here's how you can best use them on your
Speaker 2: side or in a city to accomplish all these great
Speaker 2: things that they do.
Speaker 3: Do you have a favorite tree?
Speaker 2: I do, yeah, but it changes pretty constantly.
Speaker 3: Think now, right now it would be.
Speaker 2: The Kosh redwood, which is so stereotypical.
Speaker 3: I know, why is that stereotypical? It's a majestic tree.
Speaker 2: I completely concur but people have generally said, like they
Speaker 2: come up with the first thing that comes to them.
Speaker 2: So a lot of times when I ask people, they're like, oh, willows,
Speaker 2: I'm like cool. Eighty percent people say willows or something
Speaker 2: It's really strange. No one thinks about until you ask
Speaker 2: them the question.
Speaker 3: Do you know what your favorite tree is? I was like,
Speaker 3: do I have a favorite? Yes? I do. It's an oak.
Speaker 3: I have a favorite tree. I guess we all do.
Speaker 3: But coastal redwoods Casey's favorite. They from southern Oregon, just
Speaker 3: down the central coast of California all the way down
Speaker 3: to about Santa Cruz. And they grow in this fog
Speaker 3: belt right near the shore because that fog helps get
Speaker 3: moisture to the top of these like three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty foot giant trees. And if you're needing to imagine
Speaker 3: a silhouette of one, you're like, what do they look like?
Speaker 3: You know the logo for Stanford. Okay, Well that there
Speaker 3: is the image of El Palo Alto, one particularly famous
Speaker 3: local coastal redwood tree. It's also the unofficial mascot of Stanford.
Speaker 3: It's dubbed very creatively, the Tree, and according to Wikipedia,
Speaker 3: the Tree, despite very heroically replacing a decidedly more shitty mascot,
Speaker 3: the tree has been called one of America's most bizarre
Speaker 3: and controversial college mascots. People hate it. It regularly appears
Speaker 3: at the top of the internet's worst mascot lists, which
Speaker 3: apparently exist. But I'm going a very publicly beg to
Speaker 3: differ because once you have seen a jiff of a
Speaker 3: dancing layer green tent with a very happy human being inside,
Speaker 3: your heart's gonna be one. I love it anyway. Coastal
Speaker 3: Redwood's Casey's favorite tree.
Speaker 2: So naturally I get it all the time, so we
Speaker 2: had a lot of time to think. Okay, So specifically,
Speaker 2: they're just they're just the bomber trees. They are rot resistant,
Speaker 2: so almost no funguses affect them. They are insect resistant,
Speaker 2: so insects don't get into them, they don't eat the foliage,
Speaker 2: they don't get into the bark. Their bark is like
Speaker 2: literally feet thick, and it's fire resistant, so nothing can
Speaker 2: penetrate it. Fire doesn't burn it. Sometimes fire will actually
Speaker 2: hollow out the inside of the tree belave the bark alone.
Speaker 2: But then the trees actually survive because they can sprout
Speaker 2: from any place that still has functionality down to the roots.
Speaker 2: So not only are they also the tallest trees in
Speaker 2: the world, some of the longest lived, some of the
Speaker 2: biggest in terms of volume, so they've accomplished you like
Speaker 2: all these superlatives. Then on top of that, they basically
Speaker 2: can outlive anything. They don't have any more predators, and
Speaker 2: they can sprout. Most conifers can't do that. If you
Speaker 2: cut them down at the base, they're done. They're ended,
Speaker 2: really on it. For a redwood, you cut it down
Speaker 2: at the base and the roots just shoot up all
Speaker 2: these new sprouts and you're like, oh, the tree still lives,
Speaker 2: this is great.
Speaker 3: The roots are like, I don't care, I'm going I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go ahead exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they're just there are the world's just most
Speaker 2: bomber trees, and if you haven't been there, you should go.
Speaker 2: They're just there's nothing like in the world.
Speaker 3: Quick anatomy lesson of trees. Okay, what are we dealing with?
Speaker 3: And also true or false? The root system is like
Speaker 3: kind of as big as the actual branches and cannon
Speaker 3: mdiocrely both okay, okay, so give me an anatomy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of both, okay, So real quick, there are
Speaker 2: four main organs of a tree. First off, what is
Speaker 2: a tree? A tree by some definitions is literally like
Speaker 2: this one guy on a book I have, he describes
Speaker 2: it as a bush with a stick up the middle. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's literally it's like, okay, that's a pretty dumb down version.
Speaker 2: So that's what we will define as a tree. Ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the things that you know of as a
Speaker 2: tree are a tree. But then there's things like say
Speaker 2: Joshua tree that's technically a yuka. It doesn't put on
Speaker 2: annual rings the same the redwood or an oak wood.
Speaker 2: Then there is banana trees. Banana trees are actually just cells.
Speaker 2: There's no woodiness to them. You can go over and
Speaker 2: knock them over if you really want, really not necessarily,
Speaker 2: it's probably not that easy, but they're just big, big cells,
Speaker 2: big big things are basically just large herbs, just like
Speaker 2: a hoasta or anything else. Year. Yeah, so there's no
Speaker 2: actual woody parts in them, So what we still call
Speaker 2: them trees? So it's all like where's the definition going
Speaker 2: so with so if we have a tree, we say, okay,
Speaker 2: it's gonna woody thing. Let's just use a Let's use
Speaker 2: the Oregon white oak for example. Okay, so the Oregon
Speaker 2: white oak one usually has a single stem, comes out,
Speaker 2: has this big, nice, beautiful globe like crown. So there's
Speaker 2: four main organs. You have the roots, you have the
Speaker 2: stem and the branches, then you have the flowering parts,
Speaker 2: and you have the leaves. Those are the four things
Speaker 2: that you would call organs in a tree, just for
Speaker 2: simplicity's sake, four main organs. Okay, so the roots of
Speaker 2: a tree. Generally, at least in the Pacific Northwest and
Speaker 2: in are more temperate regions, this is gonna blow so
Speaker 2: many mines. They're only in the top two to three
Speaker 2: feet of soil. What that's it. That's it, even the
Speaker 2: big guys, even the big guys. Yeah. So if you
Speaker 2: ever are looking at a at a tree, you go
Speaker 2: out to the woods and you see a tree that's
Speaker 2: toppled over and it's picked up its entire root ball.
Speaker 2: If you measure from the top of that down to
Speaker 2: the very lowest route, you're not going to get past
Speaker 2: four feet anywhere.
Speaker 3: Crazy. I always thought they went way down, Yeah, and
Speaker 3: go out.
Speaker 2: They go out. Why go down any further? If you
Speaker 2: can remain stable and you got all your nutrients and
Speaker 2: all your water and oxygen you need at the top,
Speaker 2: there's no reason to go down. You got all the
Speaker 2: stuff you need. But basically you have imagine a wine
Speaker 2: glass or a.
Speaker 3: Like an umbrella that has a base.
Speaker 2: Exactly an umbrella is sitting on a platter would be
Speaker 2: the best way to imagine it. And so that's why
Speaker 2: roots are so important. People like, oh, that's it's not that,
Speaker 2: you know, they go down. You're like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it doesn't. People think it's that mirror image, and it's
Speaker 2: definitely not.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because I feel like you do see that
Speaker 3: kind of like mirror image.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a friend who got
Speaker 2: a tattoo of that exact same thing. And this is
Speaker 2: before I knew anything about it. But yeah, the roots
Speaker 2: go down, it almost mirrors the exact same thing going up.
Speaker 2: And it's very romantic. Versions like oh that's great, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, a reflection of below and above. But it's
Speaker 2: completely false.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I have no idea. Okay, so that's
Speaker 3: the anatomy of a trade.
Speaker 2: Really well, there's one extra step. So this is the
Speaker 2: next most important thing. Trees are compartmentalizers, so if you
Speaker 2: cut off one of their branches, they will just close
Speaker 2: it off and keep moving, just like compartments in a ship.
Speaker 2: All you have to do is close it off and
Speaker 2: then everything else can go on as normal. So they
Speaker 2: have these two main things. You have cambium layer, which
Speaker 2: is the vascular system of the tree, just below the bark,
Speaker 2: just outside the wood. That's where the trees grow and
Speaker 2: put on their new rings. That is where they send
Speaker 2: nutrients and water from the ground up. And that's called
Speaker 2: the xylum. That's a good word. If you play scrabble,
Speaker 2: it's x Y L E M. You can fit that
Speaker 2: in on a triple word score with that X. Man,
Speaker 2: you're killing it. You're really doing well. Oh man. One
Speaker 2: time I was also I was making a joke so
Speaker 2: I know a lot of Latin terms for things, just
Speaker 2: because it's the scientific names of plants and their parts.
Speaker 2: And he's playing scrabble with a friend at a coffee
Speaker 2: shop in Portland and this other guy came up and
Speaker 2: he's like, hey, man, can I just play the guys
Speaker 2: And we're like, yeah, yeah, totally cool, and I may
Speaker 2: we made the joke. I was like, yeah, well, we're
Speaker 2: only using Latin terms, and I swear to God without
Speaker 2: even blinking an eye of the guy was just like okay,
Speaker 2: and we're like, who did we get ourselves into? No,
Speaker 2: he massacred us really nice grabble. Oh my gosh, he
Speaker 2: knew how plays gravel.
Speaker 3: Well, just his job. What was this deal?
Speaker 2: No idea, I don't even remember. I didn't ask. It
Speaker 2: was just we were still we were shell shocked. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we had to leave that coffee shop and think to ourselves,
Speaker 2: We're never playing scrabble in public again, certainly never with
Speaker 2: anybody else.
Speaker 3: It was Jennings. It was just jeopardy and jam you know,
Speaker 3: a fake mustache. Oh my god. Okay, so xylem Okay,
Speaker 3: buckle up because this parts can get a little technical,
Speaker 3: but you're gonna learn a few new scrabble words as promised,
Speaker 3: and or names for your organic children. Cambium, flow them,
Speaker 3: photosynth and xylum, of course, which is Greek for wood.
Speaker 3: And yes, that is where the word xylophone comes from.
Speaker 3: So scrabble, Jeopardy your prep for anything. Okay, back to Zion.
Speaker 2: It takes all the nutrients and water up to all
Speaker 2: the leaves. The leaves they are doing the photosynthesis, so
Speaker 2: they're creating the energy from the sun. They start pulling
Speaker 2: all of their nutrients, are all their photosynthate is what
Speaker 2: some people call it, basically sugars, and they pull those
Speaker 2: down and that goes to the floam, which is the
Speaker 2: pipes that go down, and that's basically it.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Tree roots pull things up through the stem and then
Speaker 2: puts things out to the leaves. The leaves are the factory.
Speaker 2: They create all the food. Then they put that down
Speaker 2: and distribute it out to the rest of the tree.
Speaker 3: Ooh, are you ready for a hot tree scandal? Okay,
Speaker 3: Sometimes a tree breaks up with its own limbs this trauma.
Speaker 2: Many times, if there is competition, it actually cuts it
Speaker 2: off itself. If they are growing a limb out directly
Speaker 2: to another tree, they get shaded out. They're like, eah,
Speaker 2: this's too much energy I'm putting in and not getting
Speaker 2: enough back, So they just cut it off. That branch dies.
Speaker 2: The rest of the tree keeps growing. And that is
Speaker 2: what people call self shedding or self pruning trees. It's
Speaker 2: not really that the trees just like okay, I'm done
Speaker 2: and then drops a branch. Some do, but that's a
Speaker 2: completely different story. This one is more where the trees
Speaker 2: no longer feed. It literally close the compartment off to
Speaker 2: that branch. That branch slowly dies, slowly dies, and then
Speaker 2: as soon as it falls off, maybe a crow lands
Speaker 2: on it, and it's so decayed. Just topples to the ground.
Speaker 2: Then the tree then seals over that wound. Trees don't heal,
Speaker 2: they seal, They specifically close it up, and then continue
Speaker 2: to grow like nothing ever happened.
