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Trees

perennial woody plant

Trees are plants with elongated stems, or trunks, supporting leaves or branches. Because of their longevity and usefulness, trees have always been revered and they play a role in much of the world's mythology, metaphor and symbolism.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. ~ William Blake
It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ~ Genesis 1:12.
You, me, Pine trees. What are we getting for breakfast, Pine needle tea, of course! Oh no, there was pollen in our Pine needle tea, I sneeze all over a pigeon that lands on your branch. He eats my snot, stupid pigeon. A pack of wolves sit next to us, they are back from a grocery run, I take the benadryl from one of the Wolves, oh no! There was a laxative in my benadryl, I proceed to poo myself until I pass out and wake up inside Shrek's outhouse. I read a fairy tale book, true loves first kiss?? (Hehehe like thats ever going to happen) After getting kicked out by Shrek I then wake up as a goose, take a dump, fly to Canada, fly back, do a thump, take another dump, smoke a joint, green out (which I did not know I could do) then I turn into a Pine tree, oh no I can't move...!

Quotes

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General

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A birch tree doesn't feel cosmic fulfillment when a moose munches its leaves; the tree species, in fact,it needs and evolves to fight the moose, to keep the animal's munching lips away from vulnerable young leaves and twigs. - Robert T. Bakker

A

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  • It’s hard to see the forest when you’re a tree.
  • He who saves an ancient tree does better even than he who plants a new one.
    • Alfred Austin, In Veronica's Garden (London: Macmillan and Co., 1895), p. 70.

B

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  • A birch tree doesn't feel cosmic fulfillment when a moose munches its leaves; the tree species, in fact, evolves to fight the moose, to keep the animal's munching lips away from vulnerable young leaves and twigs. In the final analysis, the merciless hand of natural selection will favor the birch genes that make the tree less and less palatable to the moose in generation after generation. No plant species could survive for long by offering itself as unprotected fodder.
    • Robert T. Bakker, The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 179.
  • The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.

C

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  • Lo que soñó la tierra/es visible en el árbol.
  • I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.
  • As by the way of innuendo
    Lucus is made a non lucendo.
    • Charles Churchill, The Ghost (1763), Book II. V. 257. "Lucus a non lucendo.—Lucus (a grove), from non lucendo (not admitting light)." A derivation given by Quintilian I. 16, and by others.
  • No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
    Though each its hue peculiar.
  • Some boundless contiguity of shade.
  • O, the mulberry-tree is of trees the queen!
    Bare long after the rest are green;
    But as time steals onwards, while none perceives
    Slowly she clothes herself with leaves —
    Hides her fruit under them, hard to find.
    *****
    But by and by, when the flowers grow few
    And the fruits are dwindling and small to view —
    Out she comes in her matron grace
    With the purple myriads of her race;
    Pull of plenty from root to crown,
    Showering plenty her feet adown.
    While far over head hang gorgeously
    Large luscious berries of sanguine dye,
    For the best grows highest, always highest,
    Upon the mulberry-tree.
    • Dinah Craik, The Mulberry-Tree, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 634.

D

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  • He that planteth a tree is the servant of God,
    He provideth a kindness for many generations,
    And faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.

E

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  • All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.
    • Albert Einstein, in "Moral Decay" (1937); later published in Out of My Later Years (1950).
  • Observe and see how (in the winter) all the trees seem as though they had withered and shed all their leaves, except fourteen trees, which do not lose their foliage but retain the old foliage from two to three years till the new comes.

G

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  • When iron was found, the trees began to tremble, but the iron reassured them: 'Let no handle made from you enter into anything made from me, and I shall be powerless to injure you.'

