WEBVTT - Sacred Trees of the World 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.680 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:16.800 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:18.360 And I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.279 And today's episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind is 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.479 a travel episode. That's, of course a broad category that 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.560 we're sometimes asked to consider. And since we've already done 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.199 more specific episodes on say, the psychology of travel, like 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.040 why do we travel, what does the travel do to 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:36.440 the brain, and so forth, we decided to turn our 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.879 attention instead to topics that invited travel. You know that 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.640 maybe even sort of summoned an itinerary or a bucket 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.919 list in the mind of the listener. Certainly get in 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.599 touch with an actual travel agent or travel coordinator if 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.480 you need a book flights based on anything we discussed here. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.720 But yeah, I mean, there are many reasons to travel. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.360 To visit friends and family, to take in culture and cuisine, 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.400 to visit natural wonders, and of course to experience various 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.280 ecosystems while we still can. And I was thinking about 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.759 all of this during recent travels with my family and 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.120 kind of landed on a focus for this episode. Sacred 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.400 trees of the world, often old and or ancient trees 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:26.080 that instantly set our minds and perhaps our spirits as well, 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.000 into motion. I don't know if you've had this experience, Joe, 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.840 when you've been around you know, big trees, old trees, 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.400 novel trees, and so forth. 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.200 I'm a big fan of trees. I can easily get 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.000 to thinking of trees as sacred just in their generic form. 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.640 Like a forest is a place that feels like a 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.920 church to me. You know, I like to be surrounded 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.760 by trees. There's a part of me that feels a 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.080 little I don't know, I get my hackles up a 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.880 bit when there are no trees around, when I'm just 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.280 in like an empty field. I don't know if that 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:00.160 bothers you in the same way it does bother me. 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.760 It really does, like I need some vertical things around me. 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.120 I assume that's a fairly common experience. I don't know, 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:09.919 but I have respect for their power as well. I 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:11.840 don't remember if we ever talked about this on the show, 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.520 but you know, there was a week last summer, not 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.399 this year, but the year before where a huge old 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.240 tree in our neighbor's yard fell down, took out the 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.200 power lines, and it was like you know, it was 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.440 a long time coming back from that. There was a 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:26.560 large storm, and of course Atlanta has a lot of 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.519 trees in it, so you know, things were falling down 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.800 all over the place, many people affected. But yeah, it 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.000 just kind of reminds you that there are there are 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:38.040 these wooden gods all around you, these giant, giant beings 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.360 that are alive and going through life cycles of their own. 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.960 You don't always notice it, but some of them are 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.440 young and growing, and some of them are old and ailing, 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.240 and some of them are covered in parasites, and others 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:53.160 are you know, getting stronger by the day. And there's 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.480 a kind of plant drama that we miss out on 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:57.840 because we're not really attuned to its frequency. It's happening 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.040 usually on a timescale that we're not very sensitive too. 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.919 Yeah. Yeah, there's this sense that they are divine beings 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.280 and you don't want to invoke their wrath, but also 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.840 we benefit from their shade and their comfort, and you know, 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.760 and they're just great to be around. We lost several 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.600 big trees in the immediate vicinity here in part due 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.519 to the recent storms, but also I think kind of 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.000 the aftermath of those storms, I believe I was looking 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.880 at an article in the AJAC having to do with, like, 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.320 you know, insurance companies becoming more strict about large trees 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.840 and overarching limbs and so forth for insurance policies on 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:37.920 homes and so At any rate, there are a number 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.120 of big trees that I'm just accustomed to seeing that 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:40.960 are no longer there. 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.040 Yeah, when a big tree falls, when it falls naturally 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.040 or when it gets cut down, you know, just because 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.280 it's looming, I do feel that as a missing presence, 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.120 and you know, it's like somebody has gone out of 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.040 my life. You get used to the canopy and their presence. 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.680 It does change the landscape. So yeah, that kind of 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.640 thing actually does. It affects me a lot when trees 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.880 are gone. But to come to the idea of sacred trees, 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.640 when you suggested this as an episode topic, I thought 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:08.400 it was really cool, and I thought it was also 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:13.040 interesting how it can be taken a couple of different ways, right, 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.720 because when you think of a sacred tree, you could 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.240 be thinking of a specific tree, like maybe a really 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.760 beautiful tree, or a really old tree, a really giant tree, 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.440 a specific tree or specific grove of trees that people 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.080 go to, and maybe that specific place has meaning to people, 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.080 or you could be thinking about a kind of tree 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.920 that has a kind of sacred significance in say a 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:38.120 culture or mythology. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.960 Yeah, exactly, there are various ways to think about it. 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.760 And then we'll get into examples of how like the 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.599 sacred nature of a given variety of tree or maybe 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.960 even individual trees. You know, it can vary over time, 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:55.080 it can certainly wane, and then it has to be 0:04:55.680 --> 0:05:00.839 relearned and so forth. So humans have a law history 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:07.080 of seeing the sacred in trees. Certainly, tree symbols go 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.680 way back. We have various examples of you know, the 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:14.080 likes of world trees bridging Earth to the cosmos and 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.080 so forth. So pretty much anywhere you go, especially if 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.000 there are large trees of some sort there are there's 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:23.080 there's gonna be some sort of tradition, and so you 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.880 really could chart your travels based entirely on the big trees. 