Tree shaping

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Tree shaping is the practice of training living trees and other woody plants into artistic shapes and useful structures. The art is also known as tree training, arborsculpture, Pooktre and several other names. It is a form of living sculpture, sharing a common heritage with other artistic horticultural and agricultural practices, such as bonsai, espalier, and topiary, and employing some similar techniques. A unique and distinguishing feature evident in many (but not all) examples of the work is the purposeful inosculation of living trunks, branches, and roots to form artistic designs or functional structures.

Practitioners choose from among various compliant species and an evolving array of design options, techniques, and tools to control and direct living wood, both above and below ground; perhaps bending, pleaching, weaving, twisting, braiding, grafting, framing, molding, controlling light, or pruning to create a project.

Tree shaping has been practiced for at least several hundred years, as demonstrated by the living root bridges built and maintained by the Khasi people of India. Early 20th century practitioners and artisans included banker John Krubsack, Axel Erlandson with his famous circus trees, and landscape engineer Arthur Wiechula. Contemporary designers include artists Peter Cook and Becky Northey, who call their work "Pooktre", arborist Richard Reames, who coined the term "arborsculpture", and furniture designer Dr. Chris Cattle, who uses the phrase "grownup furniture".

History

The classic Husband and Wife tree; a beech with branches conjoined

Some species of woody plants exhibit a botanical phenomenon known as inosculation (or self-grafting); whether among parts of a single specimen tree or between two or more individual specimens of the same (or very similar) species. Trees exhibiting this behavior are called inosculate trees.[1] Many contemporary designers of living wood trace their initial inspiration to having seen natural occurrences of this phenomenon.

The earliest known surviving examples of purposeful, human-made inosculation are the living root bridges of Cherrapunji, Laitkynsew, and Nongriat, in the present-day Meghalaya state of northeast India. These suspension bridges are handmade from the aerial roots of living banyan fig trees, such as the rubber plant. The pliable tree roots are gradually trained to grow across a gap, weaving in sticks, stones, and other inclusions, until they take root on the other side. There are specimens spanning over 100 feet. The useful lifespan of the bridges, once complete, is thought to be 500–600 years. They are naturally self-renewing and self-strengthening as the component roots grow thicker.[2][3]

Pleaching is a very old horticultural practice of plashing and weaving together of living branches and twigs. It is most commonly used to train trees into raised hedges, though other shapes are easily developed. Useful implementations include fences, lattices, roofs, and walls.[1][4] Some of the outcomes of pleaching can be considered an early form of what is known today as tree shaping. In an early, labor-intensive, practical use of pleaching in medieval Europe, trees were installed in the ground in parallel hedgerow lines or quincunx patterns, then shaped by trimming to form a flat-plane grid above ground level. When the trees' branches in this grid met those of neighboring trees, they were grafted together. Once the network of joints were of substantial size, planks were laid across the grid, upon which they built huts to live in, thus keeping the human settlement safe in times of annual flooding.[1] Wooden dancing platforms were also built and the living tree branch grid bore the weight of the platform and dancers.[5]

In late medieval European gardens through the 18th century, pleached allées, interwoven canopies of tree-lined garden avenues, were common. The ornamental craft of topiary, the agricultural craft of espalier, and the arboricultural craft of tree shaping all may have developed from the utilitarian practice of pleaching.

Structural advantages

Living grown structures are more resistant to decay than harvested ones or those constructed of lumber. [citation needed] While there are some decay organisms that can rot live wood from the outside, and though living trees can carry decayed and decaying heartwood inside them; in general, living trees decay from the inside out and dead wood decays from the outside in.[6] Living wood tissue, particularly sapwood, wields a very potent defense against decay from either direction, known as compartmentalization. This protection is stronger in some species than it is in others, but once wood is harvested it is dead and this defense dies with it. Grown structures also have several mechanical structural advantages when compared to structures built using artificial joints and joinery.[4]

Design options

Becky's Mirror by Pooktre

Designs may include abstract, symbolic, or functional elements. Some shapes crafted and grown are purely artistic; perhaps cubes, circles, or letters of an alphabet, while other designs might yield any of a wide variety of useful implements, such as clothes hangers,[7] laundry and wastepaper bins,[7] ladders,[8] furniture,[9] tools, and tool handles. Eye-catching structures such as living fences and jungle gyms[8] can also be grown, and even large architectural designs such as live archways, domes,[9] gazebos,[8] tunnels, rooms, and entire homes [10] are possible with careful planning, planting, and culturing over time.[5] The Human Ecology Design team (H.E.D.) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is designing homes that can be grown from native trees in a variety of climates.[11]

Suitable trees are installed according to design specifications and then cultured over time into intended structures. Some designs may use only living, growing wood to form the structures, while others might also incorporate inclusions such as glass, mirror, steel and stone, any of which might be used either as either structural or aesthetic elements. These can be positioned in a project as it is grown and, depending on the design, may either be removed when no longer needed for support or left in place to become fixed inclusions in the growing tissue.