Speaker 3: It's like ghosting your own arm exactly. You're just like, shit,
Speaker 3: you just ice it out.
Speaker 2: You're like, yeah, listen, it's not me, it's it's definitely you.
Speaker 3: Definitely, I'm sorry, I'm pulling your weight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll send you a text you're out. Yeah, But
Speaker 2: then the joke is it's never getting that text.
Speaker 3: I have a gossipy question.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about the Redwoods that they have
Speaker 3: carved an area where you can drive a car through?
Speaker 2: Oh god, it's mutilation.
Speaker 3: Okay that thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not the word. Obviously, the trees are still living.
Speaker 3: So what's going through.
Speaker 2: Oh it's going through hell. Absolutely, it's well, it went
Speaker 2: through hell. It's basically like you get a tunnel carved
Speaker 2: through your stomach. Oh, but imagine that instead of like
Speaker 2: we as humans, our bodies are just one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: They're all connected to you things. So if you get
Speaker 2: your arm cut off, your body's like, well, okay, everything
Speaker 2: is messed up. Then you have to. You know, if
Speaker 2: someone has to sew it up, blah blah blah, you
Speaker 2: don't heal and grow a new arm. Trees are compartmentalizers,
Speaker 2: so if you cut a hole in their stomach, they're
Speaker 2: just gonna block off everything around that hole and keep
Speaker 2: moving like nothing ever happened, because everything else is going
Speaker 2: on around the tree itself, and the wood is actually
Speaker 2: basically inert. It's just a physical structure holding the tree up.
Speaker 3: Okay, remember the cambium layer from earlier, So as we recorded,
Speaker 3: we were both drinking tea rated from my hotel mini bar,
Speaker 3: and Casey had a visual metaphor for the cambium layer
Speaker 3: which really helped. He said, if you're looking at a
Speaker 3: full coffee cup, the coffee inside would be the wood,
Speaker 3: the mug would be the cambium layer, and the outside
Speaker 3: of the mug would be the bark. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: So the cambium layer is like super important in terms
Speaker 3: of keeping a tree alive.
Speaker 2: So all you have to do is keep that cambium
Speaker 2: layer alive. So if you put a tunnel through one
Speaker 2: of those redwoods, then it's like, oh, shoot, well now
Speaker 2: there's a big hole in it. The tree doesn't like it,
Speaker 2: but it'll get through it, you know, just like anything else.
Speaker 2: Just like if a fire came through and a fire
Speaker 2: burned a hole in one side and then burned out
Speaker 2: the other side as well, the tree will be fine. Well,
Speaker 2: assuming the tree lives, it'll be fine. It'll just continually
Speaker 2: seal over those wounds and protect itself.
Speaker 3: I went to go look up which tree this was,
Speaker 3: and I found out there's tons of gutted tunnel trees
Speaker 3: in California. We have made an Indus tree into this tree.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. The pun came
Speaker 3: out of nowhere. It was like a burp during a
Speaker 3: job interview. I'm sorry, Okay, but yes, so we've made
Speaker 3: quite a few park attractions out of tunneling out the
Speaker 3: trunk of these behemoth trees and just trying to drive
Speaker 3: cars through them. Were monsters. We're monsters, and we love
Speaker 3: road trips. We're just doing our best. But in researching this,
Speaker 3: I also found out about the Hercules Tree, which an
Speaker 3: eccentric rancher dug out a twelve y nine foot room
Speaker 3: intwo and tried to live in it. God bless him,
Speaker 3: but the tree was just weeping sap onto his face
Speaker 3: at night too much. So they just were like, ah,
Speaker 3: they just made it into a gift shop. But they're
Speaker 3: a good handful of tunneled out trees down the California coast,
Speaker 3: and two big ones have fallen, most recently this one
Speaker 3: called the Pioneer Cabin Tree, which toppled and very dramatically
Speaker 3: shattered in early twenty seventeen after some severe weather. The
Speaker 3: Calaveras Big Tree Association remarked, quote, the storm was just
Speaker 3: too much for it. The storm was too much for it.
Speaker 3: The storm. You're gonna blame the storm. That's like knifing
Speaker 3: someone with a machete and then saying that it's probably
Speaker 3: probably a metal allergy killed them anyway.
Speaker 2: But this also sucks. You can't drive through it anymore
Speaker 2: unless you have like a Mini Cooper, because they did
Speaker 2: it way back with the many Tees or the Model Te's,
Speaker 2: and now we're driving like hummers and the like make
Speaker 2: a whole bigger It's like, oh, it's source.
Speaker 3: Now talk to me a little bit about how trees
Speaker 3: talk to each other, because I feel like there was
Speaker 3: some some research or something came out recently about how
Speaker 3: trees can talk to each other through their roots, and
Speaker 3: everyone was.
Speaker 2: Like, what trees looking at it? Thinking the trees are
Speaker 2: watching them? Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I mean it's also so cruel to think that that
Speaker 3: story made the newspapers, which are dead trees. We're not terrifying.
Speaker 2: They cut down a treem like this tree is not
Speaker 2: talking to you, but the ones that are still living
Speaker 2: on Oh it is.
Speaker 3: So how do the roots communicate? Do they share nutrients?
Speaker 3: Do they talk to each other? What's happening under the surface.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is so fascinating. So this, the book you're
Speaker 2: talking about, is called The Hidden Life of Trees. Okay,
Speaker 2: I think not to be confused with the Hidden Life
Speaker 2: of Plants, the pseudoscience book from many years ago, which
Speaker 2: is absolutely interesting to read but very silly.
Speaker 3: All right, I look this up and the weird one
Speaker 3: is actually called Secret Life of Plants. It's kind of
Speaker 3: like this Woo Woo nineteen seventy three volume about botanical sentience,
Speaker 3: the authors of which gave light detector test to house
Speaker 3: plants after trying to communicate through esp It's out there.
Speaker 3: They also postulated that their little green friends might originate
Speaker 3: in a super material world of cosmic beings such as fairies, elves, gnomes, sylphs,
Speaker 3: and a host of other creatures. Okay, they made a
Speaker 3: movie about it, which is not to be confused with
Speaker 3: David Attenborough's Private Life of Plants documentary in which he
Speaker 3: tickles the venus flytrap, touch the hair and the trap
Speaker 3: is sprung. Anyway, So not Secret Life of Plants. Not
Speaker 3: Private Life of Plants anyway. Casey's talking about the hidden
Speaker 3: life of trees, and one author, the German Peter hon't
Speaker 3: Been I don't know, describes that trees feed each other
Speaker 3: other sugars through their roots when one is sick or dying,
Speaker 3: and they communicate to each other using chemical and electrical
Speaker 3: cues in response to stimulus, not unlike how humans use
Speaker 3: vocal cues to say, hey fools, there are donuts in
Speaker 3: the breakroom, or how we type posts on secret Facebook
Speaker 3: message board saying watch out this hipster dude sucks. Do
Speaker 3: not lay with him. Girls do that, by the way.
Speaker 2: So it's really comes down to when we communicate as people.
Speaker 2: I say something to you, there's no physical connection between us.
Speaker 2: I just say something and you hear and then you
Speaker 2: act on it. A tree, everything is a stimulus that
Speaker 2: comes from something so all the roots, if it's the
Speaker 2: same species, their roots can graft together. What Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: kind of mind blowing. But what's going on underneath the soil,
Speaker 2: which the soil is probably the most important thing that
Speaker 2: you can ever consider about a tree. Most people look
Speaker 2: up up, but there is an entire underground system of
Speaker 2: things that no one ever thinks about. So regardless, the
Speaker 2: way it works with the sort of the hidden life
Speaker 2: of plants is they have they graft themselves together. So
Speaker 2: if you have really really thin bark on those root
Speaker 2: hairs and those root hairs touch each other and then
Speaker 2: they can basically start passing their or the cambium layer
Speaker 2: sort of connects, so something comes out, takes a left
Speaker 2: and then goes into another root could be from the
Speaker 2: same tree, but if it's the same species, then I'll
Speaker 2: actually connect together and you can get an entire forest
Speaker 2: of all these trees connected, which is fascinating. But it's
Speaker 2: not like one tree is connected to all the rest
Speaker 2: like a network. It's like it's kind of like the internet,
Speaker 2: where you have one computer, then another computer, then another tree,
Speaker 2: then another tree, then another tree that all may have
Speaker 2: or may not have these root hairs connected, but then
Speaker 2: there's a sub layer on that which is mushrooms. Okay,
Speaker 2: y celium. This is the new thing that really blew up,
Speaker 2: Like Radio Lab did a whole thing on it, and
Speaker 2: everyone's like, ah, mushrooms, what trees? There are an insane
Speaker 2: amount of mushrooms or we're actually people have more genetic
Speaker 2: things in common with mushrooms than we do with trees
Speaker 2: and other plants.
Speaker 3: So that's crazy.
Speaker 2: It's crazy to think about they're basically sentient things. That's
Speaker 2: not true. Strip that from the record, right, weary, Yes,
Speaker 2: we'll take it. So basically, what they do is all
Speaker 2: these fungus have this mutualistic relationships called symbiosis. And what
Speaker 2: they do is a fungus has root hairs or myceelium
Speaker 2: that's microscopic, much smaller than the root hairs of a tree.
Speaker 2: So if you are a tree growing in a place
Speaker 2: like let's say southern Oregon, then you have a much
Speaker 2: drier condition. Tree roots are a certain size, maybe like
Speaker 2: the size of your finger for this instance, and so
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, man, I can only reach into a
Speaker 2: certain size crack where this water is, and the water
Speaker 2: is held up within these smaller pores in the soil.
Speaker 2: So if the trees can't physically get their roots into
Speaker 2: grab it, then it's basically not available. So this fungus
Speaker 2: ends up getting this mutualistic relationship. The tree is the
Speaker 2: fungus sugars that it produces up in the canopy, So
Speaker 2: the fungus gets some food and then the fungus. If
Speaker 2: our fingers are the size of root hairs, then our hair,
Speaker 2: our actual physical hair is something on the size of
Speaker 2: the of the fungus. So the fungus cans like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I can go in and grab that water. And so
Speaker 2: the fungus goes in and basically creates like a whole
Speaker 2: second level of roots for this tree. And the way
Speaker 2: you can tell if a tree needs water this is great.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a straw where on the very
Speaker 2: tippy top you have evaporation. Evapo transpiration. Evapotranspiration is just
Speaker 2: literally the process of water going from the ground through
Speaker 2: a plant or a tree out to the air. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what they do, or how the trees function, they grab,
Speaker 2: they grab some water, do some photosynthesis, or do whatever
Speaker 2: they do, and then some water escapes. So when that
Speaker 2: water is released into the atmosphere, just like you're drinking
Speaker 2: out of a straw. One molecule pulls on the next,
Speaker 2: pulls on the next, pulls on the next, using capillary
Speaker 2: action all the way down the tubes of the tree
Speaker 2: to the soil into the roots, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, that root is pulling up another little molecule
Speaker 2: of water and you can full cycle. So as soon
Speaker 2: as the trees have this pressure deficit where it's sucking
Speaker 2: more water into the air than it has in the ground,
Speaker 2: then the fungus will then be like, oh wow, there's
Speaker 2: a pressure deficit, and water just osmosis over to that area.
Speaker 2: So it's not that everything is communicating like the fun
Speaker 2: the trees like bro I need water, fungus, give me water.
Speaker 2: It's more like there's all these you know, scientific processes
Speaker 2: or these you know natural processes that are functioning in
Speaker 2: this very specific system that then one little molecule gets
Speaker 2: pulled up, pulls on the next molecule, pulls on the
Speaker 2: next molecule, so on and so forth until the fungus
Speaker 2: gives it a molecule, and then there you go.
Speaker 3: Side note. I learned of this from a biology teacher
Speaker 3: years ago, and it's always stuck with me that this
Speaker 3: chain of water keeps the plants healthy. So to prolong
Speaker 3: the life of cut flowers, if anyone ever gives them
Speaker 3: to you, trim the ends about an inch underwater to
Speaker 3: prevent getting an air the stem, and then the last longer.