I

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K

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  • The entire Earth, with her trees and her waters, with her animals, with her men and her gods, calls from within your breast.
    Earth rises up in your brains and sees her entire body for the first time.
  • Every man has his own circle composed of trees, animals, men, ideas, and he is in duty bound to save this circle. He, and no one else. If he does not save it, he cannot be saved.
    These are the labors each man is given and is in duty bound to complete before he dies. He may not otherwise be saved. For his own soul is scattered and enslaved in these things about him, in trees, in animals, in men, in ideas, and it is his own soul he saves by completing these labors.
    • Nikos Kazantzakis, in The Saviors of God (1923), "The Action : The Relationship between Man and Nature"
  • From the acorn, quickly sprouting,
    Mighty Tursas, tall and hardy, Grows the oak-tree, tall and stately,
    Pressed compactly all the grasses, From the ground enriched by ashes,
    That the maidens had been raking, Newly raked by water-maidens;
    When a fire within them kindles, Spread the oak-tree's many branches,
    And the flames shot up to heaven, Rounds itself a broad corona,
    Till the windrows burned to ashes, Raises it above the storm-clouds;
    Only ashes now remaining
    Far it stretches out its branches,
    Of the grasses raked together. Stops the white-clouds in their courses,
    In the ashes of the windrows, With its branches hides the sunlight,
    Tender leaves the giant places, With its many leaves, the moonbeams,
    In the leaves he plants an acorn, And the starlight dies in heaven.
    • Kalevala, Rune II. translated by John Martin Crawford (1888). [2]

L

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  • Trees — especially old trees — have a strong and definite individuality, well worthy the name of a soul. This soul, though temporary, in the sense that it is not yet a reincarnating entity, is nevertheless possessed of considerable power and intelligence along its own lines. It has decided likes and dislikes, and to clairvoyant sight it shows quite clearly by a vivid rosy flush an emphatic enjoyment of the sunlight and the rain, and distinct pleasure also in the presence of those whom it has learnt to like, or with whom it has sympathetic vibrations. Emerson appears to have realised this, for he is quoted in Hutton’s Reminiscences as saying of his trees:
"I am sure they miss me ; they seem to droop when I go away, and I know they brighten and bloom when I go back to them and shake hands with their lower branches.”

M

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  • Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
    A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend
    Shade above shade, a woody theatre
    Of stateliest view.
  • And all amid them stood the Tree of Life,
    High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
    Of vegetable gold.
  • A pillar'd shade
    High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between.
  • It's interesting, isn't it? There are many stories about trees giving curses (Tatari) in the Western part of Japan. Such folklore, or something that goes back to our distant memories, remains strongly in Japanese culture. People on Yakushima Island didn't cut the trees. They thought that cutting trees would bring about a curse. Trees are beings that make us feel that way. I learned it when I went to Yakushima. When they decided to cut and sell trees because they were too poor to eat, there was a monk who recommended cutting the trees. It was not the case that they started cutting tress because a certain person happened to be on the island and said so, but rather to do with the changes in the society itself.

N

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  • I think that I shall never see
    A billboard lovely as a tree.
    Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
    I'll never see a tree at all.

P

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  • Perhaps you see big trees and little trees and think that big trees are older than little trees. You also might notice that there are more little trees than big trees, and so not every little tree grows up to be a big tree – most die young. But the little trees must come from somewhere, namely seeds produced and shed by the bigger trees. These are the core ideas of population ecology.
    • John Pastor, Mathematical Ecology of Populations and Ecosystems (2008), Ch. 1 : What is mathematical ecology and why should we do it?
  • Haunted trees
    covered behind the curtains of their own leaves
    stare at the dark
    from the fringe of streets.
  • Tree does not live in fragments.
    till it fall, it stand
    by life in its own embrace.
  • Trees do not seek to get
    beyond where their roots meet
    they never dream of flying,
    their roots in the air.
  • All trees and birds
    sky and stars
    bosoms and bangles
    were seeing everything.
  • Grove nods at grove.

R

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  • Build your nest upon no tree here, for ye see that God hath sold the forest to death.
    • Samuel Rutherford, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 206.

