Speaker 1: Hey, Okay, so after last week's two parter on fear,
Speaker 1: I hope everyone's just feeling calm and strong and collected
Speaker 1: and most importantly, most importantly ready to talk about trees.
Speaker 1: Are you ready? Okay, here's the probably scenario. This is
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking is happening. You either fucking love trees
Speaker 1: and that's why you're here, or you're like, good lord,
Speaker 1: podcast dad, what is this long ass episode about trees?
Speaker 1: Even get a cover? I'm gonna dive in, but only
Speaker 1: if it's full of infectious enthusiasm. And boy, howdy, you doubters,
Speaker 1: you don't know the half of it. This episode will
Speaker 1: make you so pumped about trees. You're gonna be bummed
Speaker 1: about having skin and blood hearing me so jealous of
Speaker 1: bark and sap, and you'll have new scrabble words and
Speaker 1: you'll start questioning if you should just string a hammock
Speaker 1: up in the backyard and live outside like a big
Speaker 1: ape squirrel. But first, let's get some business out of
Speaker 1: the way. I'll speak fast, Okay, it's important business, like
Speaker 1: telling you you can be an olagite who proselytizes with
Speaker 1: an ology's shirt or pin or totes if you wear
Speaker 1: totes at ologiesmirch dot com. Thank you all for buying
Speaker 1: and wearing merch. Patreon dot com. Slash Ologies is a
Speaker 1: portal through which you can also ensure that this podcast exists.
Speaker 1: Real talk. I have like ten other jobs. This one
Speaker 1: takes the most time and pays me definitely the least,
Speaker 1: but I love it the most. And patrons help cover
Speaker 1: costs of hiring an editor to make sure I can
Speaker 1: put them out every week. And I'm still molling over
Speaker 1: whether to have advertising. I'll be honest with you because
Speaker 1: I know sometimes you don't want to hear ads, and
Speaker 1: I want you, guys to be happy you just want
Speaker 1: to hear about trees. Maybe, so I've turned down ads
Speaker 1: and I just raise income through Patreon. And if you
Speaker 1: think that's dumb, feel free to tweet me about it,
Speaker 1: because maybe I'm doing business wrong. I probably am. I'm
Speaker 1: going to read those tweets if you give me advice
Speaker 1: on that, just like I read your reviews. Ooh, what
Speaker 1: a segue. So rating and reviewing and making sure you're
Speaker 1: subscribed on iTunes. You can check right now. Make sure
Speaker 1: you're subscribed keeps ologies just killing it in the science
Speaker 1: charts we're still rubbing elbows at the top twenty five
Speaker 1: or thirty science podcasts ever, which is thrilling. And also
Speaker 1: your reviews kind of brighten my My cloudiest day is
Speaker 1: for real this week. This one just delighted me. Jude
Speaker 1: Kenny wrapped up a review by saying, boy, howdie, you
Speaker 1: may find yourself pulling off the road during your commute
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday to sit in the still of your car,
Speaker 1: staring out the window while you ponder your life choices.
Speaker 1: Five stars. Thank you for that. Now onto dendrology. Okay,
Speaker 1: the trees. You're ready for trees? Okay, So dendro comes
Speaker 1: from ye old Greek meaning tree. And if you're like that,
Speaker 1: why does that remind me of brain stuff? Well, that's
Speaker 1: because the dendrite is a part of a nerve cell
Speaker 1: that looks a lot like a tree. So dendra, there
Speaker 1: you go. Trees. So you've got trees in the brain.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have trees on the brain after this, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that much. You're gonna be pining for more
Speaker 1: wrist facts. Oka, So the term dendrologist is a little funky.
Speaker 1: So technically is anyone who studies trees, which this human
Speaker 1: being I interviewed has done. I have never met anyone
Speaker 1: with such a raw zeal or deep knowledge for and
Speaker 1: of trees. You will love him. He's been studying tree
Speaker 1: biology and dendrology since two thousand and seven and he's
Speaker 1: currently a tree inspector for the city of Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: and he gives talks all over the world about trees.
Speaker 1: He teaches sold out classes. I was like, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're a dendrologist, right, and he demurred at the
Speaker 1: title of dendrologist. I'm like, dude, this is like when
Speaker 1: I was goth. I didn't realize I was a goth
Speaker 1: until I look back at pictures and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was definitely a goth. You study trees, you're a
Speaker 1: damn dendrologist, accepted, but he was like, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: So I was headed to see for a day to
Speaker 1: shoot this show called Innovation Nation, that's one of my
Speaker 1: other jobs, and I thought, I bet there's got to
Speaker 1: be tree people up here. There's so many trees. So
Speaker 1: I did a little googling and I saw there was
Speaker 1: a sold out tree workshop the day I was there,
Speaker 1: led by this Portland based dude. And then I began
Speaker 1: very gingerly stalking him online to try to get in touch.
Speaker 1: The only social media I could find was a Facebook account,
Speaker 1: and after following like a few leads, I emailed his
Speaker 1: bosses and then Presto. The next day, I creepily invited
Speaker 1: him to hang out in my hotel room. I figured
Speaker 1: his bosses knew where he was, and I hoped he
Speaker 1: would not abuse his access to chainsaws. He did not.
Speaker 2: He was great.
Speaker 1: So we talked for literally two hours, which was very
Speaker 1: difficult to cut down. No tree pun intended about so
Speaker 1: many burning curiosities. Do trees feel pain? How do they
Speaker 1: talk to each other? What's up with crown shyness? Does
Speaker 1: he have a favorite tree? Will trees make you write
Speaker 1: your novel any faster? Does he get sad when he
Speaker 1: looks at wooden objects? What is tree porn? And are
Speaker 1: there any super sad stories about trees? Spoiler yes and
Speaker 1: also great ones also yes. So I'm gonna go out
Speaker 1: on the lamb and say this is a great episode,
Speaker 1: so stick around for some really wonderful tree facts. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: lumber up. I swear to God, that's gonna be the
Speaker 1: last tree punt. Please trust me for a person who
Speaker 1: is somewhat in denial about being a dendrologist.
Speaker 3: Casey Clapp, I've never done anything like this. Yay, that's
Speaker 3: gonna be great.
Speaker 1: So this is your mic. You were you weren't the
Speaker 1: easiest person to to gently stalk online.
Speaker 2: Oh that's fantastic. So I didn't know I could be found, Yeah,
Speaker 2: anyone whatever.
Speaker 1: Look, I was like, I must talk trees with him.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is so flattering. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I have a question, Yes, go ahead. Arborist
Speaker 1: 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 one who
Speaker 2: manages a tree in the urban area. So if they're
Speaker 2: 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 going to study this plant it's characteristics, or this
Speaker 2: tree more specifically, it's characteristics and where it fits in
Speaker 2: with the rest of all the other trees in the world.
Speaker 2: Sodrologists basically work on the back end of things, classifying
Speaker 2: all the different trees into certain organizational standards.
Speaker 1: So can you call if you study and you love trees,
Speaker 1: can you call yourself a dendrologist?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, I would say so.
Speaker 1: So Casey got his Bachelors of Science in forest management
Speaker 1: with a focused on urban forestry, and then he went
Speaker 1: got a master's focusing on arbor culture. So it seems
Speaker 1: that an arborist deals with trees, knows a lot about trees,
Speaker 1: and a dendrologist studies identifying trees specifically. So Casey studied
Speaker 1: dendrology but is now an arborist. But you, guys, anyone
Speaker 1: who knows this damn much about trees is adendrologist in
Speaker 1: my book, Okay, let's just agree there are bigger issues
Speaker 1: in the world. Okay. When you were going about your education, yes,
Speaker 1: so Casey's deciding to study trees, Yeah, beautiful time. Where
Speaker 1: 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 plain 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
Speaker 2: this I'm gonna do it forever, and then ended up
Speaker 2: being that I hated landscape architecture, like I can't do this.
Speaker 2: This is so infunctional stuff. It's all I say, frilly
Speaker 2: that I don't think they gives them enough credit. They
Speaker 2: do very good work, but I was very much a
Speaker 2: person who needed to manage something and it needed to
Speaker 2: be active, and it needed to have an amount of
Speaker 2: utility in the landscape. So I was like, not even
Speaker 2: really interested. So but I was killing it at all
Speaker 2: 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 just gonna grow these trees, to cut them down,
Speaker 2: to make pulp, make paper, make money, do whatever they're
Speaker 2: gonna do.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that's what forestry was. I thought forestry
Speaker 1: like tree hugging, like every tree had a name.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, oh, I wish this is for the people
Speaker 2: who grew up on Ferngali 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 1: I was wondering, is someone who clearly loves trees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a lot of tattoos trees?
Speaker 1: Do you really?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I got photosynthesis tattooed across my chest.
Speaker 1: You're a walking power point. Yeah, sometimes especially try you
Speaker 1: have photos sent this is on your chest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what else do you have? I got a sugar
Speaker 2: maple on this arm, and then I have roots coming
Speaker 2: down off of this arm, and I'm wearing a long
Speaker 2: sleeve shirts so obviously you can't see it.
Speaker 1: And your long sleeve shirt, by the way, has trees
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it has a don redwood on the back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're covered in trees externally and and also
Speaker 1: from a dermatological.
Speaker 2: Perspective, yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1: Casey also has a pair of white bark pine cones
Speaker 1: tattooed on the inside of his right bicep. They're beautiful
Speaker 1: the tattoo. I'm not making a comment about his bicep.
Speaker 1: Good job either way, that's your business. He has an
Speaker 1: acorn on his other bicep, and he also has a
Speaker 1: Dodo bird to represent the delicate balance between endangered plants
Speaker 1: and animals. So he's like a walking botanical garden pamphlet.