Speaker 3: So there you go. Don't sand never surprise you with
Speaker 3: flower facts. And if it's been a while since anyone
Speaker 3: got you flowers, go get yourself some flowers for a
Speaker 3: few bucks at Trader Joe's or something. Just go pretend
Speaker 3: they're from your weird old pal ward over here. You
Speaker 3: deserve it, kiddo. Just cut them underwater, That's all I ask.
Speaker 3: So do you dream about trees?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, but usually it's related to work in a
Speaker 2: negative way. Okay, I'm just like, oh, I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to have you cut down. Trees need a certain amount
Speaker 2: of space to grow because their roots are really what matters.
Speaker 2: They have to grow out to stabilize the tree, to
Speaker 2: get new nutrients and all that sort of thing. So
Speaker 2: as soon as you have a situation where a tree
Speaker 2: is in conflict with development, most of the time development's
Speaker 2: gonna win. So you go over and I told people
Speaker 2: all the time, so you measure diameter you take a tape,
Speaker 2: you measure around the tree, and it tells you the
Speaker 2: diameter of that tree. So you have to literally reach
Speaker 2: around the tree and then grab the diameter tape and
Speaker 2: pull it around. So you're literally hugging a tree every
Speaker 2: single time. And so when I was up here in Seattle,
Speaker 2: it would be these huge developments. You go into a
Speaker 2: forest and you'd be like, this is a beautiful forest.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is gorgeous. You hug every single tree,
Speaker 2: every single tree, and then look up and say, Okay,
Speaker 2: they're all healthy, they're good. You look back at the
Speaker 2: plans and there's a subdivision going in and you just
Speaker 2: put x's over every single tree. Oh the one that
Speaker 2: you hug, I know, all of the ones. Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: some big ones where you're just like you are older
Speaker 2: than every single person alive right now. Oh my god. No.
Speaker 2: And as a city worker, now every chance I get,
Speaker 2: every chance, when it's appropriate and allowed by code, I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: you may not cut down that tree. No, you have
Speaker 2: to do this to protect it. And then usually if
Speaker 2: you're working with good developers, which there are many, they're
Speaker 2: just like okay, sweet, yeah, what should we do? How
Speaker 2: should we do this and then we get it set
Speaker 2: and we save a tree, and it's just so stellar
Speaker 2: because then when you get done, you have this building.
Speaker 2: Like I was talking about neighborhoods earlier, if you have
Speaker 2: an old house, an old building with these two huge
Speaker 2: trees in front of it, you get this sense of stateliness. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but also like permanence, where it's like that house exists,
Speaker 2: it has existed there. The trees they're there, they exist,
Speaker 2: and then it's like nothing is ephemeral, it's all that exists.
Speaker 2: So people, I'm like, hey, when you get done with
Speaker 2: your building, it's going to look like it was here
Speaker 2: for the last fifty years. And people are gonna walk
Speaker 2: out there see these beautiful limbs in front of their house,
Speaker 2: in front of their their patio or not even patio,
Speaker 2: like your deck if you're in an apartment building or
Speaker 2: something and you can just chill out there and there's
Speaker 2: gonna be birds hanging around. It's gonna be ten degrees
Speaker 2: cooler on your deck rather than the deck where they
Speaker 2: cut down and planted the little tiny trees. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's always rotations, things are always coming and going, but
Speaker 2: it's really nice if we can keep the big ones
Speaker 2: that are really like outstanding trees.
Speaker 3: You're a tree advocate.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yes, I am. Every chance I can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do want to go back and ask
Speaker 3: about I realized I should have asked you this question next.
Speaker 3: I've been seeing a lot of information on the internet
Speaker 3: about crown shyness, crown canopy shyness, or at the very
Speaker 3: top of a tree, the tops of the trees tend
Speaker 3: not to touch each other. Oh so, if you haven't
Speaker 3: seen pictures of what I think is very coyly dubbed
Speaker 3: crown shyness. It's also known as canopy disengagement, which sounds
Speaker 3: like you're talking about divorced lovers as far as vibes,
Speaker 3: but it looks like if you looked up at a
Speaker 3: tree canopy and all of the trees stopped just short
Speaker 3: of touching. It looks like super wicked mosaic art, or
Speaker 3: maybe like a huge leafy puzzle, and your brain is like, whoa,
Speaker 3: what plants must have mines or maybe nothing is real
Speaker 3: and I'm on drugs. That's so pretty and crazy. I
Speaker 3: fact checked Casey's following explanation, and dudes on the money,
Speaker 3: it's almost as if he knows a shit ton about trees.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, the deal with that. Honestly, I've never really
Speaker 2: given it a second thought. The only thing that I
Speaker 2: can think of which happens in trees nowadays, and this
Speaker 2: may be completely conjecture, So we'll just put a little
Speaker 2: dot next to that. Okay, if you look up the
Speaker 2: whole canopy of the trees swaying and moving back and forth.
Speaker 2: If there are other trees next to it, they're swaying
Speaker 2: back and forth into each other. So a lot of
Speaker 2: times trees will hit each other and actually break off limbs,
Speaker 2: and basically, you know, it's it's competition at its highest,
Speaker 2: you know, or a highest where they're actually literally, you know,
Speaker 2: putting in punches towards each other.
Speaker 3: So it's less like a mystical tango and it's more
Speaker 3: just like a windy mosh pit.
Speaker 2: But other than that, I really can't think of a
Speaker 2: good reason aside from uh, the like getting light, you know,
Speaker 2: you want to if they aren't touching, then they're not
Speaker 2: shading each other out. Yeah, so they can just stay
Speaker 2: right there. It's like, no one's asked me that before.
Speaker 3: I didn't have something that just came out on the internet.
Speaker 2: Oh, did it?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Nice, I'm very bad on the internet. I'm the worst
Speaker 2: millennial in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're hard to find.
Speaker 2: Nice. That's great because you.
Speaker 3: Were outside, not looking at a screen. Exactly what about
Speaker 3: the Larx? Did you read The ARX as a kid?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do actually have a truffler tree planted or
Speaker 2: tattooed on my arm as well.
Speaker 3: All, yeah, you do. Yeah, So Casey showed me the
Speaker 3: underside of his left arm where he has a little
Speaker 3: truffle a tree from The Lorax, which is this Doctor
Speaker 3: Seus's ecological epic kid's book about a dude who cuts
Speaker 3: down a bunch of fluffy, beautiful trees to make pajamas,
Speaker 3: and he destroys the environment, leaving a smoggy, apocalyptic wasteland.
Speaker 3: So in the book and on Casey's skin, the word
Speaker 3: unless appears etched into kind of a rocky pulpit. Unless
Speaker 3: someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going
Speaker 3: to get better. It's not. It's pretty damn depressing. Ps.
Speaker 3: After The Lorax was released, a logging company got super
Speaker 3: pot and published a competing pro logging book called The
Speaker 3: True Axe, and people were like, logging company, can you
Speaker 3: just fucking not. Anyway, a good reminder not to burn
Speaker 3: the earth because of pajamas. Okay, let's talk about old
Speaker 3: ass trees. Speaking of this dendro chronology. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: let's talk about aging trees and tree rings.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: How can you tell the age of a tree looking
Speaker 3: at rings? And what are some of the oldest trees
Speaker 3: and does it hurt the tree when you're boring into
Speaker 3: them to get a core sample? Oh yeah, let's talk
Speaker 3: about tree rings. Ah, this is so great.
Speaker 2: So basically, dendro chronology is the strictly the study of
Speaker 2: tree rings. So tree rings every it's you know, pretty
Speaker 2: well known, at least in the temperate regions. Every tree
Speaker 2: grows for a certain amount of year, then it goes dormant.
Speaker 2: Then it grows for a certain amount of year, then
Speaker 2: it goes dormant. So each time it grows, it puts
Speaker 2: on a new ring of wood on every single surface,
Speaker 2: so on the trunk, on all the branches, on the roots.
Speaker 2: That is just an annual count, you know. For us
Speaker 2: we treat it like a count for the tree. It's
Speaker 2: actually the tree getting stronger every single year. So sometimes
Speaker 2: it'll put more wood on if it's a really good year,
Speaker 2: sometimes it'll put less wood on if it's a shorter year,
Speaker 2: for a shorter growing season or harsher growing season.
Speaker 3: So the rings. If the rings vary in width, it
Speaker 3: usually means maybe there was better conditions, better water, and
Speaker 3: it grows more that year, and then maybe there's a
Speaker 3: drought and the rings get closer together.
Speaker 2: Precisely, Yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 3: In California, which is where the oldest trees grow, thank
Speaker 3: you very much. We got bristle cone pines and foxtail pines,
Speaker 3: and in the Central Mountain area the oldest ones grow.
Speaker 3: They look like a live driftwood. They're craggy and dense
Speaker 3: and ancient, and they look like it's just been a
Speaker 3: slow motion struggle to get out of the rocky, dry
Speaker 3: earth around them. The oldest specimens have been found in
Speaker 3: the White Mountains in Inyo National Forest, which is in
Speaker 3: eastern central California kind of borders on Nevada. I don't
Speaker 3: think there's a lot going on there other than a
Speaker 3: bunch of old trees.
Speaker 2: But if you have a tree that is say two
Speaker 2: four hundred years old, then you have a climactic record
Speaker 2: for two four hundred years of what was going on, like, oh,
Speaker 2: in year AD two, there was not very much wood.
Speaker 2: That was a bad year in the mountains of you know,
Speaker 2: central California. So what they can do, or what they've
Speaker 2: done with dendro chronology is you can look back, specifically
Speaker 2: in these trees, the bristlecone pines. What they do is
Speaker 2: they basically say, Okay, let's find a living tree. Let's
Speaker 2: find the oldest one. The oldest one I believe is
Speaker 2: called Methusela. No one knows exactly where it's at. There's
Speaker 2: another super sad story about the oldest oldest tree. It
Speaker 2: was so said, what happens? Oh man, this is the
Speaker 2: worst story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, tell it to me. I can handle it.
Speaker 2: So you gotta feel bad for the guy who did it.
Speaker 2: It was not his fault. He's a victim just as
Speaker 2: much as a tree god. People are going to go
Speaker 2: crazy if they hear me say that, But I'm gonna
Speaker 2: stick to my I'm gonna stick to my narrative here.
Speaker 3: So Casey's talking about this tree named Prometheus. And in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty four, a geography grad student by the name
Speaker 3: of Donald Rusk Curry was poking into trees to find
Speaker 3: out more info about the little ice age, and he
Speaker 3: was using this thin increment borer to take what should
Speaker 3: have been just like a harmless core sample about the
Speaker 3: diameter of a pencil. So dendro chronologists use them all
Speaker 3: the time. Not a baky.
Speaker 2: He just had some of these bores. And these bores
Speaker 2: the increment bors what you're talking about, where you drill
Speaker 2: into the tree to measure the rings. So he had
Speaker 2: one of those. Most of the nice ones are made
Speaker 2: over in Switzerland and if you want to if you
Speaker 2: break it, then it's like several thousand dollars you have
Speaker 2: to get a new one or have them fixed yours,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. So these trees, because they grow
Speaker 2: so slowly and have such dense rings there would is
Speaker 2: really really hard to get into. So as soon as
Speaker 2: you drill in and you pull out this core, it's
Speaker 2: really difficult sometimes to get the actual increment bar back
Speaker 2: out of the tree without breaking the increment bar. Okay,
Speaker 2: So he would drilled into the tree with one increment
Speaker 2: bar and it got stuck. So he drilled in with
Speaker 2: another one and it got stuck. So he's like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: both of my increment borers are now stuck in this tree.