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.039 To be clear, this is not quite what we do, 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.119 but I now that I think back on it. Pretty 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.680 much anywhere we travel, we often end up checking out 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.600 really cool trees. You know, It's like it's it's often 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.000 on the itinerary. If there's some sort of you know, 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.840 nature based attraction. There's a good chance they'll be an 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:51.200 interesting tree. So we have sought out trees in various 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.200 travel destinations before, So in this episode we're going to 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.640 look at at least a couple of examples of sacred 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.560 trees of the world. We are not going to cover 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.520 all of them. That would take far more than even 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:07.039 a few episodes. But hey, if listeners enjoy our treatment 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.560 here today, this is something we can perhaps come back 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.040 to in the future. So for our first destination, I 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.360 want to bring you to the western Sierra Nevada. This 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.839 is in California here in the United States, to see 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:26.120 the giant Sequoia trees, also known as the giant redwood. Specifically, 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:31.239 the species we're talking about here is Sequoia dendron gigantium, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.360 and there are two related trees in the same subfan family, 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.760 and I'll mention these as well. I think as we've 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:44.320 received the coast redwood or coastal redwood or California redwood 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:49.280 Sequoia simper veins. These are also giant trees. And then 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.800 there's the don redwood or meta sequoia. This is the 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.640 shortest of the redwoods, but I think still a big 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.479 tree by most other measurements. So again, in their natural habitat, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.240 you'll find the giant sequoia on the western slopes of 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:06.359 the Sierra Nevada Mountain range of California. As their name implies, 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.600 they are among the largest trees in the world. There 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.320 are several different ways to decide on how the honors 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.080 of giant tree biggest tree are divvied out, But if 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.520 you focus purely on raw height, trunk volume, limb volume, 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:26.640 or bark thickness among currently living trees, the giant sacquoya 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.800 is absolutely have it. Though to be clear, just over 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.880 the last century, humans have cut down some trees of 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.920 various species that would be considered the tallest today if 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:41.200 they were still alive, and another caveat if those historic 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:43.200 measurements were accurate to begin with. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.520 Ah okay, so some people in the past were like, Hey, 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.560 this might be the biggest tree ever. Let's cut it 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:49.440 down to see. 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.040 Yeah, there's there's a long There are multiple examples of 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.840 that that going on, you know, where it's a big tree, 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:58.760 let's cut it down. We've got to we've gotta tell 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.280 the rest of the country about this. The way to 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.040 do that is to go ahead and cut it down 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.600 and get a nice big sample on it and send 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.240 it out. Let it travel around from city to city. Now, 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.560 according to the National Park Service, the two largest giant 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.800 sequoias in the world are the General Sherman Tree and 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.360 the General Grant Tree. These are the names, obviously we 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.960 give the trees. They didn't choose to be named after 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:27.440 what are to them very recent human beings. Both of 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.200 these can be found in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:33.599 I had the chance to visit these parks on a 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.400 recent trip with my family. We went out to California. 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.760 I got to experience these amazing organisms up close or 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.000 as close as you know you're allowed to get to them. 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.160 And as the National Park Service points out, these are 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.040 I mean, it's like this with a lot of things 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.120 in nature. It's this is the way it is with say, 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.680 the Grand Canyon. You can look at a picture, but 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.600 it's another thing to experience it. To be there and 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.280 take in the vastness, the emptiness of it is just 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.320 an entirely different experience. And it's absolutely the same thing 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.200 with these massive giants sequoia trees. You look at a 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.400 picture and yeah, they look big, but you're often seeing 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.800 them next to other gigantic trees. There'll be people in 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.600 the shot as well, but you can't always completely grasp 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.960 how big they are. But when you're there, there's just 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.400 no denying it. I mean, it is like this, we 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:26.960 compare it to a cathedral, but it's even grander than that. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.040 Yes, as far as I know, I've never seen a 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.840 giant sequoia in person, but I have been to a 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.800 coastal redwood forest, so not exactly the same, but very similar. 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.200 Years ago, my wife and I we were visiting family 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.320 on a trip to southwest Oregon, so we were in 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.400 a fairly secluded area around the Rogue River Siskiyou National 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.480 Forest in Oregon. One day we just drove down over 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.040 the state border into northern California and spent the day 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:58.800 walking around in the redwood trees. And yeah, absolutely marvelous experience. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.800 It's hard to know exactly how to describe it. I 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.760 like your comparison to a cathedral rob not just in 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.840 the more abstract sense that it feels sacred, but in 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:12.000 kind of specific sensory qualities. There's a sense in which 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.640 you feel enclosed, but enclosed in a kind of vast 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.120 and powerful space, not like a small room, but like 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.040 a cathedral. You know, there's a vaulted canopy over you, 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.120 these trees going up so high. There's a sense in 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.720 which sound is kind of changed in these forests. That 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.240 also reminds me of the well, I don't know here, 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.560 probably less like the sounds of a cathedral, which are 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:37.719 a bit more echoey with all the stone. I think 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.120 there's more damping of the sound in the forest. But 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.800 still there's something in common there, kind of an ability 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.240 to hear indistinct murmuring all around you, you know, just 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:54.040 this just this kind of drone that lends itself well 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.320 to achieving a peaceful state of mind. Also smells, I 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.840 remember thinking, you know, there are smells of I guess 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.559 just decomposing wood and all the normal things of life 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.120 going on in this forest. That reminded me of the 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.839 smells you might get in a church or in a 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.280 high church kind of cathedral, like incense and stuff like that. 