S

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  • "Mister!" he said with a sawdusty sneeze.
    "I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
    I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
    And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs"
  • Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
    Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
    More free from peril than the envious court?
  • Under the greenwood tree
    Who loves to lie with me,
    And tune his merry note
    Unto the sweet bird's throat,
    Come hither, come hither, come hither:
    No enemy here shall he see,
    But winter and rough weather.
  • If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
    Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
    Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion
    Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.
  • A barren detested vale, you see it is;
    The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
    O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe.
  • The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours
    And poets sage; the firre that weepeth still;
    The willow, worne of forlorne paramours;
    The eugh, obedient to the bender's will;
    The birch, for shafts; the sallow for the mill;
    The mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound;
    The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill;
    The fruitfull olive; and the platane round;
    The carver holme; the maple seldom inward sound.
    • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book I, Canto I, Stanza 8.
  • It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
    • Robert Louis Stevenson, in "Forest Notes" (1875-1876) "Morality" also in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vol. IX : Essays and Reviews (1906) edited by Charles Curis Bigelow and Temple Scott, p. 133.

T

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  • The woods are hush'd, their music is no more;
    The leaf is dead, the yearning past away;
    New leaf, new life—the days of frost are o'er;
    New life, new love, to suit the newer day:
    New loves are sweet as those that went before:
    Free love—free field—we love but while we may.
  • Now rings the woodland loud and long,
    The distance takes a lovelier hue,
    And drowned in yonder living blue
    The lark becomes a sightless song.
  • Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
  • Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery Thickets hail!
    Ye lofty Pines! ye venerable Oaks!
    Ye Ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep!
    Delicious is your shelter to the soul.
  • But see the fading many-coloured Woods,
    Shade deep'ning over shade, the country round
    Imbrown: crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
    Of every hue from wan declining green
    To sooty dark.
  • The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity.
  • Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check evaporation so much, that woods are always moist: no wonder therefore that they contribute much to pools and streams.
    That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers appears from a well known fact in North-America; for, since the woods and forests have been grubbed and cleared, all bodies of water have much diminished; so that some streams, that were very considerable a century ago, will not now drive a common mill.

Planting

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  • The best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago; the second best time is today
    • Variants include: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
      • From the Congressional Record of 1969: "It has been said that the best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago, the second best time is today."
      • A possible precursor from the 1950s: "Pruning of nature apple trees can be done safely at any time and, if you haven't already started, now is the second-best time to do it." (Tennessee horticulture (1956)
      • Sometimes claimed to be an "old Chinese proverb".

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 812-14.
  • The place is all Awave with trees,
    Limes, myrtles, purple-beaded,
    Acacias having drunk the lees
    Of the night-dew, faint headed,
    And wan, grey olive-woods, which seem
    The fittest foliage for a dream.
  • Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
    No school of long experience, that the world
    Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
    Enough of all its sorrows, crimes and cares,
    To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
    And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
    Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
    That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
    To thy sick heart.
  • The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
    To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
    And spread the roof above them,—ere he framed
    The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
    The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
    Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down
    And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
    And supplication.
  • Oh, leave this barren spot to me!
    Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
  • Es ist dafür gesorgt, dass die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen.
  • Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,—
    The many, many leaves all twinkling?—three
    On the mossed elm; three on the naked lime
    Trembling,—and one upon the old oak tree!
    Where is the Dryad's immortality?
  • Nullam vare, sacra vite prius arborem.
    • Plant no other tree before the vine.
    • Horace, Carmina, I. 18. Imitation, in sense and meter from Alcæus.
  • I think that I shall never scan
    A tree as lovely as a man.
    * * * *
    A tree depicts divinest plan,
    But God himself lives in a man.
  • I think that I shall never see
    A poem lovely as a tree.
    * * * *
    Poems are made by fools like me,
    But only God can make a tree.
  • It was the noise
    Of ancient trees falling while all was still
    Before the storm, in the long interval
    Between the gathering clouds and that light breeze
    Which Germans call the Wind's bride.
 