Speaker 2: What am I gonna do? So then the guy he
Speaker 2: went over to the Forest Service and said, hey, can
Speaker 2: I just cut this tree down? You know, I'll count
Speaker 2: the rings and all these things. You know, it's first
Speaker 2: signs like he had all the permits, everything was on
Speaker 2: the up and up, and there was one tree that
Speaker 2: he happened to be working on of all the thousands
Speaker 2: and hundreds that were around him. He just sort of
Speaker 2: walked up and was like, uh, you, I'm gonna measure you.
Speaker 2: So he did it, cut it down. In the USDA
Speaker 2: four service, whoever's up there was just like, yeah, go ahead,
Speaker 2: sounds good. There's one hundred different of them. That's fine.
Speaker 2: This tree, for all intents and purposes, is not special
Speaker 2: other than the fact that it's innately special because it's
Speaker 2: a really cool kind of tree now protected, I believe
Speaker 2: in California. So cut it down, started to count the rings. Oh, one, two, three,
Speaker 2: four thousand, name, it's like four seven hundred years old,
Speaker 2: the oldest recorded living thing on the planet. Oh, I know.
Speaker 2: And it was it was so tragic, like the collective
Speaker 2: shock in that world because apparently there were not environmentalists,
Speaker 2: but there are certain intrepid people who had known about
Speaker 2: this tree. But the people who study trees and find
Speaker 2: the superlative trees, the biggest, the faddest of this other
Speaker 2: than General Sherman, the biggest giants equoia in the world.
Speaker 2: All the other trees are very hidden, like the tallest redwood.
Speaker 2: I think it might be the stratusya. There's a couple
Speaker 2: that are named Oh my god, no one knows exactly
Speaker 2: where it is. Very few people because they don't want
Speaker 2: this thing to happen. They don't want people to go
Speaker 2: and like, oh, I'm just gonna take one cone and
Speaker 2: then all the cones are gone, then stamp all the
Speaker 2: way around the soil and cause the tree to die.
Speaker 3: They're like protected celebrities exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're so protected. And so it's like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: are you kidding me? The one tree, So everyone got
Speaker 2: super mad at him. It's like, you cut down the
Speaker 2: oldest tree. And you have to see this guy's researcher
Speaker 2: studying these trees doing dendro chronology. So it's not that
Speaker 2: he was just like, we're gonna log it and turn
Speaker 2: it into a table. He's just like, no, I how
Speaker 2: I wasn't. And then for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: He was just absolutely vilified.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm literally crying. It's so so sad.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, and you look back on it
Speaker 2: and you're like, I can't believe, Like, oh my, literally,
Speaker 2: two thousand you have to or four thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 2: years when you can see event, like the Pyramids were
Speaker 2: built like six thousand years ago. So when let's see
Speaker 2: two thousand years before Christ was born, these trees were
Speaker 2: already growing when Christ was born. They were already ancient
Speaker 2: trees by our standards, they were already two thousand years
Speaker 2: old twy seven hundred maybe. So it was one of
Speaker 2: these things we're just like, how can I just oh
Speaker 2: my god, what did they conceptualized? Dude?
Speaker 3: Did he go to the witness protection prom.
Speaker 2: I know he should have. He just kind of disappeared
Speaker 2: to you. I think he had changed careers, stopped doing anything,
Speaker 2: and he just sort of settled out. But he ended
Speaker 2: up this one person remembered his name, and he was
Speaker 2: doing something and someone brought it up and like, hey,
Speaker 2: aren't you the guy that killed the world's oldest tree?
Speaker 2: And he was just like God, oh, don't hold up
Speaker 2: that wound again, And yeah, so's it's a really sad story.
Speaker 2: But the guy didn't do it on purpose. It's just, hey,
Speaker 2: he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,
Speaker 2: in the wrong tree.
Speaker 3: I mean said, if you're up there boring trees, you
Speaker 3: love trees exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it. It's mind blowing.
Speaker 3: But so I got so sad for the tree. And
Speaker 3: also because this guy probably ended up living under a
Speaker 3: bridge and his family probably never talked to him again,
Speaker 3: probably couldn't get a job, had to eat out garbage,
Speaker 3: give up all of his science dreams for one mistake.
Speaker 3: And I looked into it, and turns out he did
Speaker 3: just fine. He had a successful career in academia. He
Speaker 3: was a geography professor, nothing to do with trees. He
Speaker 3: didn't even have to change his name or wear a
Speaker 3: wig or shave his eyebrows, so no one recognized him.
Speaker 3: You guys, I once got fired from a job in
Speaker 3: college for defrosting the mini fridge wrong and breaking it.
Speaker 3: This guy just sailed through life killing the world's oldest thing. Prometheus,
Speaker 3: at four eight hundred and sixty two years old, was
Speaker 3: considered to be the oldest living thing in the world
Speaker 3: until twenty twelve, when a newer oldest one was discovered.
Speaker 3: It was a tree that was five and sixty two
Speaker 3: years old. And you're like, well, what's that one's name?
Speaker 3: If the other one was named Prometheus, good question. The
Speaker 3: new oldest one is unnamed. No one's ever named it. Frankly,
Speaker 3: that really bothers me. It's like the oldest alive thing
Speaker 3: on earth. Call it Jeff or Yvonne, fucking anything. Anyway,
Speaker 3: I gotta calm down. Okay, I have an update about
Speaker 3: this tree's name in yes, the update bonus episode, get
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 2: So those are the oldest trees. What he was studying
Speaker 2: dendro chronology And answer your question, yes, when you drill
Speaker 2: in it does cause wound in a tree, but just
Speaker 2: like that big tunnel, it's just a smaller wound. The
Speaker 2: tree will compartmentalize over.
Speaker 3: It and you just have to go halfway through.
Speaker 2: So yeah, if you can hit that pith pull it out,
Speaker 2: then you boom, there you go. You got all the
Speaker 2: rings of that tree as long as the tree was
Speaker 2: living that entire section. But they're so close together you
Speaker 2: have to actually get a microscope and a tiny little
Speaker 2: pin to like actually count him out because you can't
Speaker 2: see it with the naked eye. Many times he just
Speaker 2: looks like this black sort of thing. You have three
Speaker 2: or four thousand rings, four thousand individual lines in the
Speaker 2: span of maybe three feet four feet.
Speaker 3: It's odd, that's crazy nuts.
Speaker 2: And so this guy so dendro chronology what he was studying,
Speaker 2: this is so fascinating. Basically, the way it works is
Speaker 2: you drill into the tree. You have a living tree.
Speaker 2: You can measure, Okay, that three is four thousand years old. Cool.
Speaker 2: Now you look next to it and you see a
Speaker 2: dead tree. That dead tree likely was living before the
Speaker 2: tree that was alive that you just measured. So you
Speaker 2: can say, okay, I can measure and drill into that tree,
Speaker 2: pull out this ring, and then match up those rings
Speaker 2: because remember each one's going in the same place, so
Speaker 2: it's rings are gonna have the same thickness and the
Speaker 2: same chemical compounds, so for instance, carbon, which is where
Speaker 2: this story's gonna go. It's gonna get great.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So what they do is they said, okay, let's match
Speaker 2: up this living tree with this dead tree. And then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden they realized, wow, this dead tree
Speaker 2: was alive, you know, a thousand years previous. So I
Speaker 2: get now an extra thousand years to add on to it.
Speaker 2: Once you match up those overlapping parts of their lives,
Speaker 2: then you find another tree that is even older, that's
Speaker 2: a dead standing snag that you're just like, oh man,
Speaker 2: that tree's been gone for hundreds of years, but it's
Speaker 2: still standing there because there's no decay that's up there.
Speaker 2: This is like eleven twelve thousand feet of elevation. There's
Speaker 2: nothing up there that's affecting these trees, at least not historically.
Speaker 2: So now you find an even older dead tree and
Speaker 2: you're like, okay, cool, this older dead tree. Now I
Speaker 2: can match up with that other dead tree, and you
Speaker 2: just keep on getting these overlapping things. They just find
Speaker 2: all these trees match up all of their different rings together.
Speaker 2: Then boom, you can count back as long as you
Speaker 2: are one hundred percent sure that all those rings are
Speaker 2: from the same year.
Speaker 3: So they can match all these rings together, and by
Speaker 3: now they've amassed something like ten thousand, five hundred years
Speaker 3: of records for climate and carbon in the atmosphere. Now
Speaker 3: was very cool is they can use that record as
Speaker 3: a reference to the amount of C four or carbon
Speaker 3: in the trees, and they can compare it to how
Speaker 3: we carbon date like artifacts for certain civilizations. So it's
Speaker 3: like a dendrochronologist getting featured on an anthropologist mixtape.
Speaker 2: So what they did is they recalibrated all the machines
Speaker 2: or really some machines, retested these things and found that
Speaker 2: they were completely off where they're like wow. So we
Speaker 2: actually had to redo what we thought about European history,
Speaker 2: for example, because we redid our carbon dating and realize, wow,
Speaker 2: we've been kind of off.
Speaker 3: So trees are a paper trail in every way.
Speaker 2: It's pun intended.
Speaker 3: Okay, I have a question about how do trees grow
Speaker 3: around benches and bicycles and fences, Like you know, you
Speaker 3: see those pictures where a tree is eating a bicycle? Yeah, like,
Speaker 3: what is life? What's happening?
Speaker 2: How did that happen? Oh, it's great, And I've seen
Speaker 2: exactly the one you're talking about. In fact, it was taken.
Speaker 2: It's like an old like banana seat bike like up
Speaker 2: in a tree. Yes, And the caption that I read
Speaker 2: underneath it was like, oh, someone left this bike against
Speaker 2: this tree in nineteen thirty and it grew up. Hey,
Speaker 2: that tree was like probably forty years old, so it's
Speaker 2: not really nineteen thirty. It's just an old bike. But
Speaker 2: trees aren't like grass, where if you cut grass, the
Speaker 2: growing part of that grass is at the base. It's
Speaker 2: at the head of what is it the crown of
Speaker 2: the plant, right at the soil level, so it comes
Speaker 2: out and then moves up. Trees they once they grow
Speaker 2: to a certain point, that's it. That be there forever.
Speaker 2: If they put out a branch at one foot, that
Speaker 2: branch will always be at one foot. It'll probably die
Speaker 2: at some point or get cut off, and then the
Speaker 2: tree will grow round it and don't have to worry
Speaker 2: about it. But basically that bike was put twenty feet
Speaker 2: up in that tree. That's how they grow, so they
Speaker 2: can't lift anything in that regard.
Speaker 3: Oh god, okay, quick aside on the backstory of this bike. Ough,
Speaker 3: So it went viral with this caption. A boy left
Speaker 3: his bike chained to a tree and then he went
Speaker 3: away to war in nineteen fourteen, and his parents left
Speaker 3: it there as a memorial. But yeah, like Casey says, bullshit. Okay, So,
Speaker 3: first off, the US did not go to war in
Speaker 3: nineteen fourteen. Secondly, the real owner of the bike didn't
Speaker 3: have parents in the nineteen fifties on Vashion Island in Washington,
Speaker 3: this kid named Don Putts lost his dad in a
Speaker 3: house fire, which is so sad, and a bunch of
Speaker 3: locals donated items to the family. It was a mom
Speaker 3: with five kids, and so he got a bike and
Speaker 3: he hated the bike. It sucked, So one day he
Speaker 3: just ditched it in a swamp and someone must have
Speaker 3: found it hung it in a tree. The tree grew
Speaker 3: around it, so he had no idea until forty years
Speaker 3: later he's grown up. He's a sheriff. He visited this
Speaker 3: tree landmark on a vacation back in his hometown and
Speaker 3: he was like, well, hot, damn, that's my bike and
Speaker 3: it sucks. And he says it just belongs to the
Speaker 3: tree now, which I'm guessing from the way it was
Speaker 3: wedged into the tree's crotch and it had to grow
Speaker 3: into its flesh that the tree hates the bike too.
Speaker 2: But what they can do is grow around thing. So
Speaker 2: trees grow and they react to different forces around him.