Speaker 1: Obviously a very huge advocate for more trees in cities.
Speaker 1: And for me, I'm like an LA resident. So this
Speaker 1: part of the conversation made my heart choke. With Longing,
Speaker 1: I was like, em, do you have trees in your city?
Speaker 1: 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: places that have no trees on their streets and it's
Speaker 2: a much hotter place, it's more rigid, more sort of industrial,
Speaker 2: and everyone's like, aah, that's a little more or more
Speaker 2: of an uncomfortable space. Yeah. So basically what I do
Speaker 2: now is say, here are all the characteristics of trees.
Speaker 2: Here's how they flow, here's how they function, and here's
Speaker 2: how you can best use them on your side or
Speaker 2: in a city to accomplish all these great things that
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite tree?
Speaker 2: I do, yeah, but it changes pretty constantly what it now.
Speaker 2: Right now, it would be the coast redwood, which is
Speaker 2: so stereotypical.
Speaker 1: 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: like that. It's really strange no one thinks about until
Speaker 2: you ask them the question.
Speaker 1: Do you know what your favorite tree is? I was like,
Speaker 1: do I have a favorite? Yes, I do. It's an oak.
Speaker 1: I have a favorite tree. I guess we all do,
Speaker 1: but Coastal Redwood's Casey's favorite. They grow from southern Oregon,
Speaker 1: just down the central coast of California all the way
Speaker 1: down to about Santa Cruz, and they grow in this
Speaker 1: fog belt right near the shore because that fog helps
Speaker 1: get moisture to the top of these like three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty foot giant trees. And if you're needing to
Speaker 1: imagine a silhouette of one, you're like, what do they
Speaker 1: look like? You know? The logo for Stanford, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: that there is the image of al Pelo alto, one
Speaker 1: particularly famous local coastal redwood tree. It's also the unofficial
Speaker 1: mascot of Stanford. It's dubbed very creatively the Tree, and
Speaker 1: according to Wikipedia, the Tree, despite very heroically replacing a
Speaker 1: decidedly more shitty mascot, the tree has been called one
Speaker 1: of America's most bizarre and controversial college mascots. People hate it.
Speaker 1: It regularly appears at the top of the internet's worst
Speaker 1: mascot lists, which apparently exist. But I'm going to very
Speaker 1: publicly beg to differ because once you have seen a
Speaker 1: jiff of a dancing layered green tent with a very
Speaker 1: happy human being inside, your heart's gonna be one. I
Speaker 1: love it anyway. Coastal redwoods 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 rod 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 be lave the
Speaker 2: bark alone. But then the trees actually survive because they
Speaker 2: can sprout from any place that still has functionality down
Speaker 2: to the roots. So not only are they also the
Speaker 2: tallest trees in the world, some of the longest lived,
Speaker 2: some of the 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 1: The roots are like, I don't care, I'm going I'm
Speaker 1: 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 1: Quick anatomy lesson of trees. Okay, what are we dealing with?
Speaker 1: And also true or false? The root system is like
Speaker 1: kind of as big as the actual branches and cannon
Speaker 1: MIGHTI yocrely both okay, okay, so give me an anatomy, yeah.
Speaker 2: Sort of both. Okay, So real quick, there are four
Speaker 2: main organs of a tree. First off, what is a tree?
Speaker 2: A tree, by some definitions is literally like this one
Speaker 2: guy on a book I have, he describes it as
Speaker 2: a bush with a stick up the middle. Okay, that's
Speaker 2: literally It's just like, okay, this a pretty dumb down version.
Speaker 1: I tried to track down what this book might be,
Speaker 1: just to see if it had any other cool definitions,
Speaker 1: like that a flower is a leaf but on acid.
Speaker 1: But upon googling bush with a stick up the middle,
Speaker 1: literally all that turned up were photos of George W.
Speaker 1: Bush flipping people to bird and also this video during
Speaker 1: his presidency as he's doing a sound.
Speaker 2: Check, just the one finger victory salute.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, by today's standards, that seems downright charming
Speaker 1: and presidential as hell. I'm fine with it anyway. A
Speaker 1: tree a bush with a stick up the metal.
Speaker 2: So that's what we will define as a tree. Nine
Speaker 2: of the things that you know of as a tree
Speaker 2: are a tree. But then there's things like say Joshua
Speaker 2: tree that's technically a yuka. It doesn't put on annual
Speaker 2: rings the same way 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, not necessarily it's
Speaker 2: 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 hosta or anything else. Bear. 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. So
Speaker 2: with so if we have a tree and we say, okay,
Speaker 2: it's gonna woody thing, let's just use a Let's use
Speaker 2: the organ white oak for example. Okay, so the organ
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 our 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 into 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 gonna get past four
Speaker 2: feet anywhere.
Speaker 1: Crazy. I always thought they went way down, Yeah, and go.
Speaker 2: Out, they go out. Why go down any further If
Speaker 2: you can remain stable and you got all your nutrients
Speaker 2: and 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 glass.
Speaker 1: Or a like an umbrella that has a base.
Speaker 2: Exactly an umbrella sitting on a platter. It would be
Speaker 2: the best way to imagine it. And so that's why
Speaker 2: roots are so important. People like, oh, 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 1: Oh yeah, because I feel like you do see that
Speaker 1: 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 blow and above but it's
Speaker 2: completely false.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I had no idea. Okay, So that's
Speaker 1: 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 a compartments in
Speaker 2: a ship. All you have to do close it off
Speaker 2: and then everything else can go on as normal. So
Speaker 2: they have these two main things. You have cambium layer,
Speaker 2: which is the vascular system of the tree, just below
Speaker 2: the bark, just outside the wood. That's where the trees
Speaker 2: grow and put on their new rings. That is where
Speaker 2: they send nutrients and water from the ground up. And
Speaker 2: that's called the xylum. That's a good word. If you
Speaker 2: play scrabble, it's X Y L E M. You can
Speaker 2: fit that 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 I was playing scrabble with a friend at a
Speaker 2: coffee shop in Portland and this other guy came up
Speaker 2: and he's like, hey, man, can I just play with
Speaker 2: you guys? And we're like, oh yeah, totally cool, and
Speaker 2: I may we made the joke. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well we're only using Latin terms, and I swear to
Speaker 2: God without even blinking an eye of the guy was
Speaker 2: just like okay, and we're like, who did we get
Speaker 2: ourselves into? He massacred us really nice grable. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: he knew how plays gravel? Just a job.
Speaker 1: What was this deal?
Speaker 2: No idea, I don't even remember. I didn't ask. It
Speaker 2: was just we were stubb were shocked. Yeah, we had
Speaker 2: to leave that coffee shop and think to ourselves, We're
Speaker 2: never playing scrabble in public again, certainly never with anybody else.
Speaker 1: Jennings, it was just Jeopardy and gam know.
Speaker 2: A fake mustache? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Okay, so xylem okay. Buckle up because this parts can
Speaker 1: get a little technical, but you're gonna learn a few
Speaker 1: new scrabble words as promised, and or names for your
Speaker 1: gluten free organic children cambium, flowhem, photosynth, and xylum, of course,
Speaker 1: which is Greek for wood. And yes, that is where
Speaker 1: the word xylophone comes from so Scrabble, Jeopardy, your prep
Speaker 1: for anything. Okay, back to Xylon.
Speaker 2: Takes all the nutrients and water up to all the leaves.
Speaker 2: The leaves they are doing the photosynthesis, so they're creating
Speaker 2: the energy from the sun. They start pulling all of
Speaker 2: their nutrients. Are all their photosynthate is what some people
Speaker 2: call it, basically sugars, and they pull those down and
Speaker 2: that goes to the floam, which is the pipes that
Speaker 2: go down. That's basically it.
Speaker 1: 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 1: Ooh, are you ready for a hot tree scandal? Okay,
Speaker 1: sometimes a tree breaks up with its own limbs this drama.
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: it'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 was
Speaker 2: what people call self shedding or self pruning trees. It's
Speaker 2: not really that. The tree is 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 woumb Trees don't heal,
Speaker 2: They seal, They specifically close it up, and then can
Speaker 2: you to grow like nothing ever happened.
Speaker 1: It's like ghosting your own arm exactly. You're just like, shit,
Speaker 1: you just ice it out.
Speaker 2: You're like, yeah, listen, it's not me, it's it's definitely you.
Speaker 1: Definitely, I'm sorry, not 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 1: I have a gossipy question.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about the redwoods that they have
Speaker 1: carved an area where you can drive a car through.
Speaker 2: Oh god, it's mutilation. Okay that I thought, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: not the worst. Obviously the trees are still living. So
Speaker 2: what's going through Oh, it's going through hell. Absolutely, it's well,
Speaker 2: it went through hell. It's basically like you get a
Speaker 2: tunnel carved through your stomach. Oh, but imagine that instead
Speaker 2: of like we as humans, our bodies are just one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. They're all connected to you things. So if
Speaker 2: you get your arm cut off, your body's like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: everything is messed up. Then you have to you know,
Speaker 2: if someone has to sew it up, blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: you 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 going to block off everything around that hole and
Speaker 2: keep moving like nothing ever happened because everything else is
Speaker 2: going on around the tree itself, and the wood is
Speaker 2: actually basically a inert It's just a physical structure holding
Speaker 2: the tree up.
Speaker 1: Okay, remember the cambium layer from earlier, So as we recorded,
Speaker 1: we were both drinking tea rated from my hotel Mini bar,
Speaker 1: and Casey had a visual metaphor for the cambium layer,
Speaker 1: which really helped. He said, if you're looking at a
Speaker 1: full coffee cup, the coffee inside would be the wood,
Speaker 1: the mug would be the cambium layer, and the outside
Speaker 1: of the mug would be the bark. Does that make sense.