The highest and most lofty trees have the most reason to dread the thunder.
~ Charles Rollin
  • Woodman, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough!In youth it sheltered me,
    And I'll protect it now.
  • When the sappy boughs
    Attire themselves with blooms, sweet rudiments
    Of future harvest.
  • The highest and most lofty trees have the most reason to dread the thunder.
  • Stultus est qui fructus magnarum arborum spectat, altitudinem non metitur.
    • He is a fool who looks at the fruit of lofty trees, but does not measure their height.
    • Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, VII, 8.
  • So bright in death I used to say,
    So beautiful through frost and cold!
    A lovelier thing I know to-day,
    The leaf is growing old,
    And wears in grace of duty done,
    The gold and scarlet of the sun.
  • Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,
    Like green waves on the sea,
    As still as in the silent deep
    The ocean-woods may be.
  • The trees were gazing up into the sky,
    Their bare arms stretched in prayer for the snows.
  • A temple whose transepts are measured by miles,
    Whose chancel has morning for priest,
    Whose floor-work the foot of no spoiler defiles,
    Whose musical silence no music beguiles,
    No festivals limit its feast.
  • The woods appear
    With crimson blotches deeply dashed and crossed,—
    Sign of the fatal pestilence of Frost.
  • The linden broke her ranks and rent
    The woodbine wreaths that bind her,
    And down the middle buzz! she went
    With all her bees behind her!
    The poplars, in long order due,
    With cypress promenaded,
    The shock-head willows two and two
    By rivers gallopaded.
  • O Love, what hours were thine and mine,
    In lands of palm and southern pine;
    In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,
    Of olive, aloe, and maize, and vine.
  • Sure thou did'st nourish once! and many springs,
    Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers,
    Passed o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings,
    Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers.

    And still a new succession sings and flies;
    Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot
    Towards the old and still-enduring skies;
    While the low violet thrives at their root.
  • In such green palaces the first kings reign'd,
    Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd;
    With such old counsellors they did advise,
    And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.
  • One impulse from a vernal wood
    May teach you more of man,
    Of moral evil and of good,
    Than all the sages can.

The Bible

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  • The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
    • Genesis 1:12.
  • Thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life).
    • Deuteronomy 20:19.
  • In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
    • Ecclesiastes, XI. 3.
  • The tree is known by his fruit.
    • Matthew, XII. 33.
  • Spreading himself like a green bay-tree.
    • Psalms, XXXVII. 35.
  • Happy is the man … his delights is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
    • Psalms 1:1-3.
  • The fruitage of the righteous one is a tree of life, and the one who wins souls is wise.
  • Expectation postponed makes the heart sick, but a desire realized is a tree of life.
  • The angel cried with a loud voice, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees.
    • Revelation 7:3.
  • The trees are coming into leaf
    Like something almost being said;
    The recent buds relax and spread,
    Their greenness is a kind of grief.
    Is it that they are born again
    And we grow old? No, they die too.
    Their yearly trick of looking new
    Is written down in rings of grain.
    Yet still the unresting castles thresh
    In fullgrown thickness every May.
    Last year is dead, they seem to say,
    Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Specific types

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Acacia

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Acacia are also commonly known as wattles.

  • Lightly the breath of the spring wind blows,
Though laden with faint perfume,
'Tis the fragrance rare that the bushman knows,
The scent of the wattle bloom.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 3.
  • A great acacia, with its slender trunk
    And overpoise of multitudinous leaves,
    (In which a hundred fields might spill their dew
    And intense verdure, yet find room enough)
    Stood reconciling all the place with green.
  • Light-leaved acacias, by the door,
    Stood up in balmy air,
    Clusters of blossomed moonlight bore,
    And breathed a perfume rare.
  • Our rocks are rough, but smiling there
    Th' acacia waves her yellow hair,
    Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less
    For flow'ring in a wilderness.

Almond (Prunus dulcis)

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I said to the almond tree: "Speak to me of God"
and the almond tree blossomed. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis
 
Here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis
  • I said to the almond tree: "Speak to me of God."
    and the almond tree blossomed.
  • I heard the bells from the future churches, the children playing and laughing in the schoolyards … and here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. For, by believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired, whatever we have not irrigated with our blood to such a degree that it becomes strong enough to stride across the somber threshold of nonexistence.

Ash (Fraxinus)

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  • The ash her purple drops forgivingly
    And sadly, breaking not the general hush;
    The maple swamps glow like a sunset sea,
    Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush;
    All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze,
    Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days,
    Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush.
    • James Russell Lowell, An Indian-Summer Reverie, Stanza 11, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 45.