Speaker 2: So if there is a oh, there's actually a great
Speaker 2: picture I have. Oh my gosh. It's a tree in
Speaker 2: the Sierra Nevada. It's a common juniper and there is
Speaker 2: this big horizontal stack of granite just growing out. The
Speaker 2: tree was growing right just right next to it. So
Speaker 2: as the tree got bigger and bigger, all of a
Speaker 2: sudden it kept starting to push on that rock. The
Speaker 2: rock wasn't budgeing, so then it can't push out anymore,
Speaker 2: but it's still going to put on these rings. So
Speaker 2: the tree ends up growing out above and below it.
Speaker 2: So the rock just stays right where it is, and
Speaker 2: the tree just keeps pushing out over the top, pushing
Speaker 2: out over the bottom, and literally starts to encompass that
Speaker 2: physical rock. So it got to the point where it
Speaker 2: looked almost like the tree had been poorn over the rock,
Speaker 2: and so it like came down and then just like
Speaker 2: poured off the side of it. But it was just
Speaker 2: the wackiest picture. And I wish I could find up.
Speaker 3: I have more questions, but I hope you're not. Are
Speaker 3: you late for anything?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I literally have nothing.
Speaker 3: I talk.
Speaker 2: I would grab a beer and that's it.
Speaker 3: Okay, good because people have questions. People have questions. I
Speaker 3: guess this is so exciting. I know. Okay, wait, I
Speaker 3: could do this all night morning. Weird question, Bear with me, Okay,
Speaker 3: do you think that certain trees have certain personalities. Like
Speaker 3: I know that that sounds like a very weird, magical question,
Speaker 3: but do you see a tree? Maybe this is just
Speaker 3: because I have a little bit of cynasthesia, where like
Speaker 3: numbers and letters have different personalities. But okay, yeah, do
Speaker 3: you ever feel like different vibes from different trees?
Speaker 2: I would say so, yeah, yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's not It's definitely not in a specific sense where
Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh, what's up. That's my bro that's
Speaker 2: my tree, and we would hang out for years and
Speaker 2: then I look over note tream like, uh, birches, I
Speaker 2: can't they just look at me wrong all the time.
Speaker 2: It's not quite that explicit, but my view is colored
Speaker 2: by what the tree is doing, like the characteristics of it.
Speaker 2: So like if I see one dream like, ah, you
Speaker 2: are overplanted, you fall apart all the time, you put
Speaker 2: out flowers and they stink, and you pulled the sidewalk
Speaker 2: you or are just not a good tree. I don't
Speaker 2: don't want anything to do with you.
Speaker 3: It's not how I feel.
Speaker 2: It's not it's you know, it's like, oh, I hate you.
Speaker 2: But then you're like, well, but you want to hang
Speaker 2: out later. That's cool. It's kind of like what it
Speaker 2: is like.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, we had this tree growing
Speaker 3: up that had a bend in it. You could sit
Speaker 3: in it like a chair, and we nailed the table
Speaker 3: up there so you could perch up there sipp a
Speaker 3: soda in the woods. This tree always seemed just so benign,
Speaker 3: kind of like a cool grandpa. It's just like, sure,
Speaker 3: you can nail a table into my flesh and put
Speaker 3: a diet pepsi on it, you little brat. I love you.
Speaker 3: What do you think about the Giving Tree Book? Does
Speaker 3: it make you cry a lot?
Speaker 2: Oh? It does. I have it. It's on the I
Speaker 2: built these shelves and it's on the shelf up above
Speaker 2: my bed. I love that tree or that book.
Speaker 4: Wait, did you build the shelves out of wood? I did, Oh,
Speaker 4: I did, But I reused it. It was a palette
Speaker 4: and I turned it into these cool shelves and I
Speaker 4: filled it up with cones and tree books and like certifications.
Speaker 4: And I think one of my degrees is up there
Speaker 4: or something like that.
Speaker 3: So are you ready for some questions from patrons?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, I'm so exciting. And I had no idea
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 3: There's so many questions I had to cut them off.
Speaker 3: Oh I don't think I've ever gotten this, so many questions.
Speaker 2: So oh we hick on my.
Speaker 3: Patreon pressures on patrons get to ask questions to theologists,
Speaker 3: so oh my gosh. Okay, all right, So when this
Speaker 3: episode first aired in twenty eighteen, we did not have
Speaker 3: a single sponsor yet. We just had wonderful folks at
Speaker 3: patreon dot com slash ologies who have kept this show afloat.
Speaker 2: Since day one.
Speaker 3: But now that we do have some ads, we can
Speaker 3: donate to a cause of the ologist choosing. And this
Speaker 3: I don't know who Casey chose because I forgot to
Speaker 3: ask him, and I texted him a few hours ago,
Speaker 3: but he has not come back to me because he's
Speaker 3: probably wearing a parka in a forest. These ads are
Speaker 3: gonna run and then next week I'll let you know
Speaker 3: who the donation want to and I'm going to update
Speaker 3: the link in the show notes as soon as I know.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure it will be cool and leafy and deserving.
Speaker 3: So money going to a charity TVA thanks to the
Speaker 3: following sponsors.
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Speaker 3: Prices very inn express. Okay, let's bark up his true
Speaker 3: with some question. I'm going to just run through. It's
Speaker 3: a rapid fire around answers quickly. You can't. We'll get
Speaker 3: there as many as good sounds.
Speaker 2: You got it. I think I can do it. Chime
Speaker 2: at the end when I'm running.
Speaker 3: No, I should have a whistle, Yeah I should. Okay,
Speaker 3: here we go. Beth Frosto wants to know do trees
Speaker 3: feel pain when we trim them?
Speaker 2: Oh? They do, but not in a strict sense. So
Speaker 2: this also goes back to the hidden life of trees,
Speaker 2: where whenever we personify a tree and we give it
Speaker 2: sort of a humanistic thing we're always sort of selling
Speaker 2: it short a little bit because it's like, well, well,
Speaker 2: you really don't want to say that the tree feels
Speaker 2: because then everyone's going to be really sad when they're
Speaker 2: cutting down trees. Actually, maybe that might be a good thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I might take this back regardless. Usually scientists try not
Speaker 2: to do it, except for this one instance with The
Speaker 2: Friend or the Hidden Life of Trees. That was probably
Speaker 2: the single greatest thing to happen to science about trees
Speaker 2: because some guy brought it down to a relatable level
Speaker 2: for the rest of humanity, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: people are like, wow, trees, they do feel, they do
Speaker 2: think they do this, And then scientists are like, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna say yes, just because that means that we're
Speaker 2: on the same page. Now it's good for Brandy exactly,
Speaker 2: it's great. So they do feel pain, but the pain
Speaker 2: isn't so much that they are like ow, they're more
Speaker 2: because they're compartmentalizers. So all that does is create a
Speaker 2: reaction that says, ooh, I need to protect myself. Something
Speaker 2: may get in.
Speaker 3: Y'all did this with dating.
Speaker 2: Hey, either it's going to get an insect that is
Speaker 2: going to come in or it's gonna be a fungus
Speaker 2: or both, or a multitude of other things. So as
Speaker 2: soon as you prune a tree, it will get a wound.
Speaker 2: It's not that the tree is feeling hurt, but the
Speaker 2: tree will then respond to that. So they'll respond immediately,
Speaker 2: especially by the next year, and they will just put
Speaker 2: on new wood to cover over it. So it just
Speaker 2: puts in these three walls of chemical protection, then grows
Speaker 2: a fourth wall of wood over the top to seal
Speaker 2: over that wound, and it happens exactly. It's like it
Speaker 2: never happened. So it's not that they feel pain, but
Speaker 2: they react to the wound in a way that is
Speaker 2: best protecting them from any other pathogen or insect or
Speaker 2: something that's going to come in and get them. So
Speaker 2: anytime you cut a tree and then it just starts
Speaker 2: pushing out sap a it's kind of like bleeding, especially
Speaker 2: if you cut it during the growing season where it's
Speaker 2: just pushing out as much energy and sugars as it
Speaker 2: can to its leaves to grow big and strong. You
Speaker 2: cut that off, all of a sudden, there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of pressure inside the tree literally pushing all this sap out.
Speaker 2: But that sap is also covering over that wound and
Speaker 2: making it an impenetrable place for all these other insects
Speaker 2: and things to get in. So it's actually literally sealing itself, right.
Speaker 3: It's like a varnished kind of yeah, exactly, delicious varnish.
Speaker 3: That actually leads me to my next question. Dustin Mills
Speaker 3: wants to know how many different kinds of trees can
Speaker 3: you get syrup from?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: In the tree, Oh so it does.
Speaker 2: It hurts it just like anything else. But it kind
Speaker 2: of hurts it in the same way that if you
Speaker 2: give blood, you're hurting yourself.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So they have plenty of stored nutrients and stored sugars
Speaker 2: and all these things. So you can get syrup from
Speaker 2: almost any kind of tree. It just depends on if
Speaker 2: it's delicious or if it's so so diluted to where
Speaker 2: it just takes way too much effort to actually get it.
Speaker 2: So there's a tree called a sweet gum for all
Speaker 2: you nerds that is liquid and vers irisa fluap wonderful,
Speaker 2: wonderful tree. Also one of those trees. It's like, I
Speaker 2: wish you weren't planted so much in the urban area
Speaker 2: because they just tear up sidewalks. But some of the
Speaker 2: best fall color you're ever gonna get in a tree.
Speaker 2: They're beautiful, from orange to yellow to purpled red. It's
Speaker 2: just it's wonderful. But what they do is you used
Speaker 2: to tap them. That's why they call it sweet gum,
Speaker 2: because they would tap them in the south and then
Speaker 2: they would grow or collect all of the tree sap.
Speaker 2: You boil it down to get all the water out,
Speaker 2: and you get this sugar. Some taste really good. Some
Speaker 2: have other chemicals in it that make them less tasty.
Speaker 2: People have used them on birch trees and on other
Speaker 2: different maples, all bunch of different species of maple. But
Speaker 2: the reason we use sugar maple right now is just
Speaker 2: because it has the highest concentration of sugar per amount
Speaker 2: of sap. This still takes hours and hours to boil
Speaker 2: it off to create the actual thing, of which there's
Speaker 2: no recipe. Every bit you get they're just looking at
Speaker 2: they're like, eh, looks done. Really yeah, there's no actual
Speaker 2: like boil it for ten minutes. It's boil it until
Speaker 2: it looks right. That's it.
Speaker 3: So analog. So side confession, little fyi, I always thought
Speaker 3: that maple syrup just kind of dripped out of trees
Speaker 3: as is, like you could just wander in the forest
Speaker 3: with a pocket full of waffles and just get a
Speaker 3: little smear here or there. But the sap actually comes
Speaker 3: out clear, kind of like water, and it takes forty
Speaker 3: gallons of it to boil down and make one gallon
Speaker 3: of maple syrup, which seems like a lot of tree tears,
Speaker 3: but they tap a bunch of them. They get just
Speaker 3: a little bit from everyone, So don't be too sad.
Speaker 3: You can continue to brunch unencumbered by guilt. Zach Sharba
Speaker 3: wants to know what's the science behind tree grafting and butting,
Speaker 3: because a lot of fruit trees are just grafted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, almost so great. Every banana you've had has been
Speaker 2: a literal clone of every other banana you've ever had.
Speaker 3: What the hell I know? So this is true. I
Speaker 3: just looked it up. This is crazy. So wild bananas
Speaker 3: are kind of short and squat, They're full of a
Speaker 3: bunch of pebbly seeds. Nobody loves them, and so we
Speaker 3: have cultivated this seedless, sterile one from a single spemon
Speaker 3: way back. So all the bananas that we eat now
Speaker 3: all of them of the Cavendish variety come from one
Speaker 3: single banana plant way back. We just keep splicing. So
Speaker 3: just think this. If you're in love with Michael B.
