I recently observed an exchange of views on one of the social networks, to do with the felling of the tree that grew in the Sycamore Gap in the north of England. The trial of the men accused of destroying this local and national landmark had concluded in convictions, and now there was a buzz of comment: this was a case of sheer vandalism, the convicted men deserved prison, the loss of the tree was a tragedy, the whole episode was a sentimental storm in a teacup.
One particular opinion caught my eye: that the felling of this particular tree was in fact no great loss, given that sycamores are ubiquitous in the landscape, and are not even a native species. I felt that this comment surely failed to recognise a fundamental fact: that we can indeed love individual trees, and experience the loss of a familiar tree as a bereavement. As Paul Wood has it in Tree Hunting, “Our passionate response to trees’ destruction shows how deeply we know it is wrong: to lose them feels heart-wrenching – outrageous, even – as though we were losing parts of ourselves.”
Wood’s supremely fascinating book seeks to channel this frequently unarticulated love, and to offer it a fresh focus. In paying attention to specific trees that grow today across urban Britain and Ireland, he invites us to appreciate more fully what we might otherwise simply pass by.
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He has roamed these islands, and made his selection – and the result is a kind of illumination, and an exercise in mindfulness. And of seeing in global terms, in that so many of the trees planted across our landscape – like the fig, the mulberry, the sweet chestnut, and of course the sycamore – do not naturally belong here, have been imported, owe their presence to chance and to the vagaries of fashion, economics, and colonialism.
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Ireland receives much attention in Wood’s book, and it is gratifying to see many familiar friends – such as the spectacular Tree of Heaven growing beside the glasshouses in Dublin’s National Botanic Gardens – spotlit in its pages.
But it is the less glamorous trees that particularly claim attention in this book, and that urge our feet to go wandering, and our eyes to look again with pleasure and appreciation.