Plant maturity options

Young tree shaping may start with designing and framing.[12][13] Once these are set up, young seedlings or saplings[14]: 4  3–12 in. (7.6–30.5 cm) long[12][13] are planted and then gradually trained to form the framed shape.[15] New growth may require weekly or day-to-day guidance along the predetermined design pathways.[citation needed]

Established tree shaping starts with more mature trees, perhaps 6–12 ft. (2–3.6 m) long[16]: 196  and 3-4in (7.6–10 cm) in trunk diameter, [16]: 172  which are bent into the desired design and held until cast. Understanding a tree's fluid dynamics is important to achieving the desired result.[17]: 69 

Species options

In a given region, any disease and insect resistant species that grow well there, especially thin-barked species that commonly inosculate in nature might be good candidates for shaping. Each species has its own quirks, which can be understood with time and experience.[18] These trees are known to inosculate naturally:

Techniques

A variety of horticultural, arboricultural, and artistic techniques may be used to craft an intended design. Many are experimental techniques involving ongoing research.[16]: 154  [10] Most projects start with an idea of the intended outcome and while some begin with detailed designs and drawings,[14] : 7  [23] others might be suggested by the existing features of an established plant.[17] : 56–57 

Aeroponic culture

Artist's sketch of a chair formed by shaping aeroponically grown roots.

The oldest known living examples of woody plant shaping are the aeroponically cultured living root bridges built by the ancient War-Khasi people of the Cherrapunjee region in India. These are being maintained and further developed today by the people of that region. Aeroponic growing was first formally studied by W. Carter in 1942, before the process had an English language name. Carter researched air culture growing and described "a method of growing plants in water vapor to facilitate examination of roots".[26] Later researchers, including L. J Klotz and G. G. Trowel, expanded on his work,.[27] In 1957, F. W. Went described "the process of growing plants with air-suspended roots and applying a nutrient mist to the root section," and in it he coined the word 'aeroponics' to describe that process. In 2008, root researcher and craftsman Ezekiel Golan described and secured a patent for a process which allows the roots of some aeroponically grown woody plants to lengthen and thicken while still remaining flexible. At lengths of perhaps 6 metres (20 ft) or more, the soft roots can be formed into pre-determined shapes which will continue thickening after the shapes are formed and as they continue to grow.[28] Newer techniques and applications, such as eco-architecture, may allow architects to design, grow, and form large permanent structures, such as homes, by shaping aeroponically grown plants and their roots.[10]

Approach Grafting

Approach grafting is a common technique of this craft; exploiting the natural biological process of inosculation. An approach graft is effected by precisely wounding two or more sections of bark and then binding the wounded parts together securely while they grow together. Physically joining two branches from one plant together, or branches from two plants with each other, can cause the vascular cambium of one branch to join with that of the other on extended contact. As new layers of wood form at each point of contact, living wood swells the design and perpetuates the intended shapes. The primary purpose of causing such a joint, in this craft, is to cause branches to fuse and form a design.

Bending

Bending is sometimes used to achieve a design.[17] If a plant's tissue is bent at too sharp an angle it may break, which can be mostly avoided by un-localizing the bend. This is achieved by making small bends along the curve of the tree. Bends are then held in place for several years until their form is permanently cast.[17] : 80  The tree's rate of growth determines the time necessary to overcome its resistance to the initial bending.[16]: 178  The work of bending and securing in this way might be accomplished in an hour or perhaps in an afternoon depending on the design.[citation needed]

Creasing

Creasing is folding trees such as willow and poplar over upon themselves, creating a right angle, This method is a more radical then bending.[16]: 80 

Framing

Framing may be used for various purposes and might consist of any one or a combination of several materials, such as timber, steel, tubes made of hollow plant parts, complex wire designs[23], wooden jigs, [15]or the shaped woody plant itself.[16]: 178  It can be used in many project designs to support grafted joints until the grafts are well-established. Some projects might employ framing to hold a shape created by bending or fletching mature wood until the wood tissues have overcome their resistance to the initial bending and grown enough annual rings to cast the design permanently.[16] Others might use framing to support and shape the growth of young saplings until they are strong enough to maintain an intended shape without support. Still other approaches might employ frames to guide the roots of aeroponically grown woody plants into desired patterns.