Speaker 1: So the cambium layer is like super important in terms
Speaker 1: 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 1: I went to go look up which tree this was,
Speaker 1: and I found out there's tons of gutted tunnel trees
Speaker 1: in California. We have made an Indus tree into this tree.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. The pun came
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. It was like a burp during a
Speaker 1: job interview. I'm sorry, okay, but yes, so we've made
Speaker 1: quite a few park attractions out of tunneling out the
Speaker 1: trunks of these behemoth trees and just trying to drive
Speaker 1: cars through them. We're monsters. We're monsters, and we love
Speaker 1: road trips. We're just doing our best. But in researching this,
Speaker 1: I also found out about the Hercules Tree, which an
Speaker 1: eccentric rancher dug out a twelve y nine foot room
Speaker 1: intwo and tried to live in it. God bless them,
Speaker 1: but the tree was just weeping sap onto his face
Speaker 1: at night too much. So they just were like, ah,
Speaker 1: they just made it into a gift shop. But they're
Speaker 1: a good handful of tunneled out trees down the California coast,
Speaker 1: and two big ones have fallen, most recently this one
Speaker 1: called the Pioneer Cabin Tree, which toppled and very dramatically
Speaker 1: shattered in early twenty seventeen after some severe weather. The
Speaker 1: Calaveras Big Tree Association remarked, quote, the storm was just
Speaker 1: too much for it. The storm was too much for it.
Speaker 1: The storm. You're gonna blame the storm. That's like knifing
Speaker 1: someone with a machete and then saying that it's probably
Speaker 1: probably a metal allergy killed them anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, 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 Mini Teas or the Model
Speaker 2: Te's and now we're driving like hummers and like woman
Speaker 2: make a whole bigger.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, it's so now, talk to me a
Speaker 1: little bit about how trees talk to each other, because
Speaker 1: I feel like there was some some research or some
Speaker 1: some thing came out recently about how trees can talk
Speaker 1: to each other through their roots, and everyone was.
Speaker 2: Like, wa trees looking at it, thinking the trees or
Speaker 2: watching them. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I mean it's also so cruel to think that that
Speaker 1: story made the newspapers, which are dead trees. We're not horrifying, they.
Speaker 2: Cut down a tream like this tree is not talking
Speaker 2: to you, but the ones that are still living on
Speaker 2: Oh it is.
Speaker 1: So how do the roots communicate? Do they share nutrients?
Speaker 1: 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 1: All right. I look this up, and the weird one
Speaker 1: is actually called Secret Life of Plants. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like this Woo Woo nineteen seventy three volume about botanical sentience,
Speaker 1: the authors of which gave light detector tests to house
Speaker 1: plants after trying to communicate through esp it's out there.
Speaker 1: They also postulated that their little green friends might originate
Speaker 1: in a super material world of cosmic beings such as fairies, elves, gnomes, sylphs,
Speaker 1: and a host of other creatures. Okay, they made a
Speaker 1: movie about it, which is not to be confused with
Speaker 1: David Attenborough's Private Life of Plants documentary, in which he
Speaker 1: tickles the venus flytrap anyway, So not Secret Life of Plants.
Speaker 1: Not Private Life of Plants anyway. Casey's talking about the
Speaker 1: hidden life of trees, and one author, the German Peter
Speaker 1: horn Been I don't know, describes that trees feed each
Speaker 1: other other sugars through their roots when one is sick
Speaker 1: or dying, and they communicate to each other using chemical
Speaker 1: and electrical cues in response to stimulus, not unlike how
Speaker 1: humans use vocal cues to say, hey, fools, there are
Speaker 1: donuts in the breakroom, or how we type posts on
Speaker 1: secret Facebook message boards. Watch out this hipster dude sucks.
Speaker 1: Do 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 up,
Speaker 2: but there is an entire underground system of things that
Speaker 2: no one ever thinks about. So regardless, the way it
Speaker 2: works with the sort of the hidden life of plants
Speaker 2: is they have they graft themselves together. So if you
Speaker 2: have really really thin bark on those root hairs and
Speaker 2: those root hairs touch each other and then they can
Speaker 2: basically start passing their or the cambium layer sort of connects,
Speaker 2: so something comes out, takes the left and then goes
Speaker 2: into another root. Could be from the same tree, but
Speaker 2: if it's the same species, then actually connect together and
Speaker 2: you can get an entire forest of all these trees connected,
Speaker 2: which is fascinating. But it's not like one tree is
Speaker 2: connected to all the rest like a network. It's like
Speaker 2: it's kind of like the Internet, where you have one computer,
Speaker 2: then another computer, than another tree, then another tree than
Speaker 2: another tree that all may have or may not have.
Speaker 2: These root hair is connected. But then there's a sub
Speaker 2: layer on that which is mushrooms. Okay, by celium. This
Speaker 2: is the new thing that really like blew up, like
Speaker 2: Radio Lab did a whole thing on it, and everyone's like, ah, mushrooms.
Speaker 2: What trees? There are an insane amount of mushrooms that
Speaker 2: are We're actually people have more genetic things in common
Speaker 2: with mushrooms than we do with trees and other plants.
Speaker 2: So that's crazy. It's crazy to think about they're basically
Speaker 2: sentient things. That's not true.
Speaker 1: Strip that from the record, right, well they yes, we'll
Speaker 1: take it.
Speaker 2: So basically, what they do is these all these fungus
Speaker 2: have this mutualistic relationships called symbiosis. And what they do
Speaker 2: is a fungus has root hair or myceelium that's microscopic,
Speaker 2: much smaller than the root hairs of a tree. So
Speaker 2: if you are a tree growing in a place like
Speaker 2: let's say southern Oregon, then you have a much drier condition.
Speaker 2: Tree roots are a certain size, maybe like the size
Speaker 2: of your finger for this instance, and so you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: I can only reach into a certain size crack where
Speaker 2: this water is. And the water is held up within
Speaker 2: these smaller pores in the soil. So if the trees
Speaker 2: can't physically get their roots in to grab it, then
Speaker 2: it's basically not available. So this fungus ends up getting
Speaker 2: this mutualistic relationship. The tree gives the fungus sugars that
Speaker 2: it produces up in the canopy, so the fungus gets
Speaker 2: some food. And then the fungus, if our fingers are
Speaker 2: the size of root hairs, then our hair, our actual
Speaker 2: physical hair, is something on the size of the of
Speaker 2: the fungus. So the fungus can be 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 toe, you have evaporation. Evapo transpiration. Evapotransporration 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
Speaker 2: grab the they grab some water, do some photosynthesis, or
Speaker 2: do whatever they do, and then some water escapes. So
Speaker 2: when that water is released into the atmosphere, just like
Speaker 2: you're drinking out of a straw, one molecule pulls on,
Speaker 2: the next, pulls on the next, pulls on the next,
Speaker 2: using capillary action all the way down the tubes of
Speaker 2: the tree to the soil into the roots, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, that root is pulling up another
Speaker 2: little molecule of water and you can full cycle. So
Speaker 2: as soon as the trees have this pressure deficit where
Speaker 2: it's sucking more water into the air than it has
Speaker 2: in the ground, then the fungus will then be like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, there's a pressure deficit, and water just osmosis
Speaker 2: over to that area. So it's not that everything is
Speaker 2: communicating like the fun of the trees, like ro I
Speaker 2: need water, fungus give me water. It's more like there's
Speaker 2: all these you know, scientific processes or these you know,
Speaker 2: natural processes that are functioning in this very specific system
Speaker 2: that then one little molecule gets pulled up, pulls on
Speaker 2: the next molecule, pulls on the next molecule, so on
Speaker 2: and so forth until the fungus gives it a molecule,
Speaker 2: and then there you go.
Speaker 1: Side note. I learned of this from a biology teacher
Speaker 1: years ago, and it's always stuck with me that this
Speaker 1: chain of water keeps the plants healthy. So to prolong
Speaker 1: the life of cut flowers, if anyone ever gives them
Speaker 1: to you, trim the ends about an inch underwater to
Speaker 1: prevent getting an air bubble in the stem, and then
Speaker 1: the last longer. So there you go. Don't say I
Speaker 1: never surprise you with flower facts. And if it's been
Speaker 1: a while since anyone got you flowers, go get yourself
Speaker 1: some flowers for a few bucks at Trader Joe's or something.
Speaker 1: Just go pretend they're from your weird old pal ward
Speaker 1: over here. You deserve it, kiddo. Just cut them underwater,
Speaker 1: That's all I ask. 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 true, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to have you cut down. Trees need a
Speaker 2: certain amount of space to grow because their roots are
Speaker 2: really what matters. They have to grow out to stabilize
Speaker 2: a tree, to get new nutrients and all that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. So as soon as you have a situation
Speaker 2: where a tree is in conflict with development, most of
Speaker 2: the time, development's gonna win. So you go over and
Speaker 2: I told people all the time, so you measure diameter.
Speaker 2: You take a tape, you measure around the tree, and
Speaker 2: it tells you the diameter of that tree. So you
Speaker 2: have to literally reach around the tree and then grab
Speaker 2: the diameter tape and pull it around. So you're literally
Speaker 2: hugging a tree every single time. And so when I
Speaker 2: was up here in Seattle, these huge developments, you go
Speaker 2: into a forest and you'll be like, this is a
Speaker 2: beautiful forest. I'm like, oh, this is gorgeous. You hug
Speaker 2: every single tree, every single tree, and then look up
Speaker 2: and say, okay, they're all healthy, they're good. You look
Speaker 2: back at the plans and there's a subdivision going in
Speaker 2: and you just put x's over every single tree.
Speaker 1: Oh the one that you hug, I know, all.