Speaker 3: Jordan Say or Francis McDorman, and you have both eaten
Speaker 3: a banana, you have the same bananas jeans in your
Speaker 3: colon as them at one point. Isn't that exciting? So
Speaker 3: Cavendish got popular in the nineteen fifties because all the
Speaker 3: bananas we used to eat also clones. They were called
Speaker 3: fat Mitchell's or gross Michelles. They were wiped out by
Speaker 3: a fungus. So apparently you know the banana flavor, we
Speaker 3: taste that tastes like fake banana, And we're like, is
Speaker 3: this banana tastes like those taste like the old timey
Speaker 3: phased out gross Michelle bananas which all died. Is this
Speaker 3: weird to you? It's so weird to me.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have no bananas.
Speaker 3: We have no bananas day.
Speaker 2: Same thing with apples. All the apples that are sweet
Speaker 2: delicious or golden delicious or whatever it is, they all
Speaker 2: came from one single tree.
Speaker 3: That's weird.
Speaker 2: It's great. So what they do is it is it's
Speaker 2: really weird and it's really it's oh man, it kind
Speaker 2: of makes you feel like, now when you look at
Speaker 2: those trees, maybe this is a personality where it's like
Speaker 2: this weird egor tree that's like, oh my gosh, you're Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Like you just have all these different parts growing on
Speaker 2: to you, and it's just like, oh, you look so
Speaker 2: grizzled and worn, and it's like you're just mishmashed with
Speaker 2: parts from other trees.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I didn't even know that was a thing until
Speaker 3: very recently.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Oh yeah, it's hitting knowledge. I guess
Speaker 2: what they do is they find the ones that have
Speaker 2: the best rootstock, and they said, Okay, this one's really good,
Speaker 2: but it just gets these tiny little crab apples that
Speaker 2: are not very delicious. They're just like these sour So
Speaker 2: you cut that and if you can find another tree
Speaker 2: that happen to have this one crazy apple that's huge
Speaker 2: and delicious and sweet and whatever, you cut that apple
Speaker 2: or that bit off one of those those limbs, and
Speaker 2: then as long as it's the same size, you just
Speaker 2: literally put it together a little bit of tape around
Speaker 2: it and some I forgot the compound, but there's like
Speaker 2: a sort of compound that they put on there that
Speaker 2: encourages all you have to earth encourages the cambium layer
Speaker 2: to come back together. So literally all you're doing is
Speaker 2: matching up those cambium layers. So as long as the
Speaker 2: stem is the same size, you can match up both
Speaker 2: cambium layers around. Cover that with tape, and then it
Speaker 2: literally just grafts itself into it. And it says if
Speaker 2: the tree has a now whole functioning system, again, that's
Speaker 2: it's crazy.
Speaker 3: It's just like organ transplants, yeah exactly, yeah, but more successful.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. But having said that, apples are just completely pointless.
Speaker 2: And I'm just gonna say this right now.
Speaker 3: So side note, how does Casey like that mapples? Well,
Speaker 3: he does not. He launched into an impassioned four minute
Speaker 3: anti apple rant which I'm just going to recap. They
Speaker 3: were sold as health food via propaganda after the prohibition
Speaker 3: because all these cider apples could no longer be sold
Speaker 3: to make hoots. You see, So I looked into this
Speaker 3: checks out. So now apples are, in Casey's eyes, forced
Speaker 3: on us as snacks. He does not like them. I
Speaker 3: love him for this, but.
Speaker 2: It's just like like everyone who buys apples and like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna eat it as a snack. I'm like, you're
Speaker 2: just gonna get hungry. You should bring cheese. You should
Speaker 2: at least get cheese and some peanut butter. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna eat it.
Speaker 3: But I've never heard someone who was such an apple fox.
Speaker 2: And the reason that I know that that's not good
Speaker 2: for the apple trees, that it's like not happening, is
Speaker 2: because these apples get so laden with these or these
Speaker 2: trees get so laden with apples to where they're literally
Speaker 2: breaking their own branches because of the weight. And it's
Speaker 2: just like you guys are turning these into like monsters,
Speaker 2: Like this tree can't even support itself and it's ripping it.
Speaker 3: Blart, I'm telling you, dude hates apples. Also, Casey, I'm
Speaker 3: so sorry. I was literally eating an apple as I
Speaker 3: was writing these asides. Life is just complicated. Radka Vikaria
Speaker 3: has a question why do some trees lose their leaves
Speaker 3: in the winter and others don't?
Speaker 2: Aha? I love this question. So this comes down to
Speaker 2: a specific, basically strategy. So if you think of trees
Speaker 2: as having a budget, one part of their budget goes
Speaker 2: towards making or growing tall in competition, you know, physically
Speaker 2: getting to be a big size growth. Then another part
Speaker 2: of that budget would be towards reproduction, because there's no
Speaker 2: point in growing unless you can reproduce. The third part,
Speaker 2: the third big part, would go towards protection. So you
Speaker 2: can do any amount of energy put into any three
Speaker 2: or any one of those three categories. Obviously there's a
Speaker 2: couple more categories. It's very simplified. In this instance. You
Speaker 2: have a tree growing and it gets too cold, and
Speaker 2: so it's not that it actually gets too cold for
Speaker 2: the leaf itself, it's that wind continually rips through and
Speaker 2: damages that leaf. So what some trees have opted to do,
Speaker 2: or what has worked for them is instead of having
Speaker 2: just these dinky little leafs that just get completely destroyed
Speaker 2: during the wintertime or the water gets too the water
Speaker 2: freezes in the ground so the trees can't pull it up,
Speaker 2: or it gets too cold up in the air and
Speaker 2: ice crystals actually form in the leaf itself and rip
Speaker 2: it apart. Yeah, it's really bad when leaves and tissues
Speaker 2: like that freeze, just the same as if we our
Speaker 2: fingers froze. The reason that we get frostbite is because
Speaker 2: it actually the ice crystals in our fingers expand out,
Speaker 2: just because we know ice expands, and it rips apart
Speaker 2: the cells.
Speaker 3: It's just terrible ps. That's the noise I make when
Speaker 3: my butthole clenches, and sympathy pain. So you're welcome, okay.
Speaker 3: And is that how frostbite really works? It is? I
Speaker 3: never knew. Casey is just a font of knowledge. He's
Speaker 3: more like a tap of sweet fact sap for our
Speaker 3: brains to boil down.
Speaker 2: So for some trees, what they decide to do, or
Speaker 2: what you know worked for them, is they made their
Speaker 2: leaves just a little bit tougher. So they put more
Speaker 2: of their energy into making that leaf really strong, making
Speaker 2: it waterproof, making it less edible, making it so adding
Speaker 2: more lignant and more things that make it more distasteful
Speaker 2: to different animals. Some trees put a lot of energy
Speaker 2: into their leaves. Because they put a lot of energy
Speaker 2: into their leaves, they now can hold them, but they
Speaker 2: don't want to just let them dry because there was
Speaker 2: so much energy. You can't just drop that onto the
Speaker 2: ground and then regrow it again the next year. So
Speaker 2: really tough leaves they can withstand the conditions. So as
Speaker 2: soon as spring comes. If you get an early spring,
Speaker 2: the trees that are evergreen are already ready to go.
Speaker 2: They are photosynthesizing. Spring comes, boom, They're right off the bat.
Speaker 2: They would be able to compete better in that instance,
Speaker 2: whereas the deciduous trees are still dormant. They have not
Speaker 2: been growing over this entire season. They've dropped their leaves.
Speaker 2: But because they haven't put so much effort and energy
Speaker 2: into those leaves, they can put it into something else,
Speaker 2: i e. Into growing really fast or putting out a
Speaker 2: lot of fruit. You get a tree that is deciduous,
Speaker 2: drops its leaves, goes dormant, and then as soon as springhets,
Speaker 2: some conditions get really good. They shoot up by like
Speaker 2: two or three feet sometimes. And so while you have
Speaker 2: these other trees they have put a lot of energy
Speaker 2: into their leaves, they have less energy to put into
Speaker 2: growing tall, less energy into defense. So it's just more
Speaker 2: of a balance of which is more functionable for this
Speaker 2: tree at the right time. Sometimes deciduous doesn't make any
Speaker 2: sense because the conditions are so good where you're like, ah, well,
Speaker 2: why get rid of my leaves? There's no good reason.
Speaker 2: So up here it's usually water is the limiting factor,
Speaker 2: so their leaves start to desiccate, lose all their water,
Speaker 2: then they drop them, and then they just wait.
Speaker 3: So it's more just about favorable conditions than it is
Speaker 3: about climate. It really depends on what's best for the tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of the time, and obviously climate has something
Speaker 2: to do with it. Yeah, we have evergreen trees here
Speaker 2: because why lose your leaves if you can just photosynthesize
Speaker 2: for eighty percent of the year, just go for it.
Speaker 3: And then in the meantime they're living off of storage sugars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so they're always respiring one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of the year. You know, trees are the only things,
Speaker 2: or rather certain plants are the only things that can
Speaker 2: produce their own food and then respire to use it.
Speaker 2: So we're respiring. Every physical or every living thing uses
Speaker 2: respiration to breathe, and that's why we breathe out carbon
Speaker 2: dioxide and water. Trees do the exact opposite. They say,
Speaker 2: take carbon dioxide and water, turn it into oxygen and
Speaker 2: a simple sugar or a long chain of sugars. So
Speaker 2: all they do is just store it, store it, store it,
Speaker 2: and then just sort of sit there and then just
Speaker 2: eat sugar all year round until they can start growing again.
Speaker 3: Just snacking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really nice, it's delicious. I wish I could
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: Do you think that planting more trees will save the environment. M.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, I'm just gonna say blatant. Yes, We'll just
Speaker 2: leave it. Yes and yes, yeah, always plant more trees.
Speaker 2: There's so many good reasons we could do a thousand
Speaker 2: more hours of talking about.
Speaker 3: Do you think there are certain trees that Josh Bruce
Speaker 3: wants to know? Are there certain trees that are better
Speaker 3: for the environment than others? M.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say so, but really it's not necessarily
Speaker 2: better for the environment. It's better for maybe the micro environment.
Speaker 2: So small trees that don't cast a lot of shade
Speaker 2: over a bunch of cement not really doing a lot.
Speaker 2: A big, huge, large tree that shades over a bunch
Speaker 2: of cement and lowers the heat island effect in a city,
Speaker 2: which is just the fact that in cities it's warmer
Speaker 2: temperatures than in the associated crop land or forest land.
Speaker 2: It's just cooler out there and warmer in here. And
Speaker 2: that's because we have so many impervious services that are
Speaker 2: taking in heat and then bouncing it back out. So
Speaker 2: if we have a big tree that's growing over the
Speaker 2: top of that, then we're shading out that areas. If
Speaker 2: we do that over the scale of the entire United States,
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, we're like losing millions of
Speaker 2: tons of carbon just by having one tree shading our
Speaker 2: house with during the hottest time of the day. So
Speaker 2: in that instance, yes, some are better at accomplishing our
Speaker 2: objectives in terms of helping out the environment. But for
Speaker 2: the most part, yeah, plant a tree. It's it's always
Speaker 2: gonna be great.
Speaker 3: Okay. A couple more questions from WET. I got so
Speaker 3: many questions. There's no way I could possibly answer all
Speaker 3: of these. This would be like a seven hour episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who listens to hardcore history here? Okay, yeah, I'm ready,
Speaker 2: let's do it.
Speaker 3: Mark James has a great question our Bonzai trees actually trees?
Speaker 3: Are they shrubs with pretension?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: Can I say both?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm gonna say both. Then they do have a
Speaker 2: certain amount of pretension, but it was given and forced
Speaker 2: upon them.
Speaker 3: So Casey compares Bonzai cultivation with traditions like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: corsets and footbinding, and if I may add my two cents,
Speaker 3: I'd say, let's lump in modern day high heels, which
Speaker 3: we're going to look back with just horror. Please mark
Speaker 3: my words. Your grandkids are gonna look back at probably
Speaker 3: like a holographic photo album of present day women in
Speaker 3: evening gowns, just grimacing and carrying strappy stilettos at the
Speaker 3: end of a party and ask Grandma, what in turd's
Speaker 3: name were you thinking? This is a nightmare? How did
Speaker 3: you live? Why did you not stab people with your shoes?