Pruning

Pruning can be used to balance a design by controlling and directing growth into a desired shape. Pruning above a leaf node can steer plant growth in the direction of the natural placement of that leaf bud. Pruning may also be used to keep a design free of unwanted branches and to reduce canopy size. Pruning is sometimes the only technique used to craft a project. Deciduous trees are mainly pruned in winter, while they are dormant above-ground, although sometimes it is necessary to prune them during the growing season. Trees repeatedly subjected to hard pruning may experience stunted growth, and some trees may not survive this treatment.

Ring barking

Ring barking is sometimes employed to help balance a design by slowing the growth of too-vigorous branches or stopping the growth of inopportunely placed branches, using different degrees of ring barking, from simple scoring to complete removal of a 3/8"-wide (1 cm) band of bark.[17]: 57, 69 

Time component

Two Leg Tree by Axel Erlandson

The time needed to grow and construct a project depends on many variables, including the size of targeted trees, the growth rate of species chosen for the design, the intended design height, the combination of design options chosen, the individual cultivation details, the local climate conditions, and the specific techniques used.

It is possible to perform initial bending and grafting on a project in an hour, as with Peace in Cherry by Richard Reames,[17]: 56–57 [16]: 193  removing supports in as little as a year and following up with minimal pruning thereafter.[19] As little as one season of guiding growth might be enough to form a design, and then longer for the wood to grow and thicken to the desired size. A project might be intended for immediate harvest and drying at design maturity, or instead might remain permanently installed in its original medium for the life of the trees and beyond. Larger designs may take a few to several years to achieve design height and perhaps several more years for the wood caliper to increase to the desired size.

For example, a chair design might take 8 to 10 years to reach maturity[29] and might then either remain growing, as with the living Pooktre garden chair, or perhaps be harvested as a finished work, as with Krubsak's The Chair that Lived. Some component specimens may not grow or survive precisely as planned, so some pieces and even the designs themselves may require adjustment to accommodate the lost components. Taller architectural projects, such as Two Leg Tree by Axel Erlandson, may require 10 years of growth or more to accomplish even the first grafting.[citation needed] Eventually, they all die, since each living tree has a lifespan.

Tools

Various materials and tools may be used for creating, shaping, or even molding a project design. For example, a metal patio bench could be used as a design pattern. Lumber, pipe, rope, wire, string, yarn, twine, wire rope, rocks, sandbags, or other weighting objects, tape, and any number of other materials might be useful in effecting the design outcome. Some of the same tools that arborists, bonsai artists, gardeners, and other horticulturists use, are useful here as well, including hand pruners (secateurs), pruning knives, saws, and shovels for planting. Shears and hedge trimmers are used less commonly, being perhaps better suited for establishment and foliage maintenance of topiary or sheared hedges.

Chronology of notable practitioners

Some contemporary artists were aware of and inspired by earlier artists, while others have discovered and developed their art independently.

War-Khasi people

The ancient War-Khasi people of India worked with the aerial roots of native banyan fig trees, adapting them to create footbridges over watercourses. Modern people of the Cherrapunjee region carry on this traditional building craft. Roots selected for bridge spans are supported and guided in darkness as they are being formed, by threading long, thin, supple banyan roots through tubes made from hollowed-out trunks of woody grasses. Preferred species for the tubes are either bamboo or areca palm, or 'kwai' in Khasi, which they cultivate for areca nuts. The Khasi incorporate aerial roots from overhanging trees to form support spans and safety handrails. Some bridges can carry fifty or more people at once. At least one example, over the Umshiang stream, is a double-decker bridge. They can take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional and are expected to last up to 600 years.[2][30]

John Krubsack

John Krubsack was an American banker and farmer from Embarrass, Wisconsin. He shaped and grafted the first known grown chair, harvesting it in 1914. He lived from 1858 to 1941. He had studied tree grafting and become a skilled found-wood furniture crafter.[20] The idea first came to him to grow his own chair during a weekend wood-hunting excursion with his son.