Speaker 2: Of the ones. Yeah, there's some big ones where you're
Speaker 2: just like you are older than every single person alive
Speaker 2: right now, oh my god, you know, and as a
Speaker 2: city work out now every chance I get, every chance
Speaker 2: 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 with neighborhoods earlier, if you
Speaker 2: have an old house, an old building, with these two
Speaker 2: huge trees in front of it, you get this sense
Speaker 2: of stateliness but also like permanence, where it's like that
Speaker 2: house exists, it has existed there, the trees they're there,
Speaker 2: they exist, and then it's like nothing is ephemeral, it's
Speaker 2: all that exists. So people, I'm like, hey, when you
Speaker 2: get done with your building, it's going to look like
Speaker 2: it was here for the last fifty years. And people
Speaker 2: are gonna walk out there see these beautiful limbs in
Speaker 2: front of their house in front of their their patio
Speaker 2: or not even patio, like your deck if you're in
Speaker 2: an apartment building or something and you can just chill
Speaker 2: out there and there's gonna be birds hanging around. It's
Speaker 2: going to be ten degrees cooler on your deck rather
Speaker 2: than the deck where they cut down and planted the
Speaker 2: little tiny trees. So you know, there's always rotations, things
Speaker 2: are always coming and going, but it's really nice if
Speaker 2: we can keep the big ones that are really like
Speaker 2: outstanding trees.
Speaker 1: You're a tree advocate.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yes, I am every chance like trees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do want to go back and ask
Speaker 1: about I realized I should have asked you this question next.
Speaker 1: I've been seeing a lot of information on the internet
Speaker 1: about crown shyness, canopy shyness where at the very top
Speaker 1: of a tree, the tops of the trees tend not
Speaker 1: to touch each other. Oh, so, if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: pictures of what I think is very coyly dubbed crown shyness,
Speaker 1: it's also known as canopy disengagement, which sounds like you're
Speaker 1: talking about divorced lovers as far as vibes, but it
Speaker 1: looks like if you looked up at a tree canopy
Speaker 1: and all of the trees stopped just short of touching.
Speaker 1: It looks like super wicked mosaic art, or maybe like
Speaker 1: a huge leafy puzzle, and your brain is like, whoa,
Speaker 1: what plants must have mines or maybe nothing is real
Speaker 1: and I'm on drugs. That's so pretty and crazy. I
Speaker 1: fact checked cases following explanation, and dudes on the money,
Speaker 1: it's almost as if he knows a shit ton about trees.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, they 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 competition at its highest, you know,
Speaker 2: or a highest where they're actually literally you know, putting
Speaker 2: in punches as towards each other.
Speaker 1: So it's less like a mystical tango and it's more
Speaker 1: 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 1: I think it's something that just came out on the internet.
Speaker 2: Oh did it?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Nice, I'm very bad on the internet. I'm the worst
Speaker 2: millennial in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're hard to find.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: That's great because you were outside not looking at his
Speaker 1: screen exactly. What about the Lorax? Did you read the
Speaker 1: Larx as a kid? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I do actually have a truffle a tree planted or
Speaker 2: tattooed on my arm as well.
Speaker 1: All, yeah you do. Yeah, so Casey showed me the
Speaker 1: underside of his left arm where he has a little
Speaker 1: truffle a tree from the Lorax, which is this Doctor
Speaker 1: Seus's ecological epic kid's book about a dude who cuts
Speaker 1: down a bunch of fluffy, beautiful trees to make pajamas,
Speaker 1: and he destroys the environment, leaving a smoggy, apocalyptic wasteland.
Speaker 1: So in the book and on Casey's skin, the word
Speaker 1: unless appears etched into kind of a rocky pulpit. Unless
Speaker 1: someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is
Speaker 1: going to get better. It's not. It's pretty damn depressing. Ps.
Speaker 1: After the Lorax was released, a logging company got super
Speaker 1: pot and published a competing pro logging book called The
Speaker 1: True Acts, And people were like, logging company, can you
Speaker 1: just fucking not anyway? A good reminder not to burn
Speaker 1: the earth because of pajamas. Okay, let's talk about old
Speaker 1: as trees. Speaking of this dendro chronology. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: let's talk about aging trees and tree rings. Yep, how
Speaker 1: can you tell the age of a tree looking at rings?
Speaker 1: And what are some of the oldest trees and does
Speaker 1: it hurt the tree when you're boring into them to
Speaker 1: get a core sample?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, let's talk about tree rings. Ah, this is
Speaker 2: so great. So basically, dendro chronology is the strictly the
Speaker 2: study of tree rings. So tree rings every it's you know,
Speaker 2: pretty well known, at least in the temperate regions. Every
Speaker 2: tree grows for a certain a year, then it goes dormant.
Speaker 2: Then it grows for a certain a mat of year,
Speaker 2: then it goes dormant. So each time it grows, it
Speaker 2: puts on a new ring of wood on every single service,
Speaker 2: 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 1: So the rings, if the rings vary in width, it
Speaker 1: usually means maybe there was better conditions, better water, and
Speaker 1: it grows more that year, and then maybe there's a
Speaker 1: drought and the rings get closer together.
Speaker 2: Precisely, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So in California, which is where the oldest trees grow,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, we got bristle cone pines and
Speaker 1: foxtail pines, and in the central Mountain area the oldest
Speaker 1: ones grow. They look like a live drift wood. They're
Speaker 1: craggy and dense and ancient, and they look like it's
Speaker 1: just been a slow motion struggle to get out of
Speaker 1: the rocky, dry earth around them. The oldest specimens have
Speaker 1: been found in the White Mountains in Ino National Forest,
Speaker 1: which is in eastern central California kind of borders on Nevada.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a lot going on there other
Speaker 1: than a 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 A D two, there was not very much wood.
Speaker 2: That was a bad year in the mountains of central California.
Speaker 2: So what they can do, or what they've done with
Speaker 2: dendro chronology is you can look back, specifically in these trees,
Speaker 2: the bristle cone pines. What they do is they basically say, okay,
Speaker 2: let's find a living tree. Let's find the oldest one.
Speaker 2: The oldest one, I believe is called Methusela. No one
Speaker 2: knows exactly where it's at. There's another super sad story
Speaker 2: about the oldest oldest tree. It was so said, what happens,
Speaker 2: Oh man, this is the worst story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right to me, I can handle it.
Speaker 2: So you gotta feel bad for the guy who did it.
Speaker 2: It is 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 1: So Casey's talking about this tree named Prometheus. And in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, a geography grad student by the name
Speaker 1: of Donald Rusk Curry was poking into trees to find
Speaker 1: out more info about the Little Ice Age, and he
Speaker 1: was using this thin increment borer to take what should
Speaker 1: have been just like a harmless core sample about the
Speaker 1: diameter of a pencil. So dendrochronologists use them all the time.
Speaker 2: Not a biggie, He just had some of these bores.
Speaker 2: And these bores, the increment bores what you're talking about,
Speaker 2: where you drill into the tree to measure the rings.
Speaker 2: So he had one of those. Most of the nice
Speaker 2: ones are made over in Switzerland, and if you want it,
Speaker 2: if you break it, then it's like several thousand dollars
Speaker 2: you have to get a new one or have to
Speaker 2: fix yours. That sort of thing. So these trees, because
Speaker 2: they grow so slowly and have such dense rings, there
Speaker 2: would is really really hard to get into. So as
Speaker 2: soon as you drill in and you pull out, this
Speaker 2: core is real difficult sometimes to get the actual increment
Speaker 2: bar back out of the tree without breaking the increment bar. Okay,
Speaker 2: So he drilled into the tree with one increment bar
Speaker 2: and it got stuck. So he drilled in with another
Speaker 2: 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 went
Speaker 2: over to the Forest Service and said, hey, can I
Speaker 2: just cut this street down? You know, I'll count the
Speaker 2: rings and all these things. You know, it's first science.
Speaker 2: Like he had all the permits, everything was on the
Speaker 2: up and up, and there was one tree that he
Speaker 2: happened to be working on of all the thousands and
Speaker 2: hundreds that were around him. He just sort of walked
Speaker 2: 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: for 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
Speaker 2: rings O one two, three, four thousand. It was like
Speaker 2: four seven hundred years old, the oldest recorded living thing
Speaker 2: on the planet. Oh, I know, and it was it
Speaker 2: was so tragic, like the collective shock in that world
Speaker 2: because apparently there were not environmentalists, but there are certain
Speaker 2: intrepid people who had known about this tree. But people
Speaker 2: who study trees and find the superlative trees, the biggest,
Speaker 2: the fattest of this other than General Sherman, the biggest
Speaker 2: giants equoia in the world. All the other trees are
Speaker 2: very hidden, like the tallest redwood. I think it might
Speaker 2: be the stratosphere giant. There's a couple that are named
Speaker 2: Oh my god, no one knows exactly where it is.
Speaker 2: Very few people because they don't want this thing to happen.
Speaker 2: They don't want people to go and like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna take one cone and all the cones are gone,
Speaker 2: then stamp all the way around the soil and cause
Speaker 2: the tree to die.
Speaker 1: 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 was like, you cut down
Speaker 2: the oldest tree, and you have to see this guy's
Speaker 2: researchers studying these trees doing dendro chronology. So it's not
Speaker 2: that he was just like, we're gonna log it and
Speaker 2: turn it into a table. He's just like, no, I
Speaker 2: how I wasn't. And then for the rest of his
Speaker 2: life he was just absolutely vilified.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, literally cry.