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.360 Yeah, no burning incense around these trees, by the way. Yeah, 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:21.200 but yeah, these things are massive, like for example, the 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.040 largest giants saquoias, are said to be as tall as 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.640 twenty six story buildings, and to put that in you 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.559 compare that to an actual building. The historic Flat Iron 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.240 Building in New York City is twenty two stories tall, 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:38.640 and unlike a skyscraper, these trees are alive and growing. 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.480 Giants Saccoia Is, according to the NPS, produce roughly forty 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.600 cubic feet or one cubic meter of wood each year, 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:48.800 so they just continue to bulk up. And you know, 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.080 you can compare that to like how many trees worth 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.320 of wood it's growing per year. The General Sherman tree 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.960 currently stands at two hundred and seventy four point nine 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.079 feet tall, has a ground circumference of one hundred and 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.880 two point six feet and a trunk volume of fifty 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.800 five hundred and eight cubic feet. General Grant is a 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.839 little shorter but has a slightly larger ground circumference. 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.880 I wonder why they named the bigger one after Sherman 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.080 and the slightly smaller one after Grant. I guess Sherman 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.360 the man was I assumed taller than Grant, just imagining 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.079 from the way they look in pictures. I mean, I 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:26.319 never seen him side by side. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.800 They neither could take this as a slight. These are trees. 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.360 I'm just saying, Grant was his boss. They should have 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:34.400 made the bigger one Grant. 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.400 The thing is like, not only do they dwarf us 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.400 in space in size, but they also dwarf us in time. 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.800 And I think that's another reason that it's easy to 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:48.720 think of them in terms of the sacred. And these 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.840 are giants that are especially long lived. They are thought 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.880 to live more than three thousand years in some cases. 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.839 The Grizzly Giant Tree, for example, this is one I 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.160 also got to see. This one is in Yosemite National 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:07.360 Park's Mariposa Grove. It's one that has this enormously thick 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.640 limb coming out from the side of it, like it 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.880 looks like the tree has developed a giant muscle arm 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.000 and is about to flex. Like it's just it's on 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.440 inspiring and a little frightening because it just doesn't it 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.400 doesn't look stable. But it's been obviously it's been up 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.400 there for a very long time. But this tree in 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.760 particular is thought to be between two thousand and three 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:34.360 thousand years old, according to the National Park Service. A 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.959 twenty nineteen study put it at two nine hundred and 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:39.199 ninety five years old. 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.720 That's funny precision. Shouldn't you just say three thousand? 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.240 I mean, I don't know you cross the line at 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:51.400 that point, right, But I mean the exact estimated ages 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.839 of some of these trees has varied over time, as 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.400 you know. Sometimes it's been a lot, a lot greater 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.600 and then they pull back on them. But just assuming 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.080 that we're talking about two thousand, nine hundred ninety five 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.079 years old, I mean, just think about that, this tree 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.400 has potentially lived since what nine to seventy BCE, a 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.520 time when pharaohs and Old Testament kings walk the earth, 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.120 more than nine centuries before the birth of Christ, almost 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.880 too millennia before the earliest known first contact between Europeans 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.760 and Native North American peoples. You know, our lives, even 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:30.360 the two hundred and forty eight year history of the 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.960 United States is just a drop in the bucket compared 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.840 to the life span of one of these wooden Leviathans. 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.080 Makes you want to ask it for advice. 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.960 Yeah, it doesn't have any advice to give, like, but 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.600 you know, just keep growing. I guess it's its whole thing. 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.320 And they're pretty. But yeah, these are just such fascinating trees. 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.680 So we could go into great depth about them here, 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.120 but I'm just gonna hit some of the high points. 0:14:58.480 --> 0:14:59.960 One of the big ones, of course, is they drop 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.680 their lower branches as they grow, and this helps to 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.600 afford them resistance against forest fires. And indeed, and I 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.040 believe we've probably discussed this on the show before, wildfires 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.400 are part of their life cycle. Their seed strategy evolved 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:18.160 alongside periodic fires, so their closed cones hold on to 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:21.200 their seeds for as much as twenty years, opening up 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:26.000 when there's that hot, dry air outside brought on by wildfires. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.320 This allows the seeds to pop out and take advantage 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:33.200 of those post fire soils and the openness of the 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:38.760 post fire environment. Okay, and so they're impressive survivors on 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.240 their own without humans protecting them or interfering with them, 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:48.080 they got by just fine, and thus far they've also 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:52.240 survived the dangers of human logging and other human cause 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:56.560 problems in the environment. Part of this, to understand is 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:01.280 because the giant Sequoia two didn't have as what was 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.720 considered as high a quality of wood as some of 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.440 the competing giants, which maybe helped prevent us from cutting 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.280 them all down. But they remain endangered and protected to 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.560 this day getting into the sacredness of it. You know, 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:21.120 modern interlopers into these environments certainly would would connect with 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.080 the sacredness of them. There's a sacredness that kind of 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:29.480 builds up. So Europeans initially began to encounter these trees, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.120 and you know, individuals may have thought they looked impressive 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.320 or you found something sacred and then but a lot 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.040 of people just saw them as resources to be plundered. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.680 And then that begins to change over time. But you know, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.960 gets to the point where the General Grant Tree, for example, 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.080 was dubbed the Nation's Christmas Tree in nineteen twenty six, 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.400 and various dedications and proclamations have taken place in the 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.160 presence of these trees, as if you know, it is 0:16:55.280 --> 0:17:00.440 like sacred American ground upon which you know one should 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:06.200 be present, you know, where one might make something you know, official, 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.480 and so forth, as if before the eyes of God 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.720 or something. In fact, if you're looking for an example 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.000 of like bipartisan unity in American politics, at least non 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.280 contemporary politics, you can look to multiple examples of past 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.960 US presidents at the very least expressing admiration for the 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.520 great trees, which I guess you know, if I'm going 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.080 to be cynical as far as politics go, I mean, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.760 it's it's a pretty safe bet to be like pro 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:37.560 giant sequoia after a point, right, it would be a 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.000 weird hill to die upon otherwise. And so you have 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:47.320 past US presidents from both major parties that have expanded 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.320 protection for giants aquoias. So I mean that's pretty cool, 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.720 you know, I'll take that. Also worth noting that in 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.040 May of nineteen forty five, more than five hundred United 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:02.080 Nations delegates attended the first UN Peace Conference in San Francisco, 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.240 and they gathered at Newer Woods National Monument, home to 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.360 a number of these sequoia simper vans or coastal redwoods 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.760 that we mentioned earlier, as well as some pretty great 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.840 banana slugs, like go for the trees, but stay for 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.080 the banana slugs and you know, the world peace. 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.320 One of my good family friends was a camp counselor 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.760 somewhere out there, and it's like it was like a 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.240 nature camp, and apparently they had some great songs about 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:27.960 banana slugs the kids liked. 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.320 They're very impressive. Well, we took my son out there 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:36.000 when he was a lot younger, and he really barely 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.400 cared about the trees, but he was excited to see 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.760 the banana slugs. And we got there early in the morning, 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:42.760 and at first we did not see any banana slugs, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.440 and he was about to become very upset at having 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.240 not seen them, and then luckily a park ranger showed 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.720 us one, and then we were like, oh, okay, all 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:51.240 was saved. 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.720 I think the thing is, you hear banana slug and 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.560 you think it's just a name. Until you see it. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.840 You don't realize how much like a banana it's gonna look. Yeah. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:15.320 Absolutely Now. Before the coming of the Europeans, the treaties 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.800 were already held in high, even sacred regard, though they 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:24.200 were not called Sequoias. The Europeans selected names seemingly derives 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.040 from that of Cherokee polymath Sequoia, who live seventeen sixty 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:33.520 seven through eighteen forty three, though this connection is sometimes contested. 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.240 At any rate, the situation may be much like the 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:41.280 name Yosemite itself, which is derived from actual names in 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:46.080 the Miwok languages. But itself, the word Yosemite doesn't really 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.160 mean much, you know, It's just like a composite word now, 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:51.879 Who were the Miwok peoples. They were one of the 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.159 native inhabitants of what is now northern California, and they 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.639 practiced complex landscape and ecosystem management strategies to help ensure 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.680 the the dominance of for them, key acorn producing trees. 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.960 This is something you can learn about if you visit Yosemite. 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.800 They have a lot of really fascinating stuff about how 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.000 they would gather these acorns, process them, save them. It 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.199 was a vital resource for them, and they would do 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.920 things like engage in intentional burns to manage both vegetation 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:27.280 and game, ensuring the acorns, but also this would tie 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.720 into the management of game that they would hunt as well. 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.719 And they reportedly, and this reporting tends to come from 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.240 Europeans that were at the time at least looking to 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:42.320 exploit exotic romanticism about Yosemite, they would say that the 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:47.280 native peoples knew the giant sequoias as Wawona. Wawona is 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:51.160 also the name of an historic hotel in Yosemite One. 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.000 I've stayed at it a couple of times. It's a 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:58.879 very interesting historic landmark. But as to what Wowona actually meant, 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.080 Like you see counts that it is referring to the trees. 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.280 There are also accounts that it is referring to owls 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.159 or the sound the hoot of an owl as it 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.720 is heard passing through a grove of these trees. And 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.080 it does seem like there is some sort of connection 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.639 between the owls and the great trees. They have a 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.240 shared sacredness in the tradition, with the owl possibly serving 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.480 as like a spirit guardian of the Great trees. So 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:25.960 I was looking to read more about this, so I 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:30.040 turned to a book titled King Sequoia, The Tree That 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.280 inspired a nation created international park System and changed the 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.760 way we think about nature, by William C. Tweed. This 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.000 is a really interesting book. I definitely recommend this for 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.440 anyone out there who wants a deeper dive into the 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:48.200 history of this tree and how, and as the title indicates, 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.800 the role it has played and sort of the changing 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:57.200 attitude we've had towards the natural world in the United States. 