Quantcast
Channel: Atlas Obscura: Articles
Viewing all 11437 articles
Browse latest View live

8 Extraordinary Pieces of Architecture Grown From Living Trees

0
0

article-image

This living church is still growing. (Photo: Alessandro/CC BY 2.0)

article-image

We usually use trees as building material in the form of struts and planks. But all over the world, people have found ways to create dwellings, bridges, and sculptures out of trees without even cutting them down. Using trees to create living structures is much slower to build (read: grow) than traditional methods, but it creates some truly fantastical natural creations. Take a look at some of the world's coolest feats of arbortecture.   

1. Willow Palace

Auerstedt, Germany

article-image

(Photo: Pfauenauge/CC BY 2.0)

This amazing sylvan dome, first planted in 1998, took 10 years to grow to completion. It is now one of the most stunning examples of arbortecture in the world. The brainchild of architect Marcel Kalberer, the dome is formed by a central copse of trees the connects with a ring of trees planted around the perimeter and trained towards the center. Today the "palace" looks like the type of place a fairy congress might be held.

article-image

(Photo: Michael Sander/CC BY-SA 3.0)

article-image

(Photo: Murray Bosinsky/Public Domain)

article-image

(Photo: Pfauenauge/CC BY 2.0

2. Tree Cathedral

Bergamo, Italy

article-image

(Photo:Alessandro/CC BY 2.0)

This Italian work in progress was planted in 2010 to realize a vision held by the late artist Giuliano Mauri. It is designed to grow into 42 living columns that will create a five-aisle basilica. The trees that are growing there now are supported by wooden frames that will fall away with time, as the trees grow. While it hasn't grown a roof yet, the arches of the future aisles are already beginning to form. 

article-image

(Photo: Pava/CC BY-SA 3.0 IT)

article-image

(Photo: Alessandro/CC BY 2.0)

article-image

(Photo: Alessandro/CC BY 2.0)

 

3. The Green Cathedral

Almere, The Netherlands

article-image

(Photo: RogAir/CC BY-SA 3.0)

This cathedral of trees is a bit different than many of the other examples of living architecture out there in that instead of repurposing or training the trees to their specific use, the trees of the Green Cathedral have simply been planted in the shape of a church. From the ground, it would be easy to mistake the formation for nothing more than a cleanly planted grove of trees, but from the air, the form becomes more clear. Luckily for those without a helicopter, a plaque on the site explains the true nature of the living church grove.  

article-image

(Photo: Stipo team/CC BY-SA 2.0)

article-image

(Photo: Stipo team/CC BY-SA 2.0)

article-image

(Photo: Stipo team/CC BY-SA 2.0)

4. The Chapel Oak

Allouville-Bellefosse, France

article-image

(Photo: Marie Thérèse Hébert/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Another variety of living architecture takes a large preexisting tree and repurposes it as a useful structure. The Chapel Oak in France is just such a building. Looking like something straight out of Harry Potter, this giant tree houses two chapel spaces in its hollow interior, which was gutted by a lightning strike centuries ago. The chapels were built in the 1600s, and still exist today, accessed by a spiral staircase. 

article-image

(Photo: Ji-Elle/Public Domain)

article-image

(Photo: isamiga76/CC BY 2.0)

article-image

(Photo: isamiga76/CC BY 2.0)

 

5. Jembatan Akar

Padang Barat, Indonesia

article-image

(Photo: ilhamsaibi/CC BY 2.0)

Root bridges are a unique form of living architecture that are exactly what they sound like. The Jembatan Akar bridge in West Sumatra has been made of the woven together roots of two banyan trees that stretch across the Batang Bayang River. it was started in 1890 by a teacher who was looking to create a way for his students to safely and easily cross the river. He first trained the roots across a bamboo support until they knit together. Ever since, the bridge has become more robust, sturdy, and incredible to behold. 

article-image

(Photo: Meutia Chaerani / Indradi Soemardjan/CC BY 2.5)

6. The Root Bridges of Cherrapunji

Sillong, India

article-image

(Photo: Anselmrogers /CC BY-SA 4.0)

The real capital of the root bridge is in northeastern India, where the Ficus elastica rubber tree is common. The flexible, elastic roots of the tree provide the perfect mix of toughness and flexibility for the weaving of root bridges, and a number of them can be found in the area. The most spectacular is the "Umshiang Double-Decker Root Bridge," which is two of the bridges growing one on top of the other. 