Speaker 2: It's so so I know, I know, and you look
Speaker 2: back on it and you're like, I can't believe, like, oh, literally,
Speaker 2: two thousand you have to or four thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 2: years when you can see that, 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 old,
Speaker 2: two thousand, seven hundred maybe, So it's one of these
Speaker 2: things you're just like, how can I just oh my god,
Speaker 2: what did they getty conceptualized?
Speaker 1: Dude? Did he go to the Witness protection prom.
Speaker 2: I know he should have. He just kind of disappeared.
Speaker 2: I think he had changed careers, stopped doing anything, and
Speaker 2: he just sort of settled out. But he ended up
Speaker 2: this one person, remember his name, and he was doing
Speaker 2: something and someone brought it up and was 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 en
Speaker 2: up that wound again. And yeah, so it's a really
Speaker 2: sad story. But the guy didn't do it on purpose.
Speaker 2: It's just, hey, he was in the wrong place, at
Speaker 2: the wrong time, in the wrong tree.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're up there boring trees, you love
Speaker 1: trees exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's mind blowing.
Speaker 1: But so I got so sad for the tree, and
Speaker 1: also because this guy probably ended up living under a
Speaker 1: bridge and his family probably never talked to him again,
Speaker 1: probably couldn't get a job, had to eat out of
Speaker 1: the garbage, give up all of his science dreams for
Speaker 1: one mistake. And I looked into it, and turns out
Speaker 1: he did just fine. He had a successful career in academia.
Speaker 1: He was a geography professor, nothing to do with trees.
Speaker 1: He didn't even have to change his name or wear
Speaker 1: a wig or shave his eyebrows, so no one recognized him.
Speaker 1: You guys, I once got fired from a job in
Speaker 1: college for defrosting the mini fridge wrong and breaking it.
Speaker 1: This I just sailed through life killing the world's oldest thing. Prometheus,
Speaker 1: at four eight hundred and sixty two years old, was
Speaker 1: considered to be the oldest living thing in the world
Speaker 1: until twenty twelve when a newer oldest one was discovered.
Speaker 1: It was a tree that was five thousand and sixty
Speaker 1: two years old. And you're like, well, what's that one's name?
Speaker 1: If the other one was named Prometheus, good question. The
Speaker 1: new oldest one is unnamed. No one's ever named it. Frankly,
Speaker 1: that really bothers me. It's like the oldest alive thing
Speaker 1: on earth. Call it Jeff or Yvonne, fucking anything. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I gotta compound, I gotta take a breather.
Speaker 2: So those are the oldest trees. What he was studying
Speaker 2: dandro chronology. And to answer 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 1: It and you just have to go halfway through.
Speaker 2: So yeah, if you can hit that piss pull it out,
Speaker 2: then you boom, there you go. You get 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 1: It's sod, that's crazy nuts.
Speaker 2: And so this guy so dendrochronology 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 growing 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 1: 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 a lot, you know, a thousand years previous, so
Speaker 2: I get now an extra thousand years to add on
Speaker 2: to it. Once you match up those overlapping parts of
Speaker 2: their lives, then you find another tree that is even older,
Speaker 2: that's 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: and then boom, you can count back as long as
Speaker 2: you are one hundred percent sure that all those rings
Speaker 2: are from the same year, so.
Speaker 1: They can match all these rings together and by now
Speaker 1: they've amassed something like ten thousand, five hundred years of
Speaker 1: records for climate and carbon in the atmosphere. Now was
Speaker 1: very cool is they can use that record as a
Speaker 1: reference to the amount of C four or carbon in
Speaker 1: the trees, and they can compare it to how we
Speaker 1: carbon date like artifacts for certain civilizations. So it's like
Speaker 1: 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 realized, wow,
Speaker 2: we've been kind of off.
Speaker 1: So trees are a paper trail in every way.
Speaker 2: It's pun intended.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have a question about how do trees grow
Speaker 1: around benches and bicycles and fences, Like, you know, you
Speaker 1: see those pictures where a tree is eating a bicycle?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, what is life?
Speaker 1: 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 sat bike, like up
Speaker 2: in a tree. Yes, And the caption that I read
Speaker 2: underneath it, it was like, oh, someone left this bike
Speaker 2: against 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 will 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 1: Oh God, okay, quick aside on the backstory of this bike. Ough,
Speaker 1: So it went viral with this caption A boy left
Speaker 1: his bike chained to a tree, and then he went
Speaker 1: away to war in nineteen fourteen and his parents left
Speaker 1: it there as a memorial. But yeah, like Casey says, bullshit. Okay,
Speaker 1: So first off, the US did not go to war
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen. Secondly, the real owner of the bike
Speaker 1: didn't have parents. In the nineteen fifties, on Vashion Island
Speaker 1: in Washington, this kid named Don Putts lost his dad
Speaker 1: in a house fire, which is so sad, and a
Speaker 1: bunch of locals donated items to the family. It was
Speaker 1: a mom with five kids, and so he got a
Speaker 1: bike and he hated the bike. It sucked. So one
Speaker 1: day he just ditched it in a swamp and someone
Speaker 1: must have found it hung it in a tree. The
Speaker 1: tree grew around it, so he had no idea until
Speaker 1: forty years later. He's grown up. He's a sheriff. He
Speaker 1: visited this tree landmark on a vacation back in his
Speaker 1: hometown and he was like, well, hot, damn, that's my
Speaker 1: bike and it sucks. And he says it just belongs
Speaker 1: to the tree now, which I'm guessing from the way
Speaker 1: it was wedged into the tree's crotch and it had
Speaker 1: to grow into its flow. That the tree hates the
Speaker 1: 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 them.
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, like horizontal stack of granite just growing out,
Speaker 2: and the tree was growing right just right next to it.
Speaker 2: So as the tree got bigger and bigger, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it kept starting to push on that rock.
Speaker 2: The rock wasn't budging, 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 where it is, and the
Speaker 2: tree just keeps pushing out over the top, pushing out
Speaker 2: over the bottom, and literally starts to encompass that physical rock.
Speaker 2: So it got to the point where it looked almost
Speaker 2: like the tree had been pourn over the rock, and
Speaker 2: so it like came down and then just like poured
Speaker 2: off the side of it. But it was just the
Speaker 2: wackiest picture, and I wish I could find it.
Speaker 1: I have more questions, but I hope you're not. Are
Speaker 1: you late for anything?
Speaker 2: No? I literally have nothing. I talk. I would grab
Speaker 2: a beer and that's it.
Speaker 1: Okay, good because people have questions.
Speaker 2: People have questions. I guess this is so exciting.
Speaker 1: I know. Okay, wait, you could do this all night morning.
Speaker 1: Weird question, bear with me. Okay, do you think that
Speaker 1: certain trees have certain personalities?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I know that that sounds like a very weird, magical question,
Speaker 1: but do you see a tree? Maybe this is just
Speaker 1: because I have a little bit of synaesthesia, where like
Speaker 1: numbers and letters have different personalities. But okay, yeah, do
Speaker 1: you ever feel like different vibes from different trees? I
Speaker 1: would say so, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I don't know. It's not It's definitely not
Speaker 2: in a specific sense where I'd be like, oh, what's up.
Speaker 2: That's mo bro, that's my tree and we've been hanging
Speaker 2: out for years, and then I look over note tream like, uh, birches,
Speaker 2: I 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, ugh, 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. It's not how
Speaker 2: I feel. It's not it's you know, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I hate you. But then you're like, well, no, you
Speaker 2: want to hang out later, that's cool. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like what it is like.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, we had this tree growing
Speaker 1: up that had a bend in it. You could sit
Speaker 1: in it like a chair, and we nailed a table
Speaker 1: up there so you could perch up there sip a
Speaker 1: soda in the woods. This tree always seemed just so benign,
Speaker 1: kind of like a cool grandpa. It's just like, sure,
Speaker 1: you can nail a table into my flesh and put
Speaker 1: a diet pepsi on it, you little brat.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the Giving Tree book? Does
Speaker 1: it make you cry?
Speaker 2: A loh? It? Does? I have it? It's on the
Speaker 2: I built these shelves and it's on the shelf up
Speaker 2: above my bed. I love that tree or that book.
Speaker 1: Wait, did you build the shelves out of wood?
Speaker 2: I did? Oh, I did, but I reused it it
Speaker 2: was a palette and I turned it into these cool
Speaker 2: shelves and I filled it up with cones and tree
Speaker 2: books and like certifications. I think one of my degrees
Speaker 2: is up there or something like that.
Speaker 1: So are you ready for some questions from uh patrons?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm so exciting. I have no idea you have.
Speaker 1: There's so many questions I had to cut them off.
Speaker 1: Oh I don't think I've ever gotten this many questions.
Speaker 1: So oh we hick on my Patreon pressures on patrons
Speaker 1: get to ask questions to theologists. So, oh my gosh. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to just run through. It's a rapid fire around.
Speaker 1: Answer as quickly as you can. We'll get through as
Speaker 1: many as candid.
Speaker 2: So you got it. I think I can do it. Okay,
Speaker 2: chime at the end when I'm run No, I.
Speaker 1: Should have a whistle, Yeah I should. But before we
Speaker 1: take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors.
Speaker 1: Why sponsors? You know what they do? They help us
Speaker 1: give money to different charities every week. So if you
Speaker 1: want to know where Ologies gives our money, you can
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Speaker 1: little bit of money but you're not sure where to go.
Speaker 1: Those are all picked biologists who work in those fields,
Speaker 1: and this ad break allows us to give a ton
Speaker 1: of money to them. So thanks for listening and thank sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: your questions, Okay, here we go. Beth Frausto wants to
Speaker 1: know do trees 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 gonna be really sad when they're cutting
Speaker 2: 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: Friends 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 Now.
Speaker 1: It's good for brandy exactly, it's great.