0:21:57.760 --> 0:21:59.960 But he points out that prior to the Gold Rush 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.960 of the eighteen forties in the eighteen fifties, the domains 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.679 of the Great Trees were largely left alone by Europeans, 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.720 including during the Spanish and Mexican period. Preceding the gold Rush, 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.160 these areas have been mostly left alone to the native 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.560 inhabitants of those regions. But then when the gold rush occurs, 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.639 people come out looking for the gold, tearing up the 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:23.200 land for the gold, and of course ultimately decimating indigenous 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.960 populations and driving them from their lands. The author here 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.840 points out that nearly all of California's native groups, including 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.200 the Miwok, of course, understood the importance of fire to 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.240 the ecosystem, as we mentioned earlier, and used it to 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.600 manage vegetation and game. And this is interesting in that 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.800 this is a lesson that Europeans and Americans would be 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:47.480 very slow to realize, to realize that, yes, you can't 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:50.960 just prevent all wildfires, you have to of course engage 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:56.080 in strategic, small scale burns, in part because this is 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:00.760 what the natural environment is accustomed to. Also goes into 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.480 detail about the many steps that were involved in the 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.919 near worship of these great trees in the early twentieth 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.000 century in America. You know, it was very much a 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:13.879 transition from past attitudes that against all these trees as 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:17.480 mere resources to plunder like everything else, to this growing 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:21.280 sense that these trees are special, and then that idea 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:23.719 seems to sort of it's sort of like, once you 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:25.639 pull on it, you begin to pull up these other 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:27.600 ideas and you realize, oh, well, maybe it's not just 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:30.280 the trees that are sacred, you know, it's the areas 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:32.960 around the trees. Maybe it's the whole ecosystem that the 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:35.760 trees are a part of. Maybe it's the natural world 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:39.480 that is important here and should be conserved. However, he 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:43.800 points out that sadly, in terms of what the indigenous 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:47.520 people thought specifically about these trees, he said that we've 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.879 lost quote most of the experiences, tales, and wisdom of 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:53.159 the first peoples to have walked in the shadows and 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:57.920 sunlit reflections of these mountain forests. But he still points 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.440 out that from what we do know, from what was 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.959 passed down and remembered, quote, they perceived the trees as 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:07.560 they did everything else that surrounded them, as part of 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:11.520 a complex web of existence that had spiritual value embedded 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:14.880 in every element. And of course, if the Miwok saw 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:18.679 the trees as part of a grander world of interconnected 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:21.720 spirits in nature, then you know, perhaps we can see 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:24.080 the giant sequoias and their ken as like the prime 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:29.200 deities that again steadily helped to reveal the sacred aspects 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:34.000 of nature to a wider American public. You know, that 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.960 leads you know, early conservationists like John Muir himself to 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:40.959 refer to the trees as the noblest of the noble 0:24:41.040 --> 0:24:45.760 race and noblest of God's trees. So I left this research, 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:49.760 you know, wanting to know more about how indigenous people 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:54.080 specifically thought about the great Sequoias, the giant Sequoias. It 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:57.560 sounds like a lot of those traditions have been lost, 0:24:58.320 --> 0:25:03.399 but it is interesting how though those traditions were decimated 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:05.720 and lost, there is this sense of sort of like 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:13.320 rediscovering them in the history of conservationists in America, realizing 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.960 that the trees should be protected and and should be conserved. 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:20.280 But again that's it's very much a transition. There's certainly 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:22.760 a phase in between there where we have a lot 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:24.760 of like the cutting down of these trees or the 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:27.560 drilling of great holes in them so you can drive 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:29.480 an automobile through them. And I guess, you know, part 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:31.520 of that is like we've got to show people how 0:25:31.520 --> 0:25:34.440 big these are. Let's put a car next to it. No, 0:25:34.640 --> 0:25:37.359 let's drive a car through it, you know, without fully 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:39.840 realizing that, you know, how destructive that is. 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:42.600 I was just reminded of seeing that photo when you 0:25:42.600 --> 0:25:44.440 said it. I don't know how common that is. Is 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:46.399 that something that happened to a bunch of trees or 0:25:46.480 --> 0:25:49.399 is it just like that one famous one, the driving 0:25:49.400 --> 0:25:50.120 the car through. 0:25:49.920 --> 0:25:52.119 I mean, oh, I mean there there have been a 0:25:52.119 --> 0:25:57.120 couple of different examples of this. National Park Service actually 0:25:57.160 --> 0:25:59.280 has a has a page about this you can look up, 0:25:59.280 --> 0:26:01.119 called the Myth of the Tree you Can Drive Through 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:05.520 and it covers, like some of a couple of the 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:09.200 actual examples of trees that had been tunneled. One of 0:26:09.240 --> 0:26:12.320 the ones that they have pictured in this article is 0:26:12.640 --> 0:26:15.320 in the Suqua National Park and it's a tree that 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:18.040 had already fallen and then they had dug out an 0:26:18.080 --> 0:26:21.560 area to drive a tree through. But unfortunately, like live 0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:25.760 trees were also tunneled. Yeah, the Wawona tree is one 0:26:25.800 --> 0:26:29.440 that they write in this article stood for eighty eight summers, 0:26:30.040 --> 0:26:34.200 but then eventually it fell during a severe winter between 0:26:34.280 --> 0:26:37.480 nineteen sixty eight and nineteen sixty nine. And part of this, 0:26:37.520 --> 0:26:40.200 of course, is that when you tunnel a tree, you 0:26:40.359 --> 0:26:43.960 weaken the tree, so there you go. Yeah, so it's 0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:47.000 not something that is currently done. Now. I want to 0:26:47.040 --> 0:26:50.679 add an important note on the Mewook people. We've been 0:26:50.720 --> 0:26:54.880 speaking about them in an historic context here, who they 0:26:54.920 --> 0:26:57.879 were when Europeans first encountered them, and what they lost 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:00.720 in terms of life, culture, and then so stroll land 0:27:01.080 --> 0:27:04.119 because of that contact. But it's important to stress that 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:07.879 the Miwook did not vanish, and they the indigenous people 0:27:07.880 --> 0:27:12.160 of central California, still largely reside there on five rancherias 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:16.240 under tribal leadership, as well as elsewhere in California. Their 0:27:16.280 --> 0:27:19.760 access to ancestral lands in Yosemite, i'm to understand, has 0:27:19.800 --> 0:27:22.680 improved quite a bit in recent years, though there's obviously 0:27:22.960 --> 0:27:25.679 a long way to go there. So those are the 0:27:25.680 --> 0:27:31.359 giants squoias. So we have visited California. Where are we 0:27:31.440 --> 0:27:32.440 off to next, Joe? 0:27:33.000 --> 0:27:36.359 Well, the tree I wanted to talk about is is 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:39.320 one I've never seen in person before, but I think 0:27:39.440 --> 0:27:42.480 probably you have because you've been to the place it grows. 