Aspen (Populus Tremuloides)

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  • THE quiet of the evening hour
    Was laid on every summer leaf;
    That purple shade was on each flower,
    At once so beautiful, so brief,
    Only the aspen knew not rest,
    But still, with an unquiet song,
    Kept murmuring to the gentle west,
    And cast a changeful shade along.
    • Letitia Elizabeth Landon The London Literary Gazette, 21st August, 1830, 'The Aspen Tree', also published in The Vow of the Peacock, (1835)
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 45.
  • What whispers so strange at the hour of midnight,
    From the aspen leaves trembling so wildly?
    Why in the lone wood sings it sad, when the bright
    Full moon beams upon it so mildly?
  • At that awful hour of the Passion, when the Saviour of the world felt deserted in His agony, when—
    "The sympathizing sun his light withdrew,
    And wonder'd how the stars their dying Lord could view"—
    when earth, shaking with horror, rung the passing bell for Deity, and universal nature groaned, then from the loftiest tree to the lowliest flower all felt a sudden thrill, and trembling, bowed their heads, all save the proud and obdurate aspen, which said, "Why should we weep and tremble? we trees, and plants, and flowers are pure and never sinned!" Ere it ceased to speak, an involuntary trembling seized its very leaf, and the word went forth that it should never rest, but tremble on until the day of judgment.
    • Legend, from Notes and Queries, first series, Volume VI, No. 161.
  • Beneath a shivering canopy reclined,
    Of aspen leaves that wave without a wind,
    I love to lie, when lulling breezes stir
    The spiry cones that tremble on the fir.
  • And the wind, full of wantonness, wooes like a lover
    The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over.
  • Do I? yea, in very truth do I,
    An 'twere an aspen leaf.

Birch (Betula)

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  • Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine,
    Among thy leaves that palpitate forever,
    And in thee, a pining nymph had prisoned
    The soul, once of some tremulous inland river,
    Quivering to tell her woe, but ah! dumb, dumb forever.
    • James Russell Lowell, The Birch Tree, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 70.
  • Prophetess of the spring’s rebirth!
    You show its light to those who mourn,
    Brightening autumn with your mirth.

Cedar (Cedrus)

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Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 91.
  • O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows
    Drowse on the crisp, gray moss.
  • High on a hill a goodly Cedar grewe,
    Of wond'rous length and straight proportion,
    That farre abroad her daintie odours threwe;
    'Mongst all the daughters of proud Libanon,
    Her match in beautie was not anie one.

Cherry (Cerasus)

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  • Sweet is the air with the budding haws, and the valley stretching for miles below
    Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if just covered with lightest snow.
    • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus, Golden Legend, Part IV, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 109.

Chestnut (Castanea Vesca)

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  • When I see the chestnut letting
    All her lovely blossoms falter down, I think,
    "Alas the day!"
    • Jean Ingelow, The Warbling of Blackbirds, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 109.
  • The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold,
    To the faint Summer, beggared now and old,
    Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye.
    • James Russell Lowell, Indian-Summer Reverie, Stanza 10, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 109.

Cypress (Cupressus)

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  • Dark tree! still sad when other's grief is fled,
    The only constant mourner o'er the dead.
    • Lord Byron, Giaour, line 286, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 255.

Elm (Ulmus)

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  • And the great elms o'erhead
    Dark shadows wove on their aërial looms,
    Shot through with golden thread.
  • In crystal vapour everywhere
    Blue isles of heaven laughed between,
    And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
    The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
    From draughts of balmy air.
    • Alfred Tennyson, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 219.

Fig (Ficus)

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  • Close by a rock, of less enormous height,
    Breaks the wild waves, and forms a dangerous strait;
    Full on its crown, a fig's green branches rise,
    And shoot a leafy forest to the skies.
    • Homer, The Odyssey (c. 8th century BC), Book XII, line 125. Pope's translation.
  • So counsel'd he, and both together went
    Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
    The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renowned,
    But such as at this day to Indians known
    In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms,
    Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
    The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
    About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade
    High overarch'd, and echoing walks between.