article-image

(Photo: Arshiya Urveeja Bose/CC BY 2.0)

article-image

(Photo: Anselmrogers /CC BY-SA 4.0)

article-image

(Photo: Ashwin Kumar/CC BY-SA 2.0)

7. Gilroy Gardens

Gilroy, California

article-image

(Photo: Martin Lewison/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Some of the pioneering tree shapers of all time never attempted anything as grand as an entire living building or bridge, but created some amazing pieces of living art nonetheless. Horticulturalist Axel Erlandson's "Circus Trees," which he began shaping in the 1920s, are a prime example. By pruning, grafting, and bending branches, Erlandson created some striking trees shaped like baskets and figure eights. Erlandson died in 1964, but his trees are still on show at California's Gilroy Gardens.  

article-image

(Photo: Jeremy Thompson/CC BY 2.0)

article-image

(Photo: Jeremy Thompson/CC BY 2.0)

article-image

(Photo: Jeremy Thompson/CC BY 2.0)

8. Reames Arborsmith Studios

Williams, Oregon

article-image

(Photo: Richard Reames/CC BY-SA 3.0)

"Arborsculptor" Richard Reames is a visionary artist who has turned his home into a gallery for his amazing living sculptures. They are made from trees that have been grafted, twisted, and trained into a wide array of shapes, including a peace sign. In addition to abstract designs, Reames grows and shapes pieces of living furniture. 

article-image

(Photo: Richard Reames/Public Domain)


Vintage Photos of Lumberjacks and the Giant Trees They Felled

0
0

Loggers among the redwoods in California. (Photo: Ericson Collection/Humboldt State University Library

article-image

The Pacific Northwest and California are home to some of the largest trees in existence. A giant sequoia, for example, grows up to 311 feet; a coastal redwood, up to 370. Diameters range from between 16-20 feet, but can grow as much as 30 feet. Just trailing is the Sitka spruce, which averages between 120-180 feet in height. These behemoths existed for thousands of years, and were known within the local American Indian communities, before the lumber trade arrived in the 1800s. 

And the lumberjacks realized, way before selfies, that these trees make for amazing photo ops. 

The logging industry grew throughout the 19th century. By 1910, it was the largest employer in Washington State. At the forefront were the loggers, the men whose job it was to fell these enormous trees by hand. Their work was dangerous and labor-intensive: in the early 20th century, an estimated one in every 150 loggers died.

Typically, the loggers would stand on a springboard, which was slotted into notches in the tree above the base. Using crosscut saws and axes, the loggers would then work on chopping a wedge into the tree. It was important to judge the direction of the cut for where the tree would fall. For a redwood, it was preferable for the tree to fall either towards water or up a hill, to prevent splitting the timber.

article-image
Lumberjacks in Washington state. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-USZ62-63834

Tree logging wasn't just for trade. In 1917, the Army established the Spruce Production Division to supply lumber from spruce trees for WW1 aircraft, and by 1918, there were just over 28,000 men working within the division. From this also grew a union, the alliteratively-named Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen.

Within all this is the tragedy that, despite the difficulties of the work, the logging industry succeeded in destroying a vast number of ancient trees. By 1900, an estimated one-third of old forest redwoods had been destroyed; by the 1960s, that figure stood at 90 percent.

Some of this work was documented in photographs. Here, an extraordinary collection of images of loggers posing inside a cut tree, or gathered around a trunk as big as a house.  

article-image

Standing by a Sequioa log in California, c. 1910. (Photo: Library of Congress/HAER CAL,54-THRIV.V,2--17

article-image

Members of the Spruce Production Division sitting in a giant Spruce tree in Oregon. (Photo: Gerald W. Williams Collection/OSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center)

article-image

A logger stands on a felled spruce tree, c. 1918. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-USZ62-73909)

article-image

A group of men standing on a Spruce tree stump. (Photo: Gerald W. Williams Collection/OSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center)

article-image

Loggers with a Redwood 20 feet in diameter. (Photo: Gerald W. Williams Collection/OSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center)

article-image

Loggers with felled trees. (Photo: Gerald W. Williams Collection/OSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center)

article-image

In the redwoods of Humboldt county. (Photo: Ericson Collection/Humboldt State University Library

article-image

A logger with a redwood. (Photo: Swanlund-Baker Collection, Humboldt State University Library

article-image

 A felled Sequioa tree in California, c. 1900. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-USZ62-105050)

article-image

US Army Spruce Division solders sitting on a stump, c. 1918. (Photo: Gerald W. Williams Collection/OSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center)

article-image

Two loggers with a felled tree. (Photo: Gerald W. Williams Collection/OSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center)

article-image

Loggers on a Cedar stump near Deming, Washington, 1905. (Photo: NARA/95-G-195968)

