Tree Rings Quotes

The wood of any tree growing anywhere records fairly faithfully the oxygen and hydrogen chemistry of the water the plant has access to through precipitation.

When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured.

I never see a forest that does not bear a mark or a sign of history.

I was interested in variations in temperatures of the oceans over the past millennium. But there are no records of these changes so I had to find proxy measures: coral growth, ice cores and tree rings.

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree; For sure then I should grow To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust Her household to me, and I should be just.

Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end - tonight's moon

A dead tree, cut into planks and read from one end to the other, is a kind of line graph, with dates down one side and height along the other, as if trees, like mathematicians, had found a way of turning time into form.

In trees, I see expression and soul

Gigantic second and third growth trees are found in the redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles around charred ruins more than a thousand years old.

Old reference books are like tree rings. Without them, there'd be no way to know what a tree had lived through.

I find that when you read a script, or rewrite something, or look at something that's been gone over, you can tell, like rings on a tree, by how bad it is, how long it's been in development.

Trees for example, carry the memory of rainfal. In their rings we read ancient weather - storms, sunlight and temperatures, the growing seasons of centuries. A forest shares a history which each tree remembers even after it has been felled.

I like the way that the history of the tree shapes the tree. There's no distinction between the tree and its history. You can lose yourself in that thought.