Fir (Abies)

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Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 272.
  • A lonely fir-tree is standing
    On a northern barren height;
    It sleeps, and the ice and snow-drift
    Cast round it a garment of white.
  • I remember, I remember
    The fir-trees dark and high;
    I used to think their slender tops
    Were close against the sky.
  • a drear-nighted December,
    Too happy, happy tree,
    Thy branches ne'er remember
    Their green felicity.
  • Kindles the gummy bark of fir or pine,
    And sends a comfortable heat from far,
    Which might supply the sun.

Hemlock (Tsuga Canadensis)

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  • O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
    Wie treu sind deine Blätter.
    Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
    Nein, auch im Winter wenn es schneit,
    O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
    Wie treu sind deine Blätter.
    • O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!
      Green not alone in summer time,
      But in the winter's frost and rime!
      O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!
    • August Zarnack's version of Old German Folk Song. Translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Hemlock-Tree; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 365.

Laurel (Laurus Nobilis)

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  • The Como people... went to Lierna, where they were terrified by seeing its inhabitants appear, they hid in the mountain woods, the Como people burned their beautiful tower crowned with green laurel, after having put its defenders to flight away.
    • I Comaschi...andarono sopra Lierna, dove furono terrorizzati dal vedere comparire i suoi abitanti, si nascosero nei boschi delle montagne, i comaschi bruciarono una loro torre bellissima e coronata di Verde alloro, dopo avere posto in fuga i suoi difensori.
  • There you meet Lierna in a fairly spacious redoubt, then the Milk River is revealed by the citizens of the foaming waves; and it is not curious that he does not visit it and that he does not portray it. From a cave the very cold waters leap for 300 metres, almost plumb... Three men in 1383 ventured into the cave from which it flows: after having gone perhaps 6 miles, they got lost; and having wandered for three days, they came out with such fear that they died... and not far away the "Uga" spring, which without ever increasing or diminishing, flows from a cave to spray a laurel pergola (Laurus Nobilis), and to revive the artificial waterfalls of the delicious "Capuana".
    • Ivi incontri Lierna in un ridotto abbastanza spazioso, poi il Fiume Latte è rivelato dalla cittadinanza delle onde spumeggianti; e non è curioso che nol visiti che non ritragga. Da una caverna trabalza per 300 metri quasi a piombo le fredissime acque...Tre uomini nel 1383 si avventurarono nella grotta donde sbocca: inoltratisi per forse 6 miglia, vi si smarrirono ; e vagato tre giorni, uscirono con tale spavento che ne morirono... e poco lungi la fonte "Uga", che senza crescere né scemare mai, sgorga da una grotta a spruzzare un pergolato d'alloro (Laurus Nobilis), e ad avvivare le artifiziali cascate della deliziosa "Capuana". (Ancient Italian)
  • Along the Lake Como perpetual vineyards; then the two small promontories of Vetergnano follow. Not far from those lies Lierna surrounded by a not thankless territory. Its wines are praised for those who suffer from stones and gout, whose taste is pleasantly sharp, making it pleasant to pass by. There is no shortage of olive groves on those fields.
  • LAUREL, n. The 'laurus', a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court. ('Vide supra.')
    • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
  • The laurel-tree grew large and strong,
    Its roots went searching deeply down;
    It split the marble walls of Wrong,
    And blossomed o'er the Despot's crown.
    • Richard Henry Horne, The Laurel Seed; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 439.
  • This flower that smells of honey and the sea,
    White laurustine, seems in my hand to be
    A white star made of memory long ago
    Lit in the heaven of dear times dead to me.

Linden (Tilia)

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  • The linden in the fervors of July
    Hums with a louder concert.
    • William Cullen Bryant, Among the Trees; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 460.
  • If thou lookest on the lime-leaf,
    Thou a heart's form will discover;
    Therefore are the lindens ever
    Chosen seats of each fond lover.
    • Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs, New Spring, No. 31, Stanza 3; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 460.