0:27:42.920 --> 0:27:45.600 So this is a tree that is found in Hawaii, 0:27:45.840 --> 0:27:48.679 and for centuries it has been an important part of 0:27:48.760 --> 0:27:52.960 Hawaiian culture, both in a practical sense as a source 0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:56.560 of wood used to make a variety of objects, but 0:27:56.600 --> 0:27:58.919 then also in a sacred sense. For its role in 0:27:59.000 --> 0:28:03.199 Hawaiian religion and mythology, this tree is known as the 0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:10.359 Ohea lahua. The scientific nomenclature is Metrocederos polymorpha. So I 0:28:10.440 --> 0:28:13.320 was going to start by trying to describe what an 0:28:13.320 --> 0:28:17.040 ohe lahua looks like, but that's a kind of complicated 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:21.800 proposition because the species name, again is polymorpha, which means 0:28:21.880 --> 0:28:25.400 many forms or many shapes, and that is quite appropriate 0:28:25.480 --> 0:28:29.320 to describe this plant, which, depending on circumstances, can change 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:32.160 the color of its flowers. They can be cherry red, 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:34.960 that's the most common version you'll see, but also pink 0:28:35.160 --> 0:28:38.480 or even lemon yellow. It can change the size and 0:28:38.600 --> 0:28:41.760 shape of its leaves, and it can vary drastically in 0:28:41.840 --> 0:28:46.200 its overall size and growth pattern. So sometimes the Ohee 0:28:46.240 --> 0:28:49.719 la hua is a small shrub you might see projecting 0:28:49.800 --> 0:28:53.800 from a fresh black lava field, or sometimes it is 0:28:53.840 --> 0:28:56.360 a tree more than fifty feet tall in a dense 0:28:56.400 --> 0:29:00.240 forest of many of the same tree. So it takes 0:29:00.000 --> 0:29:03.120 many forms. It can be a shrub, can be a tree, 0:29:03.440 --> 0:29:06.160 and in its tree form, this species is the most 0:29:06.320 --> 0:29:10.880 abundant of Hawaii's native trees. Going back centuries, the wood 0:29:10.960 --> 0:29:14.000 of the Ohelahua has been used by the people of Hawaii, 0:29:14.360 --> 0:29:17.480 especially for sacred and religious purposes. It's been used to 0:29:17.480 --> 0:29:22.480 make tools like wooden beaters that are used for producing kappa, 0:29:22.600 --> 0:29:26.560 a traditional textile of Hawaii, but it's also been used 0:29:26.560 --> 0:29:30.240 to make things like statues for religious purposes, representations of 0:29:30.280 --> 0:29:34.920 gods and other spiritual beings. So Rabbi included some pictures 0:29:34.960 --> 0:29:37.360 for you to look at here in the outline. One 0:29:37.400 --> 0:29:41.680 thing that's very notable about the blossoms of the ohela 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:47.120 Hua is that they have these many projecting stamens, so 0:29:47.160 --> 0:29:49.480 they can look kind of like a sea anemone. 0:29:50.080 --> 0:29:53.440 Yes, yes, I do remember these. These are quite beautiful. 0:29:54.480 --> 0:29:58.120 And then you also share some images of the full 0:29:58.160 --> 0:30:02.640 sized trees with that are kind of I guess you 0:30:02.720 --> 0:30:05.520 might describe these as kind of like veining. There's a 0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:08.240 sense of like veining upward, or it's almost like the 0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:11.280 shape of roots growing into the sky. I don't know. 0:30:11.320 --> 0:30:15.160 This feels insufficient, but it's one of the one of 0:30:15.200 --> 0:30:19.480 the aspects of the forest of why that certainly resonated 0:30:19.480 --> 0:30:20.960 with me a lot when I was there be it, 0:30:21.240 --> 0:30:24.080 you know, in the botanical garden situation, or just driving, 0:30:24.960 --> 0:30:28.840 you know, across the islands. You just see these beautiful 0:30:28.880 --> 0:30:31.240 trees and they're just like they're unlike anything I'm accustomed 0:30:31.240 --> 0:30:31.960 to seeing back home. 0:30:32.040 --> 0:30:35.280 Obviously. Yeah, it's funny because in a couple of the 0:30:35.840 --> 0:30:39.800 myths I was reading that incorporate this tree, the tree 0:30:39.840 --> 0:30:43.080 is described in some sense as like gnar oled or ugly, 0:30:43.960 --> 0:30:47.880 but in other cases it's regarded specifically for its beauty, 0:30:47.920 --> 0:30:51.960 and certainly the blossoms are always thought of as particularly beautiful. 0:30:52.880 --> 0:30:55.360 And I guess those two different ways of describing it 0:30:55.400 --> 0:30:57.440 come together in one of the last myths I'm going 0:30:57.480 --> 0:30:59.800 to get to in this section. But so, yeah, you 0:30:59.840 --> 0:31:01.959 can see a diversity of forms. If you look up 0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:08.080 images again, it's the Ohea lehua. There's some unusual characters 0:31:08.120 --> 0:31:10.920 in the Anglicized version of the name, but I think 0:31:10.960 --> 0:31:14.080 if you just type in O h I A l 0:31:14.120 --> 0:31:17.160 e h u A you can find it. But anyway, 0:31:17.200 --> 0:31:21.880 these forms include full sized trees with woody trunks, and 0:31:21.920 --> 0:31:26.440 also just these particularly lovely red blossomed shrubs that you 0:31:26.480 --> 0:31:30.200 see growing up from cracks in new volcanic rocks. Sometimes 0:31:30.240 --> 0:31:34.720 by themselves. They're known for beings among the first plants 0:31:34.760 --> 0:31:37.120 to sort of fill in and colonize an area that 0:31:37.160 --> 0:31:40.120 has newly been paved over by a volcanic eruption. 0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:44.480 And that's always picturesque. It's like the hang in there 0:31:44.520 --> 0:31:46.960 baby signed with the cat, you know. It's like like, 0:31:47.320 --> 0:31:50.200 look at this, Even in the midst of of all 0:31:50.240 --> 0:31:54.040 of this volcanic desolation, there's re growth, Like this is 0:31:54.080 --> 0:31:55.800 a cycle we're witnessing here. 0:31:56.200 --> 0:32:00.240 Yeah. So I was reading in multiple sources that the 0:32:00.240 --> 0:32:05.000 Ohee Lahua is a type of sacred tree within Hawaiian tradition. 0:32:05.160 --> 0:32:07.160 But what was interesting to me the more I got 0:32:07.200 --> 0:32:11.800 into it was the diversity of ways that this sacred 0:32:11.840 --> 0:32:16.880 status was defined. That there are so many different connection 0:32:17.120 --> 0:32:21.600 points between this species of tree and traditional stories and 0:32:21.680 --> 0:32:26.040 beliefs of the Hawaiian people, for example, gods and spiritual 0:32:26.080 --> 0:32:29.880 beings embodied by or represented by the tree. This is 0:32:30.000 --> 0:32:33.280 not a case where you will get one clear and 0:32:33.400 --> 0:32:38.800 unique association between one deity and one plant species. Instead, 0:32:38.920 --> 0:32:41.600 I've found so many stories in which this tree is 0:32:41.640 --> 0:32:45.680 the embodiment of or is associated with so many different 0:32:45.920 --> 0:32:49.600 named spiritual beings in Hawaiian religion. So I just want 0:32:49.640 --> 0:32:51.320 to list some of the things I've come across to 0:32:51.320 --> 0:32:54.200 give a sense of this diversity. One thing is I 0:32:54.280 --> 0:32:58.240 was listening to a video interview with a scholar, a 0:32:58.280 --> 0:33:03.120 professor named Kalna Silva, who is at the University of Hawaii, Hilo, 0:33:03.480 --> 0:33:07.800 who specializes in Hawaiian language and history, and he says 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:11.280 that the Ohia Lahua is what he calls the physical 0:33:11.320 --> 0:33:16.080 manifestation of a couple of divine figures he names he 0:33:16.240 --> 0:33:19.920 Iyaka and Laka. So I went looking for more on 0:33:19.960 --> 0:33:23.800 these two connections. First of all, Laka is a name 0:33:24.000 --> 0:33:28.480 referring actually to multiple figures within Hawaiian religion. One is 0:33:28.480 --> 0:33:31.600 a goddess of the growing forest as well as well 0:33:31.640 --> 0:33:35.640 as of hula dancing, and another is a member of 0:33:35.760 --> 0:33:40.760 the assemblage of cou gods Ku gods, which I'll say 0:33:40.760 --> 0:33:45.120 more about in a minute. But this Laca god is 0:33:45.240 --> 0:33:48.480 also associated with hula dancing. So both of these associated 0:33:48.520 --> 0:33:51.600 with hula dancing, which you might have some awareness of 0:33:51.640 --> 0:33:53.920 as a form of dance, but it's not just a 0:33:53.960 --> 0:33:57.080 form of dance. One thing that's important to understand about 0:33:57.160 --> 0:34:00.840 hula is that it is narrative in so it's a 0:34:00.920 --> 0:34:05.280 dance that tells stories about Hawaiian history and mythology and 0:34:05.320 --> 0:34:10.360 so forth. The other entity that Silva mentions as being 0:34:10.719 --> 0:34:15.000 embodied in the tree is he Iyaka, who is an 0:34:15.040 --> 0:34:19.520 interesting figure, the daughter of the goddess Halmea and the 0:34:19.520 --> 0:34:24.200 god Kane, and also the younger sister of the volcano 0:34:24.280 --> 0:34:27.960 goddess Pele. So there is a famous story about the 0:34:28.040 --> 0:34:33.080 two sisters Pele and he Iyaka, which exists in apparently 0:34:33.160 --> 0:34:34.880 a lot of different forms. This will sort of be 0:34:34.960 --> 0:34:37.759 a theme today, many different forms, but I'll give an 0:34:37.800 --> 0:34:41.080 abridged summary of one form of the story. This form 0:34:41.120 --> 0:34:44.360 is hosted on the National Parks page for Hawaii Volcano's 0:34:44.440 --> 0:34:49.160 National Park. It starts off with Pele. She lives up 0:34:49.239 --> 0:34:53.680 on the volcanic mountain of Kilauea, and once Pele had 0:34:53.760 --> 0:34:57.880 a lover named Lohiao, who lived on a different island 0:34:57.920 --> 0:35:01.520 from her, on the island of Kawaii. Pele wanted to 0:35:01.600 --> 0:35:04.440 see her lover, but he was so far away, so 0:35:04.719 --> 0:35:07.320 she asked her sisters to go to the other island 0:35:07.360 --> 0:35:10.720 and bring him back to her, and only her youngest sister, 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:14.239 he Iyaka, agreed. And while he Iyaka is away on 0:35:14.320 --> 0:35:17.719 this mission, Pele promised that she would take good care 0:35:17.800 --> 0:35:20.520 of what he Iyaka cared about the most, which was 0:35:20.719 --> 0:35:25.080 a sacred grove of Ohia trees and of he Iaka's 0:35:25.120 --> 0:35:29.319 best friend Apoe. Unfortunately, when he Eyaka got to the 0:35:29.360 --> 0:35:33.120 other island, she discovered that Pele's lover Lohiao, had died, 0:35:33.400 --> 0:35:36.520 so he Iyaka has to bring him back from the dead, 0:35:36.880 --> 0:35:39.000 which was no easy job. She has to go chasing 0:35:39.040 --> 0:35:41.719 after his spirit which has left his body, but she 0:35:41.840 --> 0:35:45.360 catches it, brings it back, and she's able to resurrect him. 0:35:45.600 --> 0:35:48.800 He Eyaka and the now revived Lohio make the journey 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:52.440 back to Pel's Island, but with some stops along the way, 0:35:52.600 --> 0:35:56.399 in which he Eyaka has to defend against this guy 0:35:56.520 --> 0:36:00.440 being tempted to betray Pele with another woman. There's like 0:36:00.680 --> 0:36:04.560 a beautiful queen who has some history with Lohio, and 0:36:04.880 --> 0:36:07.000 he Iyaka has to win some kind of game to 0:36:07.080 --> 0:36:10.440 prevent him from from I think the prize that she 0:36:10.480 --> 0:36:12.319 would that the queen would get if she won is 0:36:12.320 --> 0:36:14.480 that Lohio would have to stay with her for a night. 