Speaker 3: And we will say it was just it was just
Speaker 3: what you did. Now, lather up my stumps, will you, child?
Speaker 2: Same exact thing where they're completely torturing these trees in
Speaker 2: every way so they are beautiful. They're pretentious in exol
Speaker 2: bonzi tree is technically a tree, but literally bonzi means
Speaker 2: a tree in a pot, so that's all it is.
Speaker 2: They just really take it seriously sometimes and I wish
Speaker 2: I could do it. It's actually so hard to do.
Speaker 2: People like I could do that, you'll kill your tree.
Speaker 2: I guarantee. Those trees are so well taken care of
Speaker 2: it's obscene.
Speaker 3: They're like show dogs.
Speaker 2: They are, Oh my gosh, that's the best way to
Speaker 2: look at it. Yeah, you know, you can almost see
Speaker 2: them prancing around and all these things.
Speaker 3: And looking this up, I learned that it's actually pronounced
Speaker 3: bone size, which you can say if you're feeling pretentious.
Speaker 3: So that being said, recently, a century's old pine bone
Speaker 3: size sold for one point three million dollars for a
Speaker 3: single bone size. That's a lot of money for a
Speaker 3: bone size. I got this information on a bone size
Speaker 3: website called bone Sigeempire dot com, which has a lot
Speaker 3: of information about bone size.
Speaker 2: And so what they do is you have this small tree,
Speaker 2: it's a regular tree. If you take a bonzie redwood tree,
Speaker 2: you pull it out of the ground, you're pull it
Speaker 2: out of its pot, and you put it in the ground.
Speaker 2: You give it a thousand years, it will be three
Speaker 2: hundred feet tall. No, swear to god. They are exactly
Speaker 2: the same tree as every other species that exists. Every
Speaker 2: bonzai is the same tree as the regular species that
Speaker 2: grows out and gets huge. So black pines, Japanese black
Speaker 2: pines are a great example. They get huge. They're really nice,
Speaker 2: beautiful trees. They will use those as Bonsai trees more
Speaker 2: often than not. No way, all they do is you
Speaker 2: pull them out during the dormant season, you clip the
Speaker 2: roots a little bit and you put them back in.
Speaker 2: You add a little bit of fertilizer or something just
Speaker 2: to sort of keep them going sometimes, and then you
Speaker 2: put in the top and you sort of shape the
Speaker 2: tree exactly. But every time you do that, when you
Speaker 2: cut off any amount of roots, a you're taking away
Speaker 2: a food source for the tree or a nutrient in
Speaker 2: water source. So it's like, okay, well now I have
Speaker 2: to regrow that root. So they're putting a lot more
Speaker 2: effort into constantly regrowing, and you're also cutting off that
Speaker 2: stored starch in that area you're cutting off a root,
Speaker 2: you're taking away a certain amount of stored energy and
Speaker 2: lessening the ability for that tree to get nutrients and
Speaker 2: energy later. So all your doing is torturing that tree. Literally,
Speaker 2: if you could hear screams during the wintertime, you would
Speaker 2: just hear these little tiny like ahhas. Then they you know,
Speaker 2: cut off all the roots and then they put them
Speaker 2: back down and then they shape them. So that's why
Speaker 2: the trees they stay small is because they're literally bound
Speaker 2: in this pot the same way that feet would stay
Speaker 2: small if you bound them in shoes, which you shouldn't do.
Speaker 2: It's an atrocious thing.
Speaker 3: So I just went down a real rabbit hole about footbinding,
Speaker 3: which is now illegal, but for centuries it involved breaking
Speaker 3: young girls toes and then soaking them in animal blood
Speaker 3: and then wrapping them into deformity, and about how that
Speaker 3: was just like accepted, kind of like our modern stilettos,
Speaker 3: because it just it made the legs look muscular, and
Speaker 3: it was an erotic treasure for men. The girl's hobbled
Speaker 3: gate was supposed to tighten their vaginas. Let's just say
Speaker 3: I'm making that noise again, ye yea yeah, yea yea
Speaker 3: yea yea ye, at.
Speaker 2: Least for the feet. The Bondzye trees, like I said,
Speaker 2: they don't feel pain, but they certainly will respond to it.
Speaker 2: So you're basically keep that tree in a very stressed
Speaker 2: state its entire life.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's like Munchausen's by proxy, where it's like you'd
Speaker 3: see your kid and you're like, I'm gonna stun your
Speaker 3: growth so you never leave.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is. It's terrified.
Speaker 3: Okay, one last question, Okay, Jillian Page Jefferson wants to
Speaker 3: know hy just curious are there any certain types of
Speaker 3: trees that produce more oxygen than other trees?
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know either.
Speaker 2: I do know that you know, it's a chemical equation.
Speaker 2: So it's literally for x amount of carbon and sugar used,
Speaker 2: you get an x amount of oxygen. So it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be necessarily that one tree just produces more oxygen. It's
Speaker 2: that one would respire or would make more photosynthesis. So
Speaker 2: some trees just pump it out and then store the
Speaker 2: store the energy, so you can like cut them down
Speaker 2: and they'll just keep growing back. So those might be
Speaker 2: ones that probably produce more, but it's just because they're
Speaker 2: working over time. It's not that they're actually producing more
Speaker 2: with less their same amount, same equation. It's just one
Speaker 2: plus two equals three every single time.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, so yeah, probably, So if you want to
Speaker 3: plant trees, you should probably consult like a local arborist
Speaker 3: and say, hey, what's the best kind of plant?
Speaker 2: Yes, I completely concur We touched on.
Speaker 3: This a little bit. But the last two questions I
Speaker 3: always ask are what is your least favorite thing about
Speaker 3: what you do? What is the hardest part, what is
Speaker 3: the most annoying part what's your least favorite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say the hardest part is convincing people.
Speaker 2: And this is more hard, like a challenge, is convincing
Speaker 2: people to understand trees. And I don't want to say
Speaker 2: the way I understand trees, but to at least give
Speaker 2: them a better appreciation of how the trees affect them.
Speaker 2: So a lot of people are like, oh, I got
Speaker 2: to cut down this tree or all this tree is dangerous,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, no, it's not, and here's why,
Speaker 2: and explain it through. And most of the time I
Speaker 2: get people who are just like, oh, okay, cool, I
Speaker 2: never knew that or I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 2: But then I try to explain the benefits of trees,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, hey, when you go to work and
Speaker 2: you look out your window and you see this, you know,
Speaker 2: landscape with trees, maybe a pond, grass, that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: and then you compare it. They've done studies on this.
Speaker 2: This is all I can confirm.
Speaker 3: So I went in fact checked this later, and it's true.
Speaker 3: There are a bunch of studies done in different situations,
Speaker 3: all pretty much same outcome.
Speaker 2: On the other side of the building where it's just
Speaker 2: a brick wall that they're looking at. If you guys
Speaker 2: are doing the same job, you're getting paid the same.
Speaker 2: The person with the view of the landscape of the
Speaker 2: trees will have more production. They will be more productive,
Speaker 2: less stress, and will be more satisfied with their job. Really,
Speaker 2: person on the other side will have less of those
Speaker 2: things all across the board. And they've done all these
Speaker 2: studies and they say, wow. You know, if you are
Speaker 2: sitting in a hospital bed and you're recovering and you
Speaker 2: look out the window you see trees, those people use
Speaker 2: less pain medication and recover faster than the same exact person,
Speaker 2: the same exact situation without that view.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. There's this well known short story about
Speaker 3: two men in a hospital. One is blind. The other
Speaker 3: describes the scenes out the window to him. Turns out
Speaker 3: the window is just overlooking a brick wall. Roommate made
Speaker 3: up these beautiful scenes to help the other guy. I
Speaker 3: tried to look up the original author for this, and
Speaker 3: it can only be traced to a guy named Harry Bushman.
Speaker 3: Harry Bushman Bushman super appropriate for a nature episode, or
Speaker 3: perhaps Harry Bushman was a name adopted in the Wild
Speaker 3: and Crazy Harry nineteen sixties Harry Bushman.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to convince people. I'm like, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: you're like, you don't understand you cut down this tree.
Speaker 2: I can tell you there's gonna be physical effects. It's
Speaker 2: gonna cost money, first off. Second off, if you don't
Speaker 2: hire someone who knows what they're doing, they could drop
Speaker 2: some part on your house or your car. So pay
Speaker 2: for pay for good work. Number Three, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: maybe uh more sons gonna hit it. You're gonna have
Speaker 2: more rain. You're gonna have now drainage problems because you
Speaker 2: don't have this huge thing pulling up water from the
Speaker 2: ground all the time. But then on top of that,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have maybe less privacy, You're gonna have less
Speaker 2: or more stress because things are gonna be a little
Speaker 2: bit hotter. You can see more pavement, there's gonna be
Speaker 2: more direct lines that are harsh. So there's all these
Speaker 2: like small micro things that really add up. So the
Speaker 2: hardest part, I think for me is to try and compill.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily hard for me. It depends on the audience.
Speaker 2: Is to convince someone no, you don't want to cut
Speaker 2: down the tree. And here's why, here's why. It's doing
Speaker 2: a lot more good that you may not even know about.
Speaker 2: But when you do the when you do the before
Speaker 2: and after, you're gonna be like, may man, I'm really
Speaker 2: stressed right now. It's like, have you been staring at
Speaker 2: pavement or you've been looking at a tree?
Speaker 3: Oh? I ever got to ask one question, Well, how
Speaker 3: do you feel about Christmas trees?
Speaker 2: Christmas trees are fun, They're great. I always have a
Speaker 2: real Christmas tree.
Speaker 3: You don't mind that they're getting cut?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not really no, not in that regard.
Speaker 4: Okay, because they're they're small, and you know, if you're
Speaker 4: really comparing them, you can just regrow another one in
Speaker 4: like five or eight years, like.
Speaker 2: Oh and take that long.
Speaker 3: I was gonna go fifty to fifty. I was like,
Speaker 3: Casey's either gonna hate Christmas trees or he's gonna love them.
Speaker 3: I did not know which side of the line you're
Speaker 3: gonna end up on. That was a total surprise to me.
Speaker 3: I was like, I was like, easily you could have
Speaker 3: been like Christmas trees are an abomination. Everyone should have
Speaker 3: like a tumbleweed? What some lights on it? I don't know?
Speaker 2: Okay, reasonable, yeah, but yeah, I like it. And also
Speaker 2: if you think about all the other things, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a rural er side of the world that grows
Speaker 2: Christmas trees. So you're supporting that economy buying a you know,
Speaker 2: twenty five dollars noble fur or something like that. They
Speaker 2: try to make them perfect. I hate that. Just let
Speaker 2: a tree grow, cut it down, put it in your house.
Speaker 2: You got a tree, don't need to worry about it
Speaker 2: making a perfect, like you know, pyramidal shaped thing, and
Speaker 2: you know, share it to within an inch of its life.
Speaker 3: Ugly trees, fine trees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ugly trees and fine trees. I just love, in fact,
Speaker 2: some of the coolest trees if any. If you ever
Speaker 2: look up the bristle cone pines, those old old trees,
Speaker 2: they are so gnarly, like you're like, how are you
Speaker 2: even a thing?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go deep into some tree porn later and
Speaker 3: I start looking up. I'm just gonna start pinteresque boarding
Speaker 3: a old tree thing.
Speaker 2: I actually have a book I call tree porn because
Speaker 2: it has a like long picture. It's called tree I
Speaker 2: think is aud This is very fancy and it has
Speaker 2: this like literally like centerfolds of like tall redwoods, and
Speaker 2: so I'm like leaning back, like, oh yeah, that is
Speaker 2: that is a huge tree. It was like, oh my gosh, Casey,
Speaker 2: get a room. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm doing this
Speaker 2: right here on the couch. I'm looking at this tree.
