A Program
Not To Be Missed!
Wednesday, September 16, Dr. Jeff Kirwan , author of “Remarkable
Trees of Virginia” will discuss his book at the Gloucester Library
at Main Street Center at 7 PM. Master Gardener Bill Walker has
arranged Dr. Kirwan’s visit as a service to the public. This is an
opportunity to hear the story of the five Gloucester County entries
in this ‘remarkable’ book!
This was an
incredibly involved process because the ‘tree team’ had to sort
through the thousand nominations for trees to be included that had
come from passionate tree lovers from all over Virginia. Narrowing
down those entries to the selected one hundred was a challenge and
necessitated a lot of travel to see the candidates.
Just as a tree
is more than a tree, sometimes a book is more than a book. In
“Remarkable Trees of Virginia” by Nancy Ross Hugo and Jeff Kirwan
you are doubly rewarded. I expect marketing experts might label it a
coffee table book because of its dimensions, 11 ¼ X 12 ¼, but I
would demur. It is so difficult to put down, it is a ‘lap’ book.
Photographer
Robert Llewellyn has a wide reputation among Virginians for “Upland
Virginia”, “The Academical Village” and other award-winning books
and his photographs in this book are mesmerizing. Whether winter or
summer, dawn or sunset, Llewellyn’s camera has caught the magic of
each tree.
Chosen for their
beauty, age, and significance, the selected trees were studied over
a period of four years. Jeff Kirwan actually walked across Virginia,
three hundred dedicated miles, to more intently see trees!
Some of the
trees in the book are hundreds of years old and others are extremely
large and it was fascinating to learn that those two attributes may
not necessarily be found in the same tree. Just as small folk may be
old and very large ones young, so it is with trees. For example, a
small red cedar growing on the Pembroke cliffs near Blacksburg was
alive when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of
Wittenburg Castle Church in 1517.
The authors are
scientists so you may be sure that the facts presented are facts,
however there is nothing cut and dried about the text! Every tree
has its own story engagingly told. Not all of the stories are happy:
one sad tale is the loss of hemlocks in Virginia decimated by the
spread of the wooly adelgid.
However, the
wooly adelgid story is also a bit of a mystery. At Mountain Lake in
Giles County about 30% of the Eastern Hemlocks have survived the
pest that has killed as many as 95% of the hemlocks in Shenandoah
National Park. Don’t you wonder why?
In our area
nearly all tree devotees mourned lost trees after Isobel but
Virginia’s third largest live oak, the Algernourne Oak at Fort
Monroe was spared. According to R.J. Stipes, professor of plant
pathology and physiology at Virginia Tech, this amazing oak may have
been germinated in 1540. Its spread of 97 feet is home to colonies
of yellow-crowned night herons. Another live oak, at Hampton
University, is known as the Emancipation Oak.
Do plan to hear
Dr. Kirwan next Wednesday evening. You will be so glad you did.
AFTERWARD:
After reading
the book and thinking about trees and what a difference they make in
our lives, I was remembering a specific oak tree. It grows
majestically along Route 17 directly across the highway from the
Short Lane Ice Cream Store. On the other two corners are sited
Lowe’s and a gas station distinguished by large signage. The stop
light at that busy intersection offers you the chance to admire the
oak. Can you think of any enterprise that is more valuable to
Gloucester than that tree? Far in the future if a business desires
to use that corner, can the tree be a part of its site planning? We
understand of course that it is always cheaper to clear a site, or
even to tear down rather than reuse. But local folk deserve beauty,
rather than banality, and you know the continued use of the old
building across the highway has added charm to those delicious ice
cream cones.