He started box elder seeds in 1903, selecting and planting either 28[20] or 32[21] of the saplings in a carefully designed pattern in the spring of 1907.[20] In the spring of 1908, the trees had grown to six feet tall and he began training them along a trellis, grafting the branches at critical points to form the parts of his chair.[20] In 1913, he cut all the trees except those forming the legs, which he left to grow and increase in diameter for another year, before harvesting and drying the chair in 1914; eleven years after he started the box elder seeds.[20] Dubbed The Chair that Lived; it is the only known tree shaping that John Krubsack did.[20][21] The chair is on permanent display in a Plexiglas case at the entrance of Noritage Furniture; the furniture manufacturing business now owned by Krubsack's descendants, Steve and Dennis Krubsack.[16]

Axel Erlandson

Axel Erlandson was a Swedish American farmer who started training trees as a hobby on his farm in Hilmar, California, in 1925. He was inspired by observing a natural sycamore inosculation in his hedgerow.[1] In 1945, he moved his family and the best of his trees from Hilmar to Scotts Valley, California and in 1947,[16] opened an horticultural attraction called the Tree Circus.

Erlandson lived from 1884 to 1964; training more than 70 trees during his lifetime. He considered his methods trade secrets and when asked how he made his trees do this, he would only reply, "I talk to them."[14] His work appeared in the column of Ripley's Believe It or Not! twelve times.[31] 24 trees from his original garden have survived transplanting to their permanent home at Gilroy Gardens in Gilroy, California. His Telephone Booth Tree is on permanent display at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland[11] and his Birch Loop tree is on permanent display at the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, California. Both of these are preserved dead specimens.

Arthur Wiechula

19th century botanical sketch by Arthur Wiechula of inosculated branches

Arthur Wiechula was a German landscape engineer who lived from 1868 to 1941. In 1926, he published Wachsende Häuser aus lebenden Bäumen entstehend (Developing Houses from Living Trees) in German.[19][32] In it, he gave detailed illustrated descriptions of houses grown from trees and described simple building techniques involving guided grafting together of live branches; including a system of v-shaped lateral cuts used to bend and curve individual trunks and branches in the direction of a design, with reaction wood soon closing the wounds to hold the curves.[33] He proposed growing wood so that it constituted walls during growth, thereby enabling the use of young wood for building.[33] Weichula never built a living home, but he grew a 394' wall of Canadian poplars to help keep the snow off of a section of train tracks.[19] His illustrated ideas have inspired many other artists' designs.

David Nash

David Nash is a British sculptor, born in 1945 and based in Blaenau Ffestiniog, in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. He is perhaps best known for his sculptures incorporating living elements. In 1977 he installed Ash Dome, 22 ash trees planted in a ring on his property, near his home at Cae'n-y-coed in north Wales. Nearly 30 years later, the work was just taking on the domed form that he had planned for and intended when he first began.[34][35] In 1985, Nash began work on Divided Oaks, an installation involving some 600 pre-existing trees which he saved from demolition, in a park at the Kröller-Müller Museum, in Otterlo, in The Netherlands. Nash treated these trees with a technique he calls "fletching," which is a term generally used to refer to the structures added to a projectile to improve its flight, such as feathers added for aerodynamic stabilization of an arrow or dart, or fins on a rocket. He simply pushed over and staked down the very small trees. He cut out a series of V-shapes for the larger ones, bent them over, and then wrapped them so the cambium layer could heal over. This stimulated compensating tissue growth in the bent and wounded trees, which are now growing and curving upwards.[35]

Dan Ladd

Dan Ladd is an American artist who works with trees and gourds. He is based in Florida,[11] He began experimenting with glass, china, and metal inclusions in trees in 1977 in Vermont and started planting trees for Extreme Nature in 1978.[22] He became inspired by inosculation he noticed in nature and by the growth of tree trunks around man-made objects such as fences and idle farm equipment.[22] He shapes and grafts trees, including their fruits and their roots, into architectural and geometric forms.[22] Ladd calls human-initiated inosculation 'pleaching' and calls his own work 'tree sculpture'.[22] Ladd binds a variety of objects to trees, for live wood to grow around and be incorporated, including teacups, bicycle wheels, headstones, steel spheres, water piping, and electrical conduit.[22] He guides roots into shapes, such as stairs, using above-ground wooden and concrete forms and even shapes woody, hard-shelled Lagenaria gourds by allowing them to grow into detailed molds.[36][37] A current project at the DeCordova and Dana Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts incorporates eleven American Liberty Elm trees grafted next to each other to form a long hillside stair banister. Another of his installations, Three Arches, consists of three pairs of 14-foot sycamore trees, which he grafted into arches to frame different city views, at Frank Curto Park in Pittsburgh.[11][38]