Speaker 3: Nd it on a dead tree.
Speaker 2: I know the irony is so thick, but I had
Speaker 2: to say, it's a renewable resource. Yeah, if it's done correctly,
Speaker 2: logging is absolutely gonna save the world. We're doing things
Speaker 2: right now with trees. It's called cross laminated timber clt
Speaker 2: It is gonna be the future and I'm absolutely sure this.
Speaker 2: They're doing it in Germany. We're just now in Oregon
Speaker 2: getting a couple of mills on board to start doing it.
Speaker 2: But basically, think really thick plywood where you have boards
Speaker 2: going left and right, then you have them turn ninety
Speaker 2: degrees and they're going that direction. You're just doing this
Speaker 2: over and over and over to you get this big,
Speaker 2: like six inch thick piece of panel, and then you
Speaker 2: can cut that into whatever shape you want and put
Speaker 2: it together like legos. Like literally there. They said, if
Speaker 2: you hear like hammers and nails on one of these
Speaker 2: sites where they're building this, you know structure, then something
Speaker 2: went wrong because they just sort of fit in together,
Speaker 2: and then they're less fire resistance. This is the funniest thing.
Speaker 3: It's would wait, more fire resistance.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, more fire resistance. Sorry.
Speaker 3: So this new type of lumber is too dense to burn,
Speaker 3: which is also a really good self deprecating way of
Speaker 3: deflecting an insult. Too dense to burn. Now, it's also
Speaker 3: what's called a carbon sink because it traps carbon dioxide
Speaker 3: and keeps it there, which helps counter climate change in
Speaker 3: global warming, which is necessary if we don't want to
Speaker 3: be swallowed by boiling oceans.
Speaker 2: So it should be the future. I'm really looking forward
Speaker 2: to it. That's ideally.
Speaker 3: That's really optimistic because I wasn't sure what the future
Speaker 3: was going to be, and this is good to know.
Speaker 2: Oh I hope it is. I hope it is. Because
Speaker 2: we can get it to the extent where almost all
Speaker 2: of our buildings are now timber framed again. We can
Speaker 2: make sure that all of our trees are grown properly
Speaker 2: and under certain conditions. Wood is naturally good at moving,
Speaker 2: so you don't have to worry about the tensile strength.
Speaker 2: Everything's already built into the fiber itself, and on top
Speaker 2: of that, it's nicer to look at wood it is cement.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like, this is so much more
Speaker 2: pleasant than I know anything else.
Speaker 3: I would so much try to have a wooden table
Speaker 3: than a glass one. Absolutely, just it's so comfortable.
Speaker 2: They're just so much nicer. It's just something warm. You
Speaker 2: told me about it. Yes, it's like going into an
Speaker 2: old wood paneled cabin or something. You're just like, ah,
Speaker 2: this is home. Oh I can do this, and where's
Speaker 2: my pipe.
Speaker 3: It's like a big wooden womb.
Speaker 2: I just love it exactly. Oh, it's delightful.
Speaker 3: Now to end on happy note, what is your very
Speaker 3: very favorite thing about what you do? I know that's
Speaker 3: gonna be hard.
Speaker 2: This is oh man, But really it's looking at trees
Speaker 2: almost every single day, and most of them are all
Speaker 2: different trees or different situations of trees. So I go
Speaker 2: out and I see a dogwood one day and I
Speaker 2: get to protect it from a development. I'm like, nope,
Speaker 2: you have to retain this tree. It's an awesome tree.
Speaker 2: You did it. That makes me go home so happy.
Speaker 2: But then because of what I do and because of
Speaker 2: sort of who I am, it's not nicially part of
Speaker 2: my job, just part of my being. I guess where
Speaker 2: I can go out and find these trees is like,
Speaker 2: you know what, today, I'm going to go out to
Speaker 2: this part of the world or this part of Oregon,
Speaker 2: and I'm I find these trees and drive out in
Speaker 2: this this huge long adventure and then you PLoP out
Speaker 2: in this little grove and there's just these stunningly massive
Speaker 2: trees around you that have been completely untouched and protected
Speaker 2: from logging. So you're just like, oh, like you're incredulous
Speaker 2: and how incredible these trees are. So that not quite
Speaker 2: a part of my day to day job, but that's
Speaker 2: my favorite thing where I get to go out and
Speaker 2: like find these cones and find these trees and be like, yes,
Speaker 2: I've been there, I've seen it. They're incredible. I know
Speaker 2: how they grow. I've seen them like fall and die
Speaker 2: and grow up again. So that is probably the really
Speaker 2: nicest part. The other nice part that I really like
Speaker 2: is actually just telling people about trees. Like if I
Speaker 2: can just sit down like and do something like this
Speaker 2: and someone's like tell me about trees, I'm just like
Speaker 2: where to begin, and then I can just do it
Speaker 2: for hours, So I think. My favorite part is when
Speaker 2: someone's actively interestingly ish listening to me. That's what I'm
Speaker 2: just like, they're taking this in, they like it. Okay,
Speaker 2: they're still here, all right, one more hour, one more slot,
Speaker 2: and let's let's just keep going.
Speaker 3: When you found an ear to treetails, it's a happy day.
Speaker 2: This is a happy day. Yeah. And if I can
Speaker 2: convince someone that they don't want to cut down their tree,
Speaker 2: if I can change that mind, trees are incredible things
Speaker 2: and humans are way too hubuistic in the idea. I'm
Speaker 2: not even sure if that's a word, but yes, they think.
Speaker 2: We think that we know better than the trees are
Speaker 2: better than the ecosystem that's been developed over millions of years.
Speaker 2: When someone's like, oh, what should I do to make
Speaker 2: this tree healthy? Like, my answers are like, let it grow.
Speaker 2: The only reason that we prune trees is because of us.
Speaker 2: Trees don't need help. It's like reason, know what's up?
Speaker 2: Trees are like excuse me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, if I've been evolving for millions of years, yes.
Speaker 2: It's like long have you been here? Kiddo? So then
Speaker 2: this is one of my old bosses said all the time,
Speaker 2: he's like there's no reason to prune a tree other
Speaker 2: than human reasons to prune a tree. They will do
Speaker 2: it themselves if they have to, or they will fall
Speaker 2: apart and die, and then another tree's going to take
Speaker 2: its place. That's called the circle of life, and that's
Speaker 2: how it goes.
Speaker 3: Speaking of a circle of life, one more morbid question,
Speaker 3: let's go for it. When you died, do you want
Speaker 3: to be planted in one of those tree pots?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, totally. I don't know anything about it, but
Speaker 2: the answer is yes. I would love that. I would
Speaker 2: love a natural burial where they don't inbalm me or
Speaker 2: don't put me in like a box or anything like that.
Speaker 2: If they do, make it like an alder box so
Speaker 2: it decays in like thirty seconds. Okay, put me in
Speaker 2: the ground and then plant a tree right on top
Speaker 2: so that I can at some point everyone else in
Speaker 2: the world would be like Casey became that tree going tree.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: I mean, hopefully not anytime soon, like in another like
Speaker 3: long time fingers crossed a long time.
Speaker 2: I will live all the trees I planted in my life. Please, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that would be that would be so nice to uh,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously I wouldn't be thinking about it then,
Speaker 2: but to know that my individual cells, my molecules have
Speaker 2: literally been transformed into something else. Yep.
Speaker 3: I don't think that I've ever met anyone as enthusiastic
Speaker 3: about tree. Yes, that's weird.
Speaker 2: So far, I haven't met anyone either. Maybe a couple
Speaker 2: of people. But yeah, at least I can give him
Speaker 2: a good run for their money. So thank you. I'm
Speaker 2: happy to hear that.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: This is one this for old to continue to bask
Speaker 3: in Casey's infectious tree enthusiasm. You can see his brand
Speaker 3: new seedling of an Instagram account, which I have encouraged
Speaker 3: and have just straight up pressured him to start. He
Speaker 3: said he was going to start it anyway, and I
Speaker 3: just said, listen, dude, do it before Tuesday. You can
Speaker 3: follow him on Instagram at clap four trees clapp four
Speaker 3: the number four trees. It's a brand new account. It's
Speaker 3: so exciting, so you can find him there. I'll also
Speaker 3: put a link in the show notes. Do I need
Speaker 3: to say it again? I'm gonna listen to the update
Speaker 3: episode to hear what is up with Casey and how
Speaker 3: his Instagram is doing It's so worth it, It's so good.
Speaker 3: So ologies is on Instagram and Twitter at ologies, and
Speaker 3: I'm on both at ali Ward with one L and
Speaker 3: there's a group full of very warm, curious folks at
Speaker 3: Ology's podcast on Facebook. Thank you Aaron Talbert for adminting.
Speaker 3: You can also obtain ologies objects at Ology's dot com.
Speaker 3: There are pins, their dad hats, shirts, toads, We've got
Speaker 3: phone cases, we got it sales support the making of
Speaker 3: the podcast. Thanks Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch for helping
Speaker 3: run that you guys role, and thank you always to
Speaker 3: Stephen Ray Morris for editing. This was a beast of
Speaker 3: an episode. I usually have between fourteen to twenty five asides,
Speaker 3: and this one had forty. And he charges me by
Speaker 3: the hour. So thank you to all the patrons at
Speaker 3: patreon dot com for essentially paying him and for submitting
Speaker 3: such great questions. Asking smart people dumb questions is literally
Speaker 3: the only way anyone learns anything in life. And if
Speaker 3: you think your question is dumb, I guarantee like twelve
Speaker 3: other people want to ask it and they're going to
Speaker 3: be thankful that you did. You can become a patron
Speaker 3: for as little as a dollar a month, and that
Speaker 3: supports the show. So if it's worth the price of
Speaker 3: a sandwich per year or whatever, consider it. You get
Speaker 3: to ask your questions and see behind the scenes pictures
Speaker 3: and videos and such. Now the music was written by
Speaker 3: Nick Thorburn of the band Islands, which is a very
Speaker 3: nice band. And now if you stick it out to
Speaker 3: the very end, you know I tell you a secret.
Speaker 3: And this week it's that I never learned how to type,
Speaker 3: even though I have been a professional writer for like
Speaker 3: the decade. I skipped that elective in high school. So
Speaker 3: my hands when I write just hover in weird places
Speaker 3: on the keyboard, sometimes just a pointer finger. And I'm
Speaker 3: pretty fast, but I make a ton of typos. I
Speaker 3: make so many mistakes, and I get so embarrassed when
Speaker 3: Stephen Ray Morris is working in the same Google transcript
Speaker 3: document and there's just so many red underlines. It's just
Speaker 3: like red lasagna noodles all over it. It wasn't until
Speaker 3: a year ago that I learned why keyboards have those
Speaker 3: weird knobs on the F and the J keys. I
Speaker 3: just thought they were like weird mistakes on all keyboards.
Speaker 3: So I downloaded a I Learned to Type program. I
Speaker 3: only got a few lessons in and I need to
Speaker 3: dedicate some time to it because I type like a
Speaker 3: t Rex trying to operate a spaceship. All right. There
Speaker 3: are more updates in the update episode, including a bonus
Speaker 3: secret for this week. But I do I want you
Speaker 3: to know. It's been two years and I still type
Speaker 3: like absolute garbage. And I don't know what I'm waiting for,
Speaker 3: because it would improve my life every single day if
Speaker 3: I did learn to type. I guess I'm just holding
Speaker 3: out for a brain implant or a spell or a miracle,
Speaker 3: whatever is less far fetched. Okay again, I'm working over
Speaker 3: the holiday because I love this show. So do listen
Speaker 3: to the bonus episode because it's so fun and it's
Speaker 3: full of really great happy news, including Casey launching his
Speaker 3: own Tree podcast. Okay, bybye until the bonus episode, which
Speaker 3: is already up to get it pacadermatologyology or doo Zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, atteratology, athology, seriology.
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