Mighty Trees Look Even Better In March Deciduous trees, as well as evergreens, take on special beauty with a winter sunset. This is the month that suits me as the perfect time of year for photographing tree silhouettes just before sunset. Really it is now that their true beauty and bare bones character, not masked by thick concealing canopies of green, are revealed. Their overall majestic shape, main axis, branching patterns, twigs, buds and other interesting characteristics come to life. Unless a person is in the woods making firewood for next fall, deciduous trees, and even evergreens, receive little attention from many people. They’re leafless for around six months of each year yet their artistic winter anatomy captures hardly a passing glance. I wouldn’t think of walking through a nearby woods without making a special detour to admire two small groves of American hornbeam, or blue beech, trees. Due to the undulating, rippling nature of this small, smooth-barked tree it has been nicknamed the "muscle tree." Unconsciously I caress a trunk as though shaking hands with brother hornbeam and silently wishing it well. In addition to concentrating on tree silhouettes I also pay special attention to subtle changing colors of some of their trunks and branches. With stubborn winter this year slower than usual to give in to a usually fickle spring, it is common to have snow plastering the stormward sides of trunks in early morning only to begin melting by noon. The wetted trunks now glisten with totally different colors and appearance until they dry back to their natural conditions. Give most people an outline drawing of a tree, a box of crayons and tell them to color the tree, the majority will reach for the brown crayon to color the trunk. Would you like to partake of an interesting exercise? Take a box of crayons, colored chalk, paints or a color chart along on your next hike into the woods and try to match your colors with the tree trunks. Surely there will be dark gray, blackish, whitish, gray, reddish gray, etc. but seldom brown trunks to match your brown crayon! Think of the last red pine you’ve seen or perhaps a huge sycamore tree you admired on a recent trip southward. Describe in writing the colors and patterns of their trunks. What magnificent objects they are even during their dormancy. I used to go out of my way practically every night after school when I taught in Wisconsin Rapids, just to admire a large sycamore tree growing downtown on the west bank of the Wisconsin River. My guess is that the druids of ancient history may have become tree worshippers during the winter months when trees revealed their most beautiful and intriguing individuality. Another feature about trees that a lot of people don’t think about is that they are flowering plants. Granted, their exquisitely tiny flowers don’t resemble tulips or roses, but nevertheless each species of tree flower has its own singular shape and beauty. A classic book to help in your study and appreciation of this seldom noticed annual phenomenon is "Tree Flowers of Forest, Park and Street" by Walter E. Rogers. He was for many years a professor of botany at Lawrence University, Appleton. His greatly enlarged photographs are spectacular as are the numerous small drawings and winter silhouettes done by Olga A. Smith, then an instructor in botany at Lawrence. The book was reprinted by Dover Press several years ago but is now out of print. You’ll have to borrow a copy from your public library or purchase one in a used bookstore. Believe me, it’s worth looking for. One can go on and on listing the attributes of trees including that of providing us with shelter, beautification of property, wildlife food and habitat, shade and distinctiveness for our streets and highways, and life and character to our landscape. In addition to the thousands of products of the forest contributing to our day-by-day life, so do living trees bring beauty, relaxation and enjoyment into our lives during all seasons of the year. Most people, including myself, look at trees as the oldest, largest and most massive living things on our planet. Take the bristlecone pine for example. These gnarled, stunted, deformed trees growing in harsh dry climates at high elevations in some western states began their growth before the building of the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Do you suppose these same magnificent old monarchs may still be alive when true harmony and total peace will prevail among people and with nature throughout the world? This column appeared in the Door County Advocate on 03/07/2003. © Copyright 2003 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.