0:36:15.640 --> 0:36:18.600 So he Iyaka is really going above and beyond. She 0:36:18.960 --> 0:36:21.319 raises this guy from the dead keeps him loyal to 0:36:21.360 --> 0:36:26.520 the volcano goddess, but Pele unfortunately gets paranoid and impatient 0:36:26.920 --> 0:36:29.960 her sister has not returned, so she gets angry and 0:36:30.000 --> 0:36:34.319 she burns down he Iyaka's precious Ohea trees, and then 0:36:34.600 --> 0:36:38.600 she also covers he Iyaka's friend Hapoe with molten lava, 0:36:38.719 --> 0:36:43.120 so she's very mad. This in turn makes he Iaka furious, 0:36:43.480 --> 0:36:47.319 so she and Lohioo go to Pele's volcano crater to 0:36:47.480 --> 0:36:50.640 face off against her, and there is a battle involving 0:36:50.719 --> 0:36:55.000 multiple parties and incantations and sorcery. Pele tries to compel 0:36:55.080 --> 0:36:57.920 some of her other relatives to attack them and to 0:36:58.000 --> 0:37:02.239 kill Lohiao, but they sort of hesitate, and in the 0:37:02.360 --> 0:37:07.400 end Pele herself kills her lover Lohiao out of rage, 0:37:07.840 --> 0:37:11.520 and then in revenge for this, he Iyaka she plans 0:37:11.560 --> 0:37:14.879 to destroy Pele. Her plan is she's going to break 0:37:14.920 --> 0:37:17.880 through the crust of the earth, flood the volcano with water, 0:37:17.960 --> 0:37:20.520 and snuff it out. But then at the last moment 0:37:20.640 --> 0:37:24.799 she relents and she does not extinguish her sister's fires 0:37:24.560 --> 0:37:27.480 with the water from below, and they make up and 0:37:27.480 --> 0:37:30.160 they get over their differences, but in the story you 0:37:30.160 --> 0:37:34.000 can see he Iyaka, this powerful divine heroine who has 0:37:34.040 --> 0:37:37.480 all these You know, she has magical powers. She can 0:37:37.480 --> 0:37:41.080 break through the earth to summon waters. She she can 0:37:41.120 --> 0:37:43.360 sort of like see things from afar like, she can 0:37:43.440 --> 0:37:46.120 sort of do everything. And the thing she really loves, 0:37:46.200 --> 0:37:48.320 things she cares about the most apart from her friend, 0:37:48.760 --> 0:37:53.360 is this grove of the ohia Lehua trees. Now I 0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:56.360 was reading in another source, according to a scholar named 0:37:56.560 --> 0:37:59.840 Beatrice Krauss, in a book called Plants in Hawaiian Culture 0:38:00.000 --> 0:38:02.479 from University of Hawaii Press. This is the twenty twenty 0:38:02.520 --> 0:38:06.480 one edition of the book. The Ohee Lahua tree is one, 0:38:06.880 --> 0:38:09.800 according to this book, one of the natural forms taken 0:38:09.960 --> 0:38:13.880 by Ku, who is one of the four major gods 0:38:13.960 --> 0:38:18.640 of Hawaiian religion. Ku, in his many manifestations, is a 0:38:18.760 --> 0:38:22.600 male god of war and politics, known as the Snatcher 0:38:22.640 --> 0:38:27.920 of land, but also represents farming and fishing and forests 0:38:27.960 --> 0:38:31.120 and a number of different things. So Ku is known 0:38:31.160 --> 0:38:35.520 to take a many animal shapes, including the Hawaiian hawk 0:38:36.160 --> 0:38:39.280 and the shape of a shark, but also plant forms, 0:38:39.400 --> 0:38:43.240 notably the Ohee Lahua tree. And so I was reading 0:38:43.239 --> 0:38:46.120 more about this in another book, a book called Hawaiian 0:38:46.120 --> 0:38:50.480 Mythology by Martha Warren Beckwith this was University of Hawaii Press. 0:38:50.680 --> 0:38:52.560 This is a much older book, but this was the 0:38:52.560 --> 0:38:56.680 twenty twenty one edition of it. And in this book 0:38:56.800 --> 0:39:00.560 she talks about how the Ohee Lahua tree form of 0:39:00.640 --> 0:39:04.040 Coup is one of what she calls the coup gods, 0:39:04.560 --> 0:39:08.120 which could be interpreted either as sort of subordinate gods 0:39:08.160 --> 0:39:12.279 who serve under Coup and are worshiped under his auspices, 0:39:13.040 --> 0:39:18.000 or derivative manifestations of Coup himself. And many of these are, 0:39:18.080 --> 0:39:21.600 in her words quote, functional gods of the forest or 0:39:21.680 --> 0:39:26.920 sea upon whom depended success in some special craft. So 0:39:27.400 --> 0:39:31.320 there are number of examples listed in this text. Beckweth 0:39:31.360 --> 0:39:36.439 identifies a god named ku Ohilaka as an example here, 0:39:36.840 --> 0:39:39.320 one of the many gods who was worshiped, for example, 0:39:39.320 --> 0:39:42.759 by canoe builders for playing some role in the construction 0:39:42.840 --> 0:39:46.040 of a canoe. In this case, he was, for one thing, 0:39:46.080 --> 0:39:49.400 a god of rain in the forest, but also the 0:39:49.440 --> 0:39:52.920 god embodied in the wood of the Ohee Lahua tree, 0:39:53.440 --> 0:39:57.719 which was one of the sources of hardwood building material 0:39:58.040 --> 0:40:02.160 available in the upland forest. Also you can hear the 0:40:02.239 --> 0:40:06.560 name Laca in Kuka ohel Laca. This is the male 0:40:06.640 --> 0:40:09.560 god Laka, which was one of the entities I mentioned 0:40:09.600 --> 0:40:12.399 earlier as a patron of the hula dance art form 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:17.879 in which history and important stories were stored and then expressed. Now, 0:40:18.000 --> 0:40:21.080 beck With in her text mentions a really interesting story 0:40:21.120 --> 0:40:26.080 connecting this Laca, this version of the coup god Laka, 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:31.120 to a particular cave in Hawaii and to the ohe 0:40:31.280 --> 0:40:35.560 Lahua tree. So she says that there's a particular cave 0:40:35.760 --> 0:40:40.239 in Hawaii where there grows a specific tree of this species, 0:40:40.719 --> 0:40:45.760 and that tree is the preserved body of Laca. Several 0:40:45.760 --> 0:40:48.279 things are said about this tree. One is that it 0:40:48.360 --> 0:40:51.319 only ever has two blossoms at a time, and the 0:40:51.360 --> 0:40:53.719 other is that if you snap a branch off of it, 0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:57.680 blood will flow from the wood. And then Beckwick goes 0:40:57.719 --> 0:41:00.640 on to tell the story of the tree. Up here 0:41:00.800 --> 0:41:05.120 is that I believe it's that Laka and his sister 0:41:05.280 --> 0:41:09.520 Kawa come to Hawaii to live with their spouses, Laka 0:41:09.560 --> 0:41:12.840 and his wife kaa Aw and Kawa with her husband 0:41:12.920 --> 0:41:15.480 in the uplands of the island. So here I'm going 0:41:15.560 --> 0:41:19.319 to read from Beckwith quote When the sister brings vegetable 0:41:19.360 --> 0:41:21.719 food from her garden to her brother at the sea, 0:41:22.200 --> 0:41:24.840 her stingy sister in law pretends that they have no 0:41:25.000 --> 0:41:27.839 fish and gives her nothing but seaweed to take home 0:41:27.920 --> 0:41:32.360 as a relish. In despair at this treatment, Kawa transforms 0:41:32.360 --> 0:41:36.400 her husband and children into rats, and herself into a 0:41:36.480 --> 0:41:40.040 spring of water. Her spirit comes to her brother and 0:41:40.080 --> 0:41:43.759 tells him of her fate. He visits the uplands, recognizes 0:41:43.840 --> 0:41:46.200 the spot as she is directed in the dream, and 0:41:46.680 --> 0:41:51.280 plunging into the spring, is himself transformed into the Lahua tree, 0:41:51.400 --> 0:41:54.719 which we see today. Oh wow, but it doesn't stop there. 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:58.840 I was talking about the god cou earlier. Ku himself 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:01.640 is said to be the husband of the goddess Heina 0:42:02.000 --> 0:42:05.920 and here this can also be confusing because there are 0:42:05.920 --> 0:42:09.719 apparently multiple divine figures referred to as Hena, but this 0:42:09.760 --> 0:42:12.680 is one of them, and Ku is the husband of 0:42:12.880 --> 0:42:16.080 the Heinah, who is associated with the ocean, the moon, 0:42:16.600 --> 0:42:21.520 and with female female fertility and motherhood. Now, Beckwith's book 0:42:21.719 --> 0:42:25.640 also lists the goddess Hena as a spiritual being embodied 0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:30.080 by the same tree, in this case as hina ulu Ohea, 0:42:30.120 --> 0:42:33.480 meaning Heina the growing Ohea tree. So this version of 0:42:33.520 --> 0:42:37.320 Hena plays an important role in the genealogies of Hawaiian 0:42:37.360 --> 0:42:42.800 gods as a mother, ancestor, and protector of other important 0:42:42.840 --> 0:42:46.680 characters who figure into various stories. But then Beckwith writes 0:42:46.760 --> 0:42:51.080 quote to both God and goddess, the flowering Ohea is sacred, 0:42:51.160 --> 0:42:53.560 and no one on a visit to the volcano will 0:42:53.640 --> 0:42:56.880 venture to break the red flowers for a wreath or 0:42:56.960 --> 0:43:01.080 pluck leaves or branches on the way thither. Only on return, 0:43:01.320 --> 0:43:05.840 with proper invocations, may the flowers be gathered. A rainstorm 0:43:05.960 --> 0:43:08.760 is the least of the unpleasant results that may follow 0:43:08.880 --> 0:43:13.319 tampering with the sacred Lahua blossoms. And then connecting to that, 0:43:13.640 --> 0:43:16.200 there's one more story that it's sort of along the 0:43:16.239 --> 0:43:20.400 same lines. I've seen this repeated in several places. Once again, 0:43:20.480 --> 0:43:24.480 this involves the fire and volcano goddess Pele as a 0:43:24.560 --> 0:43:28.799 jealous lover. So in this story, there's a gorgeous guy, 0:43:28.960 --> 0:43:33.879 a beautiful dude named Ohea. He's unbelievably good looking, and 0:43:34.080 --> 0:43:37.399 Pele falls in love with him, but he only has 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:41.560 eyes for a different woman named Lahua. So when Peley's 0:43:41.600 --> 0:43:46.080 affections are spurned, she reacts with envious rage, and she 0:43:46.320 --> 0:43:50.880 transforms Ohea into a gnarled tree, an ugly tree with 0:43:50.960 --> 0:43:55.440 twisted branches. And so the woman Lahua mourns the loss 0:43:55.440 --> 0:43:57.720 of her lover. He's been turned into a tree now, 0:43:58.120 --> 0:44:00.480 But the other gods take pity on her, and they 0:44:00.600 --> 0:44:03.960 use their power to help sort of make things right, 0:44:04.040 --> 0:44:07.520 not fully, but they allow her to join him in form. 0:44:07.960 --> 0:44:14.000 So Lahua becomes the beautiful blossom that grows on ohea branches. 