Maple

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Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 494.
  • The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry,
    Of bugles going by.
  • That was a day of delight and wonder.
    While lying the shade of the maple trees under—
    He felt the soft breeze at its frolicksome play;
    He smelled the sweet odor of newly mown hay.
  • I mark me how today the maples wear
    A look of inward burgeoning, and I feel
    Colours I see not in the naked air,
    Lance-keen, and with the little blue of steel.

Mulberry Tree (Morus)

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  • Retracing our steps to the garden we see two trees which are redolent of the past - a medlar and a mulberry. This last is not a beautiful tree. It covers itself with such dense masses of heavy foliage; its form has neither grace nor dignity - and yet we love it.
  • O, the mulberry-tree is of trees the queen!
    Bare long after the rest are green;
    But as time steals onwards, while none perceives
    Slowly she clothes herself with leaves—
    Hides her fruit under them, hard to find.
    * * * * *
    But by and by, when the flowers grow few
    And the fruits are dwindling and small to view—
    Out she comes in her matron grace
    With the purple myriads of her race;
    Full of plenty from root to crown,
    Showering plenty her feet adown.
    While far over head hang gorgeously
    Large luscious berries of sanguine dye,
    For the best grows highest, always highest,
    Upon the mulberry-tree.
    • Dinah Craik, The Mulberry-Tree, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 534.

Oak (Quercus)

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  • What stories shared between these gnarled trees,
    What secrets shared twixt these and smiling breeze
    Softly singing, “So much more left to see…”
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 563.
  • A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
    Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
    Here's health and renown to his broad green crown,
    And his fifty arms so strong.
    There's fear in his frown when the Sun goes down,
    And the fire in the West fades out;
    And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,
    When the storms through his branches shout.
  • The oak, when living, monarch of the wood;
    The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.
  • Old noted oak! I saw thee in a mood
    Of vague indifference; and yet with me
    Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood
    For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea
    Of grass that waves around thee!
 
The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees.
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state; and in three more decays.
John Dryden
  • The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
    Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees.
    Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
    Supreme in state; and in three more decays.
  • Tall oaks from little acorns grow.
  • The oaks with solemnity shook their heads;
    The twigs of the birch-trees, in token
    Of warning, nodded,—and I exclaim'd:
    "Dear Monarch, forgive what I've spoken!"
  • Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
    Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
    Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.
  • The tall Oak, towering to the skies,
    The fury of the wind defies,
    From age to age, in virtue strong.
    Inured to stand, and suffer wrong.
  • There grewe an aged tree on the greene;
    A goodly Oake sometime had it bene,
    With armes full strong and largely displayed,
    But of their leaves they were disarayde
    The bodie bigge, and mightely pight,
    Thoroughly rooted, and of wond'rous hight;
    Whilome had bene the king of the field,
    And mochell mast to the husband did yielde,
    And with his nuts larded many swine:
    But now the gray mosse marred his rine;
    His bared boughes were beaten with stormes,
    His toppe was bald, and wasted with wormes,
    His honour decayed, his braunches sere.
Peabody Museum of Salem
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  • Our Mountains are cover'd with Imperial Oak
    Whose Roots, like our liberties, ages have nourished
    But long e're our Nation submits to the Yoke
    Not a Tree shall be left on the Field where it Flourished
    Should Invasion impend, every Tree would defend
    From the Hill tops they shaded, our Shores to defend
    For ne'er shall the Sons of Columbia be Slaves
    While the Earth bears a Plant, or the Sea rolls its Waves.
    • Caption from a bowl made in Liverpool, for export to the US

Palm (Arecaceae)

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Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 577.
  • As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall,
    The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall.
  • First the high palme-trees, with braunches faire,
    Out of the lowly vallies did arise,
    And high shoote up their heads into the skyes.
  • Next to thee, O fair gazelle,
    O Beddowee girl, beloved so well;

    Next to the fearless Nedjidee,
    Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee;

    Next to ye both I love the Palm,
    With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm;

    Next to ye both I love the Tree
    Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three
    With love, and silence, and mystery!
  • Of threads of palm was the carpet spun
    Whereon he kneels when the day is done,
    And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!

    To him the palm is a gift divine,
    Wherein all uses of man combine,—
    House and raiment and food and wine!

