City at the Water's Edge: A Natural History of New York

Chapter 8: Forests for Trees

8 F o r e s t s f o r T r e e s The wooded hill stood in the middle of a leafy suburban New Jersey development . On a beautiful Sunday in September I drove through the neighborhood , enjoying the play of sunlight through the tall trees that shaded the lawns and ranch-style houses. I parked my car in a cul-de-sac at the foot of the hill and got out. I had volunteered to help conduct a census of woody flora in the New York City region for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Native Flora Project, and I had been assigned a grid in New Jersey. My topographical map showed a place named Bunker Hill. Introducing myself to an elderly man who was raking leaves, I told him my purpose and asked about the trees on the hill. He was interested to know that I was doing a survey for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and informed me that he and his neighbors were fighting to preserve the hill from development, trying to get it designated a national historical landmark. “It’s the site of a battle dating to the Revolutionary War,” he claimed. His voice quivered with passion. “Already the developers are clearin’ tracts and startin’ to build. It’s a desecration! Those trees have been undisturbed since the Revolution.”1 Once he mentioned the trees, I became excited. My heart beating fast, I trekked up the hill and entered the stand of trees. Tall straight trunks of pignut hickories towered over me, sunlight filtering through their crowns onto the woodland floor, where a few gray squirrels gathered hickory nuts in the thick leafy humus. No understory grew beneath these trees, indicating their age; pignut hickories mature at two hundred years and can live up to four hundred years. Now I understood the tone of reverence in the neighbor ’s voice, and his passionate desire to preserve this remnant habitat. For me, its historical significance was in its pedigree as old native woodland. I walked to the crest of the hill, where I saw the source of the old man’s distress. A road had been cut through the woodland, and acres already cleared for houses. One house was half constructed. Closer to my home, in the heart of Prospect Park, a tattered pocket of old native woodland hangs on, despite the encroachment of exotic species like Norway and sycamore maples that easily take root in the compacted soil. The oldest trees stand in a twenty-acre section of Midwood, between Battle Pass and Binnenwater, where oaks, tulip trees, hickories, black birches, and sweet gums shade the woodland floor. During the Revolutionary War, most of the trees were cut for firewood or cleared for crops to provision the British troops who bivouacked here, but it’s possible a few were spared the ax. Hickory was especially prized for its quality as firewood and charcoal briquettes that were used to smoke meats. My husband Joe and I have birded here many times with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden bird group, led for many years by bird artist John Yrizarry, who grew up near the park and birded the area for fifty-plus years. Our birding forays always took us into the Midwood section, 1 1 2 C i t y a t t h e W a t e r ’ s E d g e Fig. 8.1. Cally, after Bessa, Pancrace, Pignut Hickory (Juglans porcina), stipple engraving. From The North American Sylva; or, A Description of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada , and Nova Scotia, 1841–49. (Courtesy of General Research Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Image #1263369.) where we were likely to find rich bird life in the densely wooded area. Always the raconteur, John would entertain us with tree stories as well as bird lore. Every time we passed a particular spot, he would tell us of the great oak that stood there for as long as he could remember, and according to legend bore the scar of a bullet fired in the Revolutionary War. He mourned the year that oak came crashing down—a fatality of a storm—taking a piece of history with it. What explains our reverence for old trees, and our sadness at their fall? Is it that they mark time, living beyond our individual lives, and connect us to...