0:44:14.440 --> 0:44:17.719 This way they can be together for all time. But 0:44:18.200 --> 0:44:21.600 as one possible consequence of this story, if you pick 0:44:21.640 --> 0:44:24.840 the flower from the tree, you tear the lovers apart again, 0:44:25.239 --> 0:44:28.280 and then the tears of Lahua and Ohea will fall 0:44:28.320 --> 0:44:28.799 as rain. 0:44:29.160 --> 0:44:29.600 Oh wow. 0:44:30.760 --> 0:44:33.280 Now I mentioned that these trees are known for having hard, 0:44:33.400 --> 0:44:36.960 sturdy wood, and even in their smaller shrub forms, they're 0:44:37.480 --> 0:44:43.000 known for, you know, for flowing into apparently inhospitable environments. 0:44:43.000 --> 0:44:45.480 You know, there'll be some of the first plants growing 0:44:45.520 --> 0:44:49.000 out of the cracks in fresh volcanic rock after interruption. 0:44:49.680 --> 0:44:51.919 So that might kind of give the impression that these 0:44:52.120 --> 0:44:55.480 plants are invincible, but they are not invincible. In fact, 0:44:56.120 --> 0:45:01.240 currently Ohea lehua are threatened by a wide spread fungal disease. 0:45:01.680 --> 0:45:05.120 The phenomenon has been known as rapid ohea death or 0:45:05.360 --> 0:45:09.240 ro D, so named because it can appear that something 0:45:09.320 --> 0:45:12.759 happens to these trees and kills them very fast and 0:45:12.920 --> 0:45:16.560 like a matter of days. According to once ourst I 0:45:16.719 --> 0:45:18.560 was looking at, this is caused by a couple of 0:45:18.640 --> 0:45:22.680 species of fungus which are in the genus serato cistus. 0:45:23.560 --> 0:45:28.080 These fungi can harm the tree greatly, and it's thought 0:45:28.160 --> 0:45:31.640 that they harm the tree by stopping up the tree's 0:45:31.719 --> 0:45:35.399 vascular system. So like you know this, this tree has 0:45:35.440 --> 0:45:37.840 hardy roots that can reach down into you know, the 0:45:37.880 --> 0:45:40.920 cracks and rocks and so forth, and can access water 0:45:41.040 --> 0:45:45.360 wherever it needs to. But this plugs up the vascular system, 0:45:45.400 --> 0:45:47.840 so the water from the roots can't get up to 0:45:47.920 --> 0:45:49.840 the canopy, can't get up to the leaves and the 0:45:50.280 --> 0:45:52.759 tops of the trees, which of course is going to 0:45:52.800 --> 0:45:56.239 first turn them brown and kill the leaves and then 0:45:56.320 --> 0:45:59.640 ultimately kills the whole plant. And so there are conservation 0:45:59.680 --> 0:46:03.080 effort it's ongoing to try to understand this threat and 0:46:03.120 --> 0:46:07.760 counteract it. But this is something that that conservationists and 0:46:07.760 --> 0:46:11.200 and also just people to whom the Ohea Lhua has 0:46:11.680 --> 0:46:15.160 great cultural and religious significance are very aware of and 0:46:15.880 --> 0:46:16.640 having to deal with. 0:46:17.600 --> 0:46:20.600 It's interesting you see this in various examples. You see 0:46:20.600 --> 0:46:23.759 this with the great sequoias as well. You know, we 0:46:24.000 --> 0:46:25.840 look at a tree and it doesn't even have to 0:46:25.840 --> 0:46:29.239 be a giant tree. You know, they're all they're often 0:46:29.280 --> 0:46:31.839 pretty big. They're often bigger than us. But you look 0:46:31.840 --> 0:46:33.600 at a tree and you can often think that by 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:37.799 virtue of its size, by virtue of the pace of 0:46:37.840 --> 0:46:41.399 its existence, we think of them as being sometimes more 0:46:41.440 --> 0:46:44.600 rugged than they actually are. We don't think that human 0:46:44.640 --> 0:46:47.960 activities can harm them, can interfere them, so we do 0:46:48.040 --> 0:46:51.920 things like, you know, carve our initials into them, or 0:46:53.040 --> 0:46:57.280 tunnel holes through them for novelty automobile photographs and things 0:46:57.320 --> 0:46:59.880 like that, when in reality, you know they are often 0:47:00.160 --> 0:47:02.840 they're often very sensitive to their environment, and sometimes it 0:47:02.880 --> 0:47:04.799 comes down to details like for instance, I I didn't 0:47:04.840 --> 0:47:07.600 mention that the sequoia tree has you know, reasonably shallow 0:47:07.680 --> 0:47:10.480 root systems, and that's one of the reasons that when 0:47:10.520 --> 0:47:13.239 you're around them, there's a lot of emphasis given on 0:47:13.320 --> 0:47:15.880 staying on the path and not you know, walking up 0:47:15.920 --> 0:47:18.239 close to them, because you could damage these roots like 0:47:18.520 --> 0:47:22.640 the thing that is, you know, ancient and rough and tumble, 0:47:22.719 --> 0:47:25.880 and you know, we compare them to giants and grizzly bears. 0:47:26.080 --> 0:47:28.440 You know that there they are, in their own way, fragile, 0:47:28.880 --> 0:47:31.719 and you know we can do great harm to them. 0:47:31.760 --> 0:47:34.640 We can do great arm to the environment, and we 0:47:34.760 --> 0:47:37.080 have to respect it and care for it. 0:47:37.600 --> 0:47:41.120 Trees, like us are both tough and fragile, and you 0:47:41.239 --> 0:47:43.480 have to understand the ways in which we are both. 0:47:44.040 --> 0:47:46.400 But I love these these Hawaiian stories. I love these 0:47:46.400 --> 0:47:50.200 stories of transformation into trees. This is something you see 0:47:50.280 --> 0:47:54.640 echoes of in other traditions as well, sometimes you know, 0:47:54.840 --> 0:47:59.640 for more tragic effects, sometimes for haunting effect. But I 0:47:59.640 --> 0:48:02.200 imagine and it's probably one of the key mythological tropes. 0:48:02.320 --> 0:48:06.560 Like you have world trees, and you also have transformation 0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:10.360 into trees, people and gods and demi gods becoming the tree. 0:48:10.760 --> 0:48:12.919 And I guess maybe you see combinations of the two 0:48:12.960 --> 0:48:13.319 as well. 0:48:13.800 --> 0:48:16.440 Yeah, what do you think, did we cover all of 0:48:16.480 --> 0:48:17.800 the sacred trees in the world? 0:48:18.719 --> 0:48:22.680 Now? We left a few off? Sadly, yes, we only 0:48:22.719 --> 0:48:26.279 covered two. Fortunately they I think they're connected essentially by 0:48:26.320 --> 0:48:28.799 a direct flight from San Francisco to Hawaii. So if 0:48:28.800 --> 0:48:31.360 you want to turn this into a travel itinerary, this 0:48:31.400 --> 0:48:34.319 one's an easy one. But yes, obviously there are a 0:48:34.400 --> 0:48:37.320 number of sacred trees we didn't get to. I originally 0:48:37.400 --> 0:48:40.040 was going to talk about the body tree the sacred 0:48:40.080 --> 0:48:43.080 fig a bit in this episode, but obviously we ran 0:48:43.680 --> 0:48:45.879 ran out of time, So you know, consider this an 0:48:45.920 --> 0:48:48.520 unofficial part one. If you want to hear more about 0:48:48.560 --> 0:48:50.919 sacred trees in the world, let us know and we'll 0:48:50.920 --> 0:48:53.200 come back with another episode at some point in the 0:48:53.200 --> 0:48:56.960 future talk about the body tree and who knows what else. 0:48:56.960 --> 0:48:58.560 There are a number of great ones in terms of 0:48:58.640 --> 0:49:02.560 just big impressive tree, but also trees that have various 0:49:02.640 --> 0:49:03.920 roles within a given culture. 0:49:04.280 --> 0:49:06.319 Yeah, there are so many. We could do a ten 0:49:06.400 --> 0:49:09.120 part series on this, and it often does get surprisingly 0:49:09.120 --> 0:49:12.480 interesting at how like the botany interacts with the legend 0:49:12.520 --> 0:49:13.319 and mythology. 0:49:13.840 --> 0:49:16.920 Yeah, absolutely, all right, so we'll go ahead and close 0:49:17.000 --> 0:49:18.439 this one out, but yeah, let us know if you'd 0:49:18.480 --> 0:49:19.600 like to hear more. If you want to hear us 0:49:19.600 --> 0:49:22.040 speak for the trees some more, we can do so 0:49:22.200 --> 0:49:25.080 in the future. In the meantime, we'll just remind you 0:49:25.120 --> 0:49:27.000 that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science 0:49:27.000 --> 0:49:30.560 and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 0:49:30.840 --> 0:49:33.160 On Fridays, we set aside most serious concerners, just talk 0:49:33.160 --> 0:49:36.439 about a weird film on Weird House Cinema and let's 0:49:36.480 --> 0:49:38.520 see any other thing we need to mention here. Oh, 0:49:38.680 --> 0:49:41.440 if you're on the Instagrams and you wish to follow 0:49:41.520 --> 0:49:45.719 us STBYM podcast, that's where you'll find us. Keep up 0:49:45.719 --> 0:49:48.479 with some of the episodes coming out. And we haven't 0:49:48.480 --> 0:49:50.920 mentioned this a lot recently, but hey, rate and review 0:49:50.920 --> 0:49:52.360 if you have the power to do so. 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If you would 0:50:11.320 --> 0:50:13.319 like to get in touch with us with feedback on 0:50:13.400 --> 0:50:16.000 this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for 0:50:16.040 --> 0:50:18.400 the future, or just to say hello, you can email 0:50:18.480 --> 0:50:20.880 us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:50:21.040 --> 0:50:31.520 Dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. 0:50:31.840 --> 0:50:34.799 For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:50:34.960 --> 0:50:51.720 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.