Speaker 2: So they do feel pain, but the pain isn't so
Speaker 2: much that they are like, ow, they're more because they're compartmentalizers.
Speaker 2: So all that does is create a reaction that says, ooh,
Speaker 2: I need to protect myself. Something may get in.
Speaker 1: Y'all did this with dating.
Speaker 2: Hey, either it's gonna get an insect that is going
Speaker 2: to come in, or it's gonna be a fungus or both,
Speaker 2: or a multitude of other things. So as soon as
Speaker 2: you prune a tree, it will get a wound. It's
Speaker 2: not that the tree is feeling hurt, but the tree
Speaker 2: will then respond to that. So they'll respond immediately, especially
Speaker 2: by the next year, and they will just put on
Speaker 2: new wood to cover over it. So it just puts
Speaker 2: in these three walls of chemical protection. Then grows a
Speaker 2: fourth wall of wood over the top to seal over
Speaker 2: that wound, and its exactly it's like it never happened.
Speaker 2: So it's not that they feel pain, but they react
Speaker 2: to the wound in a way that is best protecting
Speaker 2: them from any other pathogen or insect or something that's
Speaker 2: going to come in and get them. So, anytime you
Speaker 2: cut a tree and then it just starts pushing out
Speaker 2: sap a it's kind of like bleeding, especially if you
Speaker 2: cut it during the growing season where it's just pushing
Speaker 2: out as much energy and sugars as it can to
Speaker 2: its leaves to grow big and strong. You cut that off,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, there's a bunch of pressure inside
Speaker 2: the tree literally pushing all this sap out. But that
Speaker 2: sap is also covering over that wound and making it
Speaker 2: an impenetrable place for all these other insects and things
Speaker 2: to get in. So it's actually literally sealing itself. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like a varnished kind of yeah, exactly, delicious varnish.
Speaker 1: That actually leads me to my next question. Dustin Mills
Speaker 1: wants to know how many different kind of trees can
Speaker 1: you get syrup from the tree?
Speaker 2: Oh, so it does, it hurts, it just like anything else,
Speaker 2: but it kind of hurts it in the same way
Speaker 2: that if you give blood, you're hurting yourself. Okay, So
Speaker 2: they have plenty of stored nutrients and stored sugars and
Speaker 2: all these things, so you can get syrup from almost
Speaker 2: any kind of tree. It just depends on if it's
Speaker 2: delicious or if it's so so diluted to where it
Speaker 2: 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 amber cyresa flua wonderful, wonderful tree.
Speaker 2: Also one of those trees it's like, I wish you
Speaker 2: weren't planted so much in the urban area because they
Speaker 2: just tear up sidewalks. But some of the best fall
Speaker 2: color you're ever gonna get in a tree. They're beautiful,
Speaker 2: from orange to yellow to purpled red. It's just it's wonderful.
Speaker 2: But what they do is you used to tap them.
Speaker 2: That's why they call it sweet gum because they would
Speaker 2: tap them in the South and then they would grow
Speaker 2: or collect all of the tree sap. You boil it
Speaker 2: down to get all the water out, and you get
Speaker 2: this sugar some taste really good. Some have other chemicals
Speaker 2: in it that make them less tasty. People have used
Speaker 2: them on birch trees and on other different maples, all
Speaker 2: bunch of different species of maple. But the reason we
Speaker 2: use sugar maple right now is just because it has
Speaker 2: the highest concentration of sugar per amount of sap. This
Speaker 2: still takes hours and hours to boil it off to
Speaker 2: create the actual thing, of which there's no recipe. Every
Speaker 2: bit you get they're just looking at they're like, eh,
Speaker 2: looks done. Really yeah, there's no actual like boil it
Speaker 2: for ten minutes. It's boil it until it looks right.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: So analog. So side note confession, little fyi. I always
Speaker 1: thought that maple syrup just kind of dripped out of
Speaker 1: trees as is, like you could just wander in the
Speaker 1: forest with a pocket full of waffles and just get
Speaker 1: a little smear here or there. But the sap actually
Speaker 1: comes out clear, kind of like water, and it takes
Speaker 1: forty gallons of it to boil down and make one
Speaker 1: gallon of maple syrup, which seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: tree tears, but they tap a bunch of them, they
Speaker 1: get just a little bit from everyone, So don't be
Speaker 1: too sad. You can continue to brunch unencumbered by guilt.
Speaker 1: Zach Sharba wants to know what's the science behind tree
Speaker 1: grafting and butting, because a lot of fruit trees are
Speaker 1: just grafted.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Almost great. Every banana you've had has been a
Speaker 2: literal clone of every other banana you've ever had. What
Speaker 2: the hell I know?
Speaker 1: So this is true. I just looked it up. This
Speaker 1: is crazy. So wild bananas are kind of short and squat,
Speaker 1: They're full of a bunch of pebbly seeds. Nobody loves them,
Speaker 1: and so we have cultivated this seedless, sterile one from
Speaker 1: a single specimen way back. All the bananas that we
Speaker 1: eat now, all of them, of the Cavendish variety, come
Speaker 1: from one single banana plant way back. We just keep splicing.
Speaker 1: So just think this. If you're in love with Michael B.
Speaker 1: Jordan Say or Francis McDorman and you have both eaten
Speaker 1: a banana, you have the same bananas jeans in your
Speaker 1: colon as them at one point. Isn't that exciting? So
Speaker 1: Cavendish got popular in the nineteen fifties because all the
Speaker 1: bananas we used to eat also clones. They were called
Speaker 1: fat Mitchell's or gross Michelles. They were wiped out by
Speaker 1: a fungus. So apparently, you know the banana flavor, we
Speaker 1: taste that tastes like fake banana, and we're like, is
Speaker 1: this banana tastes like those taste like the old timey
Speaker 1: phased out gross Michelle bananas which all died. Is this
Speaker 1: weird to you? It's so weird to me.
Speaker 2: Yes, we have no bananas. We have no bananas to day.
Speaker 2: Same thing with the apples. All the apples that are
Speaker 2: sweet delicious or golden delicious or whatever it is, they
Speaker 2: all came from one single tree.
Speaker 1: 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 man, it kind of
Speaker 2: makes you feel like, now when you look at those trees,
Speaker 2: maybe this is a personality where it's like this weird
Speaker 2: egor tree that's like, oh my gosh, you're Frankenstein. Like
Speaker 2: you just have all these different parts growing on to
Speaker 2: you and it's just like, oh, you look so grizzled
Speaker 2: and worn, and it's like you're just mishmashed with parts
Speaker 2: from other trees.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I didn't even know that was a thing until
Speaker 1: very recently.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, oh yeah, it's hidden 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, oh, these sour.
Speaker 2: So you cut that. And if you can find another
Speaker 2: tree that happen to have this one crazy apple that's
Speaker 2: huge and delicious and sweet and whatever, you cut that
Speaker 2: apple or that bit off one of those those limbs,
Speaker 2: and then as long as it's the same size, you
Speaker 2: just literally put it together with a little bit of
Speaker 2: tape around it. And some I forgot the compound, but
Speaker 2: there's like a sort of compound that they put on
Speaker 2: there that encourages all you have to earth, encourages the
Speaker 2: cambium layer to come back together. So literally all you're
Speaker 2: doing is matching up those cambium layers. So as long
Speaker 2: as the stem is the same size, you can match
Speaker 2: up both cambium layers around, cover that with tape, and
Speaker 2: then it literally just grafts itself into it. And it
Speaker 2: says if the tree has a now whole functioning system again,
Speaker 2: that's it's crazy.
Speaker 1: 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 1: So side note, how does Casey like that mapples? Well,
Speaker 1: he does not. He launched into an impassioned four minute
Speaker 1: anti apple rant which I'm just going to recap. They
Speaker 1: were sold as health food via propaganda after the prohibition
Speaker 1: because all these cider apples could no longer be sold
Speaker 1: to make hoochs. You see, so I looked into this
Speaker 1: checks out. So now apples are in Casey forced on
Speaker 1: us as snacks. He does not like them. I love
Speaker 1: him for this.
Speaker 2: But it's just like like everyone who buys apples and
Speaker 2: like I'm gonna eat it as a snack. I'm like,
Speaker 2: you're just gonna get hungry. Should bring cheese. You should
Speaker 2: at least get cheese and some peanut butter. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna eat it.
Speaker 1: 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 1: Bart I'm telling you, dude hates apples. Also, Casey, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. I was literally eating an apple as I
Speaker 1: was writing these asides. Life is just complicated. Rodka Pakaria
Speaker 1: has a question why do some trees lose their leaves
Speaker 1: 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 as having a budget, one part of their budget
Speaker 2: goes towards making or growing tall in competition, you know,
Speaker 2: physically getting to be a big size growth. Then another
Speaker 2: part of that budget would be towards reproduction, because there's
Speaker 2: no point in growing unless you can reproduce. The third part,
Speaker 2: third big part, would go towards protection. So you can
Speaker 2: do any amount of energy put into any three or
Speaker 2: any one of those three categories. Obviously there's a couple
Speaker 2: more categories. It's very simplified. In this instance, you have
Speaker 2: a tree growing and it gets too cold, and so
Speaker 2: it's not that it actually gets too cold for the
Speaker 2: leaf itself, it's that wind continually rips through and damages
Speaker 2: 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 1: It's just terrible. Ps. That's the noise I make when
Speaker 1: my butthole clenches and sympathy pain. So you're welcome, okay,
Speaker 1: And is that how frostbite really works? It is? I
Speaker 1: never knew. Casey is just a font of knowledge. He's
Speaker 1: more like a tap of sweet fact sap for our
Speaker 1: brains to boil down.
Speaker 2: So for some trees, what they decide to do, or
Speaker 2: what you know work 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 drop 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 1: I e.