    And, in the hour of his great release,
    His need of the palms shall only cease
    With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace.

    "Allah il Allah!" he sings his psalm,
    On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm;
    "Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!"
  • What does the good ship bear so well?
    The cocoa-nut with its stony shell,
    And the milky sap of its inner cell.

Pine (Pinus)

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Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 563.
  • Shaggy shade
    Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp
    Nods to the storm.
    • Lord Byron, The Prophecy of Dante, Canto II, line 63.
  • 'Twas on the inner bark, stripped from the pine,
    Our father pencilled this epistle rare;
    Two blazing pine knots did his torches shine,
    Two braided pallets formed his desk and chair.
  • As sunbeams stream through liberal space
    And nothing jostle or displace,
    So waved the pine-tree through my thought
    And fanned the dreams it never brought.
  • Like two cathedral towers these stately pines
    Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;
    The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
    Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
    And carved this graceful arabasque of vines;
    No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
    No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones,
    No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.
    Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves,
    Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!
    Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,
    In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,
    Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,
    And learn there may be worship without words.
  • Under the yaller pines I house,
    When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,
    An' hear among their furry boughs
    The baskin' west-wind purr contented.
  • To archèd walks of twilight groves,
    And shadows brown that Sylvan loves,
    Of pine.
  • Here also grew the rougher rinded pine,
    The great Argoan ship's brave ornament.
  • Ancient Pines,
    Ye bear no record of the years of man.
    Spring is your sole historian.
  • Stately Pines,
    But few more years around the promontory
    Your chant will meet the thunders of the sea.

Poplar (Populus Fastigiata)

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  • We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed
    The white of their leaves, the amber grain
    Shrunk in the wind,—and the lightning now
    Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.
    • Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Before the Rain, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 655.
  • Trees that, like the poplar, hit upward all their boughs, give no shade and no shelter, whatever their height. Trees the most lovingly shelter and shade us, when, like the willow, the higher soar their summits, the lowlier droop their boughs.

Tulip-Tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera)

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  • Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine—
    'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by the vine.
    • William Cullen Bryant, A Strange Lady, Stanza 6; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 823.
  • The tulip-tree, high up,
    Opened, in airs of June, her multitude
    Of golden chalices to humming birds
    And silken-winged insects of the sky.
    • William Cullen Bryant, The Fountain, Stanza 3; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 823.

Umbellularia

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  • The Spice-Tree lives in the garden green,
    Beside it the fountain flows;
    And a fair Bird sits the boughs between,
    And sings his melodious woes.
    * * * * * *
    That out-bound stem has branches three;
    On each a thousand blossoms grow;
    And old as aught of time can be,
    The root stands fast in the rocks below.

Willow (Salix)

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Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 872.
  • Willow, in thy breezy moan,
    I can hear a deeper tone;
    Through thy leaves come whispering low,
    Faint sweet sounds of long ago—
    Willow, sighing willow!
  • All a green willow, willow,
    All a green willow is my garland.
  • The willow hangs with sheltering grace
    And benediction o'er their sod,
    And Nature, hushed, assures the soul
    They rest in God.
  • Near the lake where drooped the willow,
    Long time ago.
  • We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
    • Psalms. CXXXVII. 2.
  • Know ye the willow-tree,
    Whose grey leaves quiver,
    Whispering gloomily
    To yon pale river?

    Lady, at even-tide
    Wander not near it:
    They say its branches hide
    A sad, lost spirit!

Yew (Taxus)

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Main article: Yew

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 921.
  • Careless, unsocial plant! that loves to dwell
    'Midst skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms:
    Where light-heel'd ghosts and visionary shades,
    Beneath the wan, cold Moon (as Fame reports)
    Embodied, thick, perform their mystic rounds.
    No other merriment, dull tree! is thine.
  • For there no yew nor cypress spread their gloom
    But roses blossom'd by each rustic tomb.
  • Of vast circumference and gloom profound,
    This solitary Tree! A living thing
    Produced too slowly ever to decay;
    Of form and aspect too magnificent
    To be destroyed.
  • There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
    Which to this day stands single, in the midst
    Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore.

See also

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