Nirandr Boonnetr

Nirandr Boonnetr is a Thai furniture designer and crafter. He became inspired as a child, both by a photograph of some unusually twisted coconut palms in southern Thailand and by a living fallen tree he noticed, which had grown new branches along its trunk, forming a kind of canopied bridge.[16] His hobby began in 1980 because of his concern the Thailand forests are being ravaged by woodcarvers to the point that one day the industry would eventually carve itself out of existence.[39] He began his first piece, a guava chair, around 1983.[16] Originally intended as something for his children to climb and play on, the piece evolved into a living tree chair.[16]: 91  In fifteen years he created six pieces of "living furniture," [39] including five chairs and a table. The Bangkok Post dubbed him the father of Living Furniture.[16][40] Shortly thereafter, he presented a chair as a gift to her Royal Highness, Princess Sirindhorn. Nirandr Boonnetr has written a detailed, step-by-step booklet of instructions hoping his hobby of living furniture will spread to other countries.[39] One of his chairs was exhibited in the Growing Village pavilion at the World's Fair Expo 2005 in Nagakute, Aichi, Japan.

Peter Cook and Becky Northey

Person tree, by Pooktre.

Peter Cook and Becky Northey are Australian artists who live in South East Queensland. Peter Cook became inspired to grow a chair in 1987, after visiting three figs trees in a remote corner of his property.[41][42] He started the next day, with 7 willow cuttings.[42] In 1988, he planted a wattle intended for harvest as a potted plant stand.[41] Becky Northey moved to Peter's property in 1995 and the two formed Pooktre.[43]

Their methods involve guiding a tree's growth along predetermined wired design pathways over long time periods.[29] They shape growing trees both for living outdoor art and for intentional harvest. They most often use Myrobalan Plum for shaping.[24][25] Examples of their functional artwork include a growing garden table, a harvested coffee table, hat stands, mirrors, and a gemstone neck piece.

Peter and Becky exhibited eight of their creations, including two that were trained to grow into the shapes of humans, in the Growing Village pavilion at the World's Fair Expo 2005 in Nagakute, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.[44] Their work was published in the annual book series, Ripley's Believe It or Not.[45]

Richard Reames

An arborsculpture by Richard Reames entitled Peace in Cherry, depicting the CND logo

Richard Reames is an American arborsculptor[46] based in Williams, Oregon, where he manages a nursery, botanical garden, and design studio collectively named Arborsmith Studios.[47][48] He was inspired by the works of Axel Erlandson,[17]: 16 [16]: 150 [49] and began sculpting trees in 1991[50] or 1992.[51] By 2007, he had grown over 100 pieces, including chairs and other furniture, sculptures, fences, tool handles, and mailboxes.[50] He began his first experimental grown chairs[17]: 57  in the spring of 1993.[17]: 85 

In 1995, Reames wrote and published his first book, How to Grow a Chair: The Art of Tree Trunk Topiary. In it, he coined the word arborsculpture.[17]

In 2005, he published his second book, Arborsculpture: Solutions for a Small Planet.[16] His current experimental projects include six plantings intended in 2006 to grow into habitable homes within perhaps ten years. Construction of living buildings is a design process he calls arbortecture.[50][52] Reames believes that people could, within one generation, be "living in houses where the walls and ceilings are composed of living tree material and there are leaves coming out of the roof."[52] He envisions that living buildings would produce wood, fruit, and flowers to support their occupants and that live wood would grow around windows, doorways, plumbing, and electrical conduits; treating them all as inclusions by engulfing and incorporating them.[50][52] He currently lectures worldwide and teaches arborsculpture at the John C. Campbell Folk School.[47]

Christopher Cattle

A grown stool in sycamore by Dr. Chris Cattle

Dr. Christopher Cattle is a retired furniture design professor from England.[53] He started his first planting of furniture in 1996.[15] According to Cattle, he developed an idea to train and graft trees to grow into shapes, which came to him in the late 1970s,[54] in response to questions from students asking how to build furniture using less energy.[53] Using various species of trees and wooden jigs to shape them,[12] he has grown 15 three-legged stools to completion.[citation needed]