Speaker 2: Into growing really fast or putting out a lot of fruit.
Speaker 2: You get a tree that is deciduous, drops its leaves,
Speaker 2: goes dormant, and then as soon as springhets some conditions
Speaker 2: get really good. They shoot up by like two or
Speaker 2: three feet sometimes. And so while you have these other
Speaker 2: trees they have put a lot of energy into their leaves,
Speaker 2: they have less energy to put into growing tall, less
Speaker 2: energy into defense. So it's just more of a balance
Speaker 2: of which is more functionable for this tree at the
Speaker 2: right time. Sometimes deciduous doesn't make any sense because the
Speaker 2: conditions are so good. Where you're like, ah, well, why
Speaker 2: get rid of my leaves, there's no good reason. So
Speaker 2: up here it's usually water is the limiting factor. So
Speaker 2: their leaves start to desiccate, lose all their water, then
Speaker 2: they drop them. Then they just wait.
Speaker 1: So it's more just about favorable conditions than it is
Speaker 1: 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 1: And then in the meantime, they're living off of storage sugars.
Speaker 2: H 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: us 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 1: Just snacking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really nice. It's delicious. I wish I could
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Do you think that planting more trees will save the environment.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, I'm just gonna say blatant. Yes, we'll just
Speaker 2: leave it a 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 1: Do you think there are certain trees that Josh Bruce
Speaker 1: wants to know. Are there certain trees that are better
Speaker 1: for the environment than others.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, I would say so, but really it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily better for the environment. It's better for maybe the
Speaker 2: micro environment. So small trees that don't cast a lot
Speaker 2: of shade over a bunch of cement not really doing
Speaker 2: a lot. A big, huge, large tree that shades over
Speaker 2: a bunch of cement and lowers the heat island effect
Speaker 2: in a city, which is just the fact that in
Speaker 2: the cities it's warmer temperatures than in the associated cropland
Speaker 2: or forestland. It's just cooler out there and warmer in here.
Speaker 2: And that's because we have so many impervious services that
Speaker 2: are taking in heat and then bouncing it back out.
Speaker 2: So if we have a big tree that's growing over
Speaker 2: the top of that, then we're shading out that areas.
Speaker 2: If we do that over the scale of the entire
Speaker 2: United States, then all of a sudden, we're like losing
Speaker 2: millions of tons of carbon just by having one tree
Speaker 2: shading our house with during the hottest time of the day.
Speaker 2: So in that instance, yes, some are better at accomplishing
Speaker 2: our objectives in terms of helping out the environment, But
Speaker 2: for the most part. Yeah, plant a tree. It's it's
Speaker 2: always gonna be great.
Speaker 1: Okay, a couple more questions from WET. I got so
Speaker 1: many questions. There's no way I could possibly answer all
Speaker 1: 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 1: Mark James has a great question our Bonzi trees actually trees?
Speaker 1: Are they shrubs with pretension?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man? Can I say both? Yeah? Sure, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: say both. Then they do have a certain amount of pretention,
Speaker 2: but it was given and forced upon them.
Speaker 1: So Casey compares Bonzi cultivation with traditions like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: corsets and footbinding, And if I may add my two cents,
Speaker 1: i'd say let's lump in modern day high heels, which
Speaker 1: we're going to look back with just horror. Please mark
Speaker 1: my words. Your grandkids are going to look back at
Speaker 1: probably like a holographic photo album of present day women
Speaker 1: in evening gowns, just grimacing and carrying strappy stilettos at
Speaker 1: the end of a party, and ask Grandma, what in
Speaker 1: Turd's name were you thinking? This is a nightmare? How
Speaker 1: did you live? Why did you not stab people with
Speaker 1: your shoes, and we will say it was just it
Speaker 1: was just what you did. Now, lather up my stumps,
Speaker 1: 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 it,
Speaker 2: So bonzi tree is technically a tree, but literally bonzai
Speaker 2: means 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. People
Speaker 2: like I could do that, you'll kill your tree. I guarantee.
Speaker 2: Those trees are so well taken care of it's obscene.
Speaker 1: 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 can almost see them prancing
Speaker 2: around and all.
Speaker 1: These things and looking this up. I learned that it's
Speaker 1: actually pronounced bone size, which you can say if you're
Speaker 1: feeling pretentious. So that being said, recently, a centuries old
Speaker 1: pine bone size sold for one point three million dollars
Speaker 1: for a single bone size. That's a lot of money
Speaker 1: for a bone size. I got this information on a
Speaker 1: bone size website called bone Siempire dot com, which has
Speaker 1: a lot 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 trees 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 Bonzi 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 roots. 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 nutries and
Speaker 2: energy later. So all you're 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 AHAs. 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 1: So I just went down a real rabbit hole about footbinding,
Speaker 1: which is now illegal, but for centuries it involved breaking
Speaker 1: young girls toes and then soaking them in animal blood
Speaker 1: and then wrapping them into deformity, and about how that
Speaker 1: was just like accepted, kind of like our modern stilettos,
Speaker 1: because it just it made the legs look muscular, and
Speaker 1: it was an erotic treasure for men. The girl's hobbled
Speaker 1: gate was supposed to tighten their vaginas. Let's just say
Speaker 1: I'm making that noise again, ye yah yah yea yea
Speaker 1: yea yea.
Speaker 2: Ye, at least for the feet, the bonds eye trees,
Speaker 2: Like I said, they don't feel pain, but they certainly
Speaker 2: will respond to it. So you're basically keeping that tree
Speaker 2: in a very stressed stack its entire life.
Speaker 1: Oh it's like Munchausen's by proxy, where it's like you
Speaker 1: see your kid and you're like, I'm gonna stun your girls,
Speaker 1: so you never leave.
Speaker 2: Oh. Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's terrified.
Speaker 1: Okay, one last question, Okay, Jillian Page Jefferson wants to know,
Speaker 1: hy just curious. Are there any certain types of trees
Speaker 1: that produce more oxygen than other trees?
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know.
Speaker 1: 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 cut them down and
Speaker 2: they'll just keep growing back. So those might be ones
Speaker 2: that probably produce more, but it's just because they're working
Speaker 2: over time. It's not that they're actually producing more with
Speaker 2: less their same amount, same equation. It's just one plus
Speaker 2: two equals three every single time.
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, so yeah, probably, So if you want to
Speaker 1: plant trees, you should probably consult like a local arborist
Speaker 1: and say, hey, what's the best kind of plant?
Speaker 2: Yes, I completely concurr.
Speaker 1: We touched on this a little bit. But the last
Speaker 1: two questions I always ask are what is your least
Speaker 1: favorite thing about what you do? What is the hardest part,
Speaker 1: What is the most annoying part?
Speaker 2: What's your least favorite Yeah, I would say the hardest
Speaker 2: part is convincing people. And this is more hard, like
Speaker 2: a challenge, is convincing people to understand trees. And I
Speaker 2: don't want to say the way I understand trees, but
Speaker 2: to at least give them a better appreciation of how
Speaker 2: the trees affect them. So a lot of people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: I got to cut down this tree or all this
Speaker 2: tree is dangerous, and I'm like, well, no it's not,
Speaker 2: and here's why, and explain it through, and most of
Speaker 2: the time I get people who are just like, oh, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: I never knew that or I never thought about it
Speaker 2: that way. But then I try to explain the benefits
Speaker 2: of trees, and I'm like, hey, when you go to
Speaker 2: work and you look out your window and you see this,
Speaker 2: you know, landscape with trees, maybe a pump grass, that
Speaker 2: sort of thing, and then you compare it. They've done
Speaker 2: studies on this. This is all I can confirm.
Speaker 1: So I went in fact checked this later, and it's true.
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of studies done in different situations,
Speaker 1: 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 things.
Speaker 2: All across the board. And they've done all these studies
Speaker 2: and they say, wow. You know, if you are sitting
Speaker 2: in a hospital bed and you're recovering and you look
Speaker 2: out the window you see trees. Those people use less
Speaker 2: pain medication and recover faster than the same exact person
Speaker 2: the same exact situation without that view.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. There's this well known short story about
Speaker 1: two men in a hospital. One is blind. The other
Speaker 1: describes the scenes out the window to him. Turns out
Speaker 1: the window is just overlooking a brick wall, but his
Speaker 1: roommate made up these beautiful scenes to help the other guy.
Speaker 1: I tried to look up the original author for this,
Speaker 1: and it can only be traced to a guy named
Speaker 1: Harry Bushman. Harry Bushman Bushman super appropriate for a nature episode,
Speaker 1: or perhaps Harry Bushman was a name adopted in the
Speaker 1: Wild 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 heart, I think for me is to try and compel.
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, why, man, I'm really
Speaker 2: stressed right now? Have you been staring at pavement or
Speaker 2: you've been looking at a tree?
Speaker 1: Oh? I ever got to ask one question, Well, how
Speaker 1: 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 1: You don't mind that they're getting cut?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not really no non in that regard, okay,
Speaker 2: because they're they're small, and you know, if you're really
Speaker 2: comparing them, you can just regrow another one in like
Speaker 2: five or eight years, like oh and take that long.
Speaker 1: I was gonna go fifty to fifty. I was like,
Speaker 1: Casey's either gonna hate Christmas trees or he's gonna love them.
Speaker 1: I did not know which side of the line you
Speaker 1: were gonna end up on. That was atal surprise to me.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, easily you could have
Speaker 1: been like Christmas trees are an abomination. Everyone should have
Speaker 1: like a tumbleweed, what some lights on it?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Oh, this seems reasonable. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I like it. And also if you think about all
Speaker 2: the other things, you know, it's a rural er side
Speaker 2: of the world that grows Christmas trees, so you're supporting
Speaker 2: that economy buying a you know, twenty five dollars noble
Speaker 2: fur or something like that. They try to make them perfect.
