Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Trees

An albino redwood in Humboldt Country.

Cool Finds

One of World’s Ten Albino Redwoods Might Be Cut Down

Preservationists in California, however, are fighting to save the tree

The Remnants of Prehistoric Plant Pollen Reveal that Humans Shaped Forests 11,000 Years Ago

The discoveries could boost indigenous populations’ claims to ancestral lands long thought to be untouched by human activity

California redwoods can live for more than a thousand years.

Save the Big Trees!

A large tree grows more quickly and sucks up a lot more carbon than a smaller one, scientists find

Santa could make his home on floating sea ice, but the Arctic may be ice free as early as 2016, according to the U.S. Navy.

Six Ways Climate Change Is Waging War on Christmas

If Santa really lived at the North Pole, he would have drowned long ago—his icy abode is slowly melting

Cut Down a Forest, Let It Grow Back, And Even 30 Years Later It’s Not the Same

In the tropics, secondary forests are often “ephemeral,” succumbing to deforestation every 10 years or so and thus never able to fully recover

None

How Trees Defined America

Historian Erik Rutkow argues in a new book that forests are key to understanding how our nation developed and who we are today

A biologists at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, Jorge Santiago-Blay has gathered some 2,000 samples of amber and exudates from species found around the world and analyzed 1,245 of them.

Seeking the Origins of Amber

By studying the chemical signatures of living trees, Smithsonian’s Jorge Santiago-Blay intends to reconstruct ancient forests

None

Q & A: Ottawa/Ojibwe Basket-Weaver Kelly Church

To botanists, the Caucasus Mountain region is known as a center of diversity for figs as well as mulberries, grapes, walnuts, apricots, pomegranates and almonds.

The Great Georgian Fruit Hunt

Sent to the Caucasus by the U.S. government, Malli Aradhya forages through orchards and markets in search of the perfect specimen

Climbers Brian French and Will Koomjian ascend the Brummit fir in Coos County Oregon. It is the National Champion Douglas fir and stands 335 feet tall.

Climbing the Tallest Trees

A select group of adventurers climb the world’s tallest trees to learn more about the wildlife that lives on the highest branches

Angel Watkins and co-workers in Colorado blame many culprits in the decline of the Aspen.

What’s Killing the Aspen?

The signature tree of the Rockies is in trouble

Fast-Growing Redwoods Break the Law

None

Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Making Your Holiday Tree Eco-Friendly

A fungus from a group that ravages trees around the world is now infesting New Zealand's ancient, symbolic kauris.

A Pox Upon the Kauri

New Zealanders rally to save their much-loved, 2,000-year-old national symbol

Tane Mahuta in the Waipoua Kauri Forest

Champs

Chestnutty

Wielding cutting-edge science and lots of patience. James Hill Craddock hopes to restore the ravaged American chestnut tree to its former glory

None

Saving the Music Tree

Artists and instrument makers have banded together to rescue Brazil’s imperiled pernambuco, the source of bows for violins, violas and cellos

None

Rescue Missions

Quests to Save a Tree… and a Country

Italian primatologist Andrea Camperio Ciani says macaques are "scapegoats" for other thigns that are damaging the forest: cutting; overgrazing; and charcoal production.

Monkey in the Middle

Blamed for destroying one of North Africa’s most important forests, Morocco’s Barbary macaques struggle to survive

Calhoun tends some 450 apple varieties, more than four times the number commercially cultivated in this country.

Apples of Your Eye

Fruit sleuths and nursery owners are fighting to save our nation’s apple heritage…before it’s too late

Page 16 of 17