Cattle has multiple plantings in at least four different locations in England. He participates in woodland and craft shows in England and at the Big Tent at Falkland Palace in Scotland. He exhibited his grown stools at the World's Fair Expo 2005 in the Growing Village pavilion at Nagakute, Japan.[53]

He aims to encourage as many people as possible to grow their own furniture,[11][54] and envisions that, "One day, furniture factories could be replaced by furniture orchards."[11] Cattle calls his works grown up furniture[53] and grown stools,[55] but also refers to them as grown furniture, calling them "the result of mature thinking."[53]

Mr. Wu

Mr. Wu is a Chinese pensioner[56] who designs and crafts furniture in Shenyang, Liaoning, China.[56][57] He has patented his technique of growing wooden chairs and as of 2005, had designed, grown, and harvested one chair, in 2004, and had six more growing in his garden.[57] Wu uses young elm trees,[58] which he says are pliant and do not break easily.[57] He also says that it takes him about five years to grow a tree chair.[56]

Related practices

Other artistic horticultural practices such as bonsai, espalier, and topiary share some elements and a common heritage, though a number of distinctions may be identified.

Bonsai

Bonsai is the art of growing trees in containers. Bonsai uses techniques such as pruning, root reduction, and grafting to produce small trees that mimic mature, full-sized trees. Bonsai is not intended for production of useful implements or food, but instead mainly for contemplation by viewers, like most fine art.[59] It is possible to craft a miniature Tree shaping in a bonsai pot and keep it tiny, but if it were intended to be eventually harvested, for example as food, that would contrast with the true nature of bonsai.[60]

Espalier

Espalier is the horticultural practice of shaping trees for fruit production by pruning and/or grafting branches so that they grow relatively flat, frequently in formal patterns, against a structure such as a wall, fence, or trellis.[61] The practice is commonly used to accelerate and increase production in fruit-bearing trees and also to decorate flat exterior walls while conserving space.[61]

Topiary

Topiary is the horticultural practice of sculpturing live trees, by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees and shrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes,[62] often geometric or fanciful. The hedge is a simple form of topiary used to create boundaries, walls or screens. Topiary always involves regular shearing and shaping of foliage to maintain the shape.

Other names

Throughout its history, various names have been used to describe this artform. There are very few practitioners around the world, each with their own name for their techniques.[citation needed] The result has been no standard name for the artform to emerge.[neutrality is disputed][44][unreliable source?] Richard Reames refers to it as arborsculpture.[17]: 14  [51] : 120  The following names are the most commonly encountered:

[80][81]

Tree shaping in fiction and art.

Throughout history humans have portrayed their wish to mold nature to their fancy.

In 1516, Jean Perréal painted an allegorical image,[50] la complainte de nature à l'alchimiste errant, (The Lament of Nature to the Wandering Alchemist), in which a winged figure with arms crossed, representing Nature, sits on a tree stump with a fire burning in its base, conversing with an alchemist in an ankle-length coat, standing outside of his stone-laid shoreline laboratory. Live resprouting shoots emerge from either side of the tree stump seat to form a fancifully twined and inosculated two-story-tall chair back.[83][84][85]

William Shakespeare mentions pleaching in Act 1, Scene 2 of the play Much Ado About Nothing.

Leonato's brother tells Leonato, "The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine..."[86]

In 1758, Swedish scientist, philosopher, Christian mystic, and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg published Earths in the Universe, in which he wrote of visiting another planet where the residents dwelled in living groves of trees, whose growth they had planned and directed from a very young stage into living quarters[87] and sanctuaries.[52][87]

In the late 19th century, Styrian Christian mystic and visionary Jakob Lorber published The Household of God. In it, he wrote about the wisdom of planting trees in a circle, because once grown together, the ring of trees would be a much better house than could be built.[52][88]

In J. R. R. Tolkien's popular fiction, Lord of the Rings, elves were able to shape trees by singing,[89] and in Lothlórien, a forest described therein, trees were shaped into homes and walkways.

There are also tree-shaping elves in the 1978 comic book series Elfquest. They cause homes, bows, animal forms, and other things to grow instantly from living trees . Most notable of these elves are Redlance and Goodtree.

See also

References

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