"WHAT is a tree?"

In all the time we've spent planting, growing, admiring, chopping and sawing nature's greatest gift, it had never occurred to us to stop and ask that very question. Until now. 

Let's start with what we know, shall we? Trees are (often) tall, sturdy, and, with the kind of ease that can still mystify, able to withstand some of the world's toughest conditions.

They've been around since long before the Romans and the Greeks (the world's oldest living tree is believed to be around 5,000-years-old), long before we started putting them in our living rooms and dressing them up with tinsel, and even longer before this journal ever existed. They provide us with essential supplies – least of all timber, fruit, and nuts – and are key to the modern day's climate change fight, such is their natural capacity for sequestering carbon. 

READ MORE: National Amenity Arboriculture Conference: UK’s biggest arb conference returns

Trees come in all shapes and sizes, are as much at home in 'the wild' as they are in our urban environment (assuming they're properly cared for, which is never guaranteed), and they provide shade from the sun and shelter when it rains. 

The temptation here, of course, is to go on and on, slowly descending into the kind of talk you'd likely hear in the dying embers of that after party you know you should have declined, but felt obliged to tag along to at the mention of free Hooch (other drink choices are available). But we'll stop for now. 

Put it this way, we think we know our trees as well as a farmer knows his sheep ... but do we really? 

On Monday, some light may finally be shed on the topic when, after a two-year wait, the 55th National Amenity Arboriculture Conference gets underway in England. Out to answer that very question that kicked off today's newsletter, it promises to be an insightful few days in Loughborough. 

A lineup of 21 speakers will explore the tree’s significance, both as part of a wider ecosystem and as an ecosystem in its own right. The topics are as varied as they are interesting.

Take Nanamhla Gwedla's 'The legacy of colonial and apartheid eras on the distribution, composition and representation of street trees in South Africa' or 'The role of trees in belief, culture and tradition in Biak, Papua' by Paul Mandibondibo; we've done a lot of thinking about trees over the years, but we doubt we've ever put either of those combination of words together. 

We can't say we know definitely what a tree is, but we'll say this: they are so much more than the roots in the ground or timber at a sawmill. 

This piece is an extract from today’s Forestry Latest News newsletter, which is emailed out at 4PM every Friday with a round-up of the week's top stories. 

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