Speaker 2: I hate that. Just let a tree grow, cut it down,
Speaker 2: put it in your house. You got a tree, and
Speaker 2: I need to worry about it making a perfect like
Speaker 2: you know, pyramidal shaped thing, and you know, share it
Speaker 2: to within an inch of its life.
Speaker 1: Ugly trees. Fine trees, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Olga, trees are 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 1: I'm gonna go deep into some tree porn later, and
Speaker 1: oh I'm gonna start looking up. I'm just gonna start
Speaker 1: pinteresque boarding an 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 ads. 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, I'm like, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 2: is that is a huge tree. It was like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, Casey, get a room. I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm doing this right here on the couch. I'm looking
Speaker 2: at this tree. D it on a dead tree. I
Speaker 2: know the irony is so thick, but I had to say,
Speaker 2: it's a renewable resource. Yeah, if it's done correctly, logging
Speaker 2: is absolutely gonna save the world. We're doing things right
Speaker 2: now with trees. It's called cross laminated timber clt It
Speaker 2: 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 into going that direction. I mean, you're just doing
Speaker 2: this 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. Wow, because they just sort of fit in
Speaker 2: together and then they're less five resistance. This is the
Speaker 2: funniest thing. It's wood.
Speaker 1: Wait, more fire resistance.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, more fire resistance. Sorry.
Speaker 1: So this new type of lumber is too dense to burn,
Speaker 1: which is also a really good self deprecating way of
Speaker 1: deflecting an insult. Too dense to burn. Now, it's also
Speaker 1: what's called a carbon sink because it traps carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: and keeps it there, which helps counter climate change in
Speaker 1: global warming, which is necessary if we don't want to
Speaker 1: be swallowed by boiling oceans.
Speaker 2: So it should be the future. I'm really looking forward
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: That's ideally, that's really optimistic, because I wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: the future was going to be, and this is good
Speaker 1: 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 than it
Speaker 2: is cement. So it's kind of like, this is so
Speaker 2: much more pleasant than I know anything else.
Speaker 1: I would so much try to have a wooden table
Speaker 1: than a glass one, absolutely, just it's so comfortable.
Speaker 2: They're just so much nicer. It's just something warm to
Speaker 2: told me about it. It's like going into an old
Speaker 2: wood paneled cabin or something. You're just like, ah, this
Speaker 2: is home. Oh, I can do this where's my pipe.
Speaker 1: It's like a big wooden womb.
Speaker 2: I just love it exactly. Oh, it's delightful.
Speaker 1: Now to end on happy note, is your very very
Speaker 1: favorite thing about what you do. I know that's gonna be.
Speaker 2: Hard, this is oh man, But really it's looking at
Speaker 2: trees almost every single day, and most of them are
Speaker 2: all different trees or different situations of trees. So I
Speaker 2: go out and I see a dogwood one day and
Speaker 2: I 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 niceily 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 find these trees and drive out in this this huge,
Speaker 2: long adventure and then you PLoP out in this little
Speaker 2: grove and there's just these stunningly massive trees around you
Speaker 2: that have been completely untouched and protected from logging. So
Speaker 2: you're just like, oh, like you're incredulous and how incredible
Speaker 2: these trees are. So that not quite a part of
Speaker 2: my day to day job, but that's my favorite thing
Speaker 2: where I get to go out and like find these
Speaker 2: cones and find these trees and be like, yes, I've
Speaker 2: been there, I've seen it. They're incredible. I know how
Speaker 2: they grow. I've seen them like fall and die and
Speaker 2: grow up again. So that is probably the really nicest part.
Speaker 2: The other nice part that I really like is actually
Speaker 2: just telling people about trees. Like if I could just
Speaker 2: sit down, like and do something like this and someone's like,
Speaker 2: tell me about trees, I'm just like where to begin,
Speaker 2: and then I can just do it for hours. So
Speaker 2: I think my favorite parts when someone's actively interestingly is
Speaker 2: listening to me, that's what I'm just like, they're taking
Speaker 2: this in, they like it. Okay, they're still here. All right,
Speaker 2: one more hour, one more slot, and let's let's just
Speaker 2: keep going.
Speaker 1: When you found an ear to tree tails, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a happy day. This is a happy day.
Speaker 2: Hey. Yeah. And if I can convince someone that they
Speaker 2: don't want to cut down their tree, if I can
Speaker 2: change that mind, trees are incredible things and humans are
Speaker 2: way too hubriistic in the idea. I'm not even sure
Speaker 2: if that's a word, but yes, they think. We think
Speaker 2: that we know better than the trees, are better than
Speaker 2: the ecosystem that's been developed over millions of years. When
Speaker 2: someone's like, oh, what should I do to make this
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: It's like reason, know what's up? Trees are like excuse me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I've been evolving for millions of years.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like listen, long have you been here, kiddo.
Speaker 2: So then this is one of my old bosses said
Speaker 2: all the time. He's like, there's no reason to prune
Speaker 2: a tree other than human reasons to prune a tree.
Speaker 2: They will do it themselves if they have to, or
Speaker 2: they will fall apart and die, and then another tree's
Speaker 2: going to take its place. That's called the circle of life,
Speaker 2: and that's how it goes.
Speaker 1: Speaking of a circle of life, yeah, one more morbid question.
Speaker 2: Let's go for it.
Speaker 1: When you die, do you want to be planted in
Speaker 1: one of those tree pots? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I don't know anything about it, but The
Speaker 2: answer is yes, I would love that. I would love
Speaker 2: a natural burial where they don't involve me or don't
Speaker 2: 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 to be like Casey became that tree.
Speaker 1: Oh you're going to become a tree. I love that.
Speaker 1: I mean, hopefully not anytime soon, like in another like
Speaker 1: long times crossed a long time, I will live all
Speaker 1: the trees I planted in my life.
Speaker 2: Please please, Yeah, that would be that would be so
Speaker 2: nice to uh, you know, obviously I wouldn't be thinking
Speaker 2: about it then, but to know that my individual cells,
Speaker 2: my molecules have literally been transformed into something else. Yep.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I've ever met anyone is enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about tree.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's weird. So far, I haven't met anyone either.
Speaker 2: Maybe a couple of people. But yeah, at least I
Speaker 2: can give him a good run for their money. So
Speaker 2: thank you. I'm happy to hear that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This is wonderful to you to bask in Casey's infectious
Speaker 1: tree enthusiasm. You can see his brand new seedling of
Speaker 1: an Instagram account, which I have encouraged and have just
Speaker 1: straight up pressured him to start. He said he was
Speaker 1: going to start it anyway, and I just said, listen, dude,
Speaker 1: do it before Tuesday. You can follow him on Instagram
Speaker 1: at clap four trees clapp four the number four trees.
Speaker 1: It's a brand new account. It's so exciting, so you
Speaker 1: can find him there. I'll also put a link in
Speaker 1: the show notes. So Ologies is on Instagram and Twitter
Speaker 1: at Ologies, and I'm on both at Ali Ward with
Speaker 1: one L and there's a group full of very warm,
Speaker 1: curious folks at Ologies podcast on Facebook. Thank you Hannah
Speaker 1: Liippo and Aaron Talbert for adminting. You can also obtain
Speaker 1: Ologies objects at ologysmirch dot com. There are pins, their
Speaker 1: dad hats, shirts, toads, we've got phone cases, we got it.
Speaker 1: Sales support and making of the podcast. Thanks Shannon Feltis
Speaker 1: and Bonnie Dutch for helping run that you guys role,
Speaker 1: and thank you always to Stephen Ray Morris for editing.
Speaker 1: This was a beast of an episode. I usually have
Speaker 1: between fourteen to twenty five asides, and this one had forty,
Speaker 1: and he charges me by the hour. So thank you
Speaker 1: to all the patrons at patreon dot com for essentially
Speaker 1: paying him and for submitting such great questions. Asking smart
Speaker 1: people dumb questions is literally the only way anyone learns
Speaker 1: anything in life. And if you think your question is dumb,
Speaker 1: I guarantee like twelve other people want to ask it
Speaker 1: and they're going to be thankful that you did. You
Speaker 1: can become a patron for as little as a dollar
Speaker 1: a month, and that supports the show. So if it's
Speaker 1: worth the price of a sandwich per year or whatever,
Speaker 1: consider it. You get to ask your questions and see
Speaker 1: behind the scenes pictures and videos and such. Now the
Speaker 1: music was written by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands,
Speaker 1: which is a very nice band. And now if you
Speaker 1: stick it out to the very end, you know you
Speaker 1: a secret. And this week it's that I never learned
Speaker 1: how to type, even though I have been a professional
Speaker 1: writer for like the decade, I skipped that elective in
Speaker 1: high school. So my hands when I write just hover
Speaker 1: in weird places on the keyboard. Sometimes just a pointer finger,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty fast, but I make a ton of typos.
Speaker 1: I make so many mistakes, and I get so embarrassed
Speaker 1: when Stephen Ray Morris is working in the same Google
Speaker 1: transcript document and there's just so many red underlines. It's
Speaker 1: just like red lasagna noodles all over it. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until a year ago that I learned why keyboards have
Speaker 1: those weird knobs on the F and the J keys.
Speaker 1: I just thought they were like weird mistakes on all keyboards.
Speaker 1: So I downloaded to learn to type program. I only
Speaker 1: got a few lessons in, and I need to dedicate
Speaker 1: some time to it because I type like a t
Speaker 1: Rex trying to operate a spaceship. Okay, provide hacadermatology, hobiology,
Speaker 1: doo zoology, lithology and zology, Meteorology and botology.