Found: A Baby Alpaca Trapped in a Hole

0
0

At Govin’s Farm, a family farm in Menomonie, Wisconsin, a baby alpaca was missing. She was a week old, and in the evening, had always appeared with her mom. But on Saturday, the baby alpaca wasn’t in the yard.

The farmer started searching for her, but it wasn’t until the next morning that he found her, surrounded by the alpaca herd. She was in a hole. “It was really strange to see because she was entirely underground when I first saw her,” the farmer wrote on Facebook.

Apparently, alpacas are into dirt baths, and the going theory is that this alpaca slid into “an old badger hole by accident.”

The rescue was swift, although the alpaca seemed very happy in the hole and unwilling to come out. But the farmer eventually coaxed her out and reports she’s doing just fine.

Bonus find: Severed foot that "may be a training aide"

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

How Trees Sleep

0
0
article-image

Shhhh, this tree might be sleeping! (Photo: Petr Kratochvil/Public Domain)

article-image

Have you ever stood under a tree at night, looked up through its criss-cross of branches, and wondered, "What is it up to?"

According to new research, be quiet, because it's probably catching some z's. An international team of scientists has found evidence that trees "sleep" at night, their leaves and branches slowly drooping as soon as dusk settles. At about two hours before sunrise, they "wake up" again, gradually returning to their original position.

"The changes are not too large, only up to 10 centimeters," Eetu Puttonen of the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute told Science Daily. "But they were systematic."

Even the most casual plant fan could tell you that many flowers close at night, and that some leaves curl up when darkness comes. In the past, experts have studied circadian rhythms in crop seedlings and sunflowers, but experimental constraints have made it difficult to work with anything much larger.

For this study, the researchers used a terrestrial laser scanner to precisely map out a set of points on two separate silver birch trees—one in Austria, and one in Finland. By making a series of these maps between dusk and dawn, and measuring the displacement of each point, they were able to trace how the whole tree moved over the course of the night.

Since the researchers were mostly studying the efficacy of the laser-scanning technology, they didn't take enough measurements or guarantee a controlled-enough environment to draw wide-reaching conclusions. But their results, published in Frontiers in Plant Science, are still intriguing, and researchers will likely continue bothering trees at night for years to come. Now if we could only figure out what they dream about.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

Watch Buoys Dance With the Flow in This Ocean Current Visualization

0
0

There are regions of the ocean where garbage and marine debris amass from the ebb and flow of the oceans’ currents. No matter where floating debris originates, a lot of it ends up drifting between five specific ocean gyres, also known as ocean garbage patches. In March, NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio published this video that gives a mesmerizing and helpful illustration of how ocean garbage patches function.

The visualization, which was a finalist in the American Association of the Advancement of Science’s Data Stories competition, used data the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration collected from more than 17,000 free-floating buoys released over 35 years—the buoys are represented by the white fluttering dots. NASA visualization scientist, Greg Shirah, points out how the buoys form different patterns. Some follow vessels and ships in straight lines and others scatter in the direction of the current. However, the dots eventually get caught in five distinct trash vortexes.     

Dazzling white dots show the movement of particles in the oceans' currents.

Tracking the movement patterns of the buoys with visualizations like these help scientists better understand the areas of spinning debris. Ocean gyres are systems of circular ocean currents that form from Earth’s wind patterns and the forces created by the planet’s rotation, National Geographic explains.

Despite the name, garbage patches don’t look like islands of floating trash. The majority of the debris is comprised of non-biodegradable microplastics that are so tiny we often can’t see them with the naked eye. These plastics can disrupt marine food webs, and if enough of them collect at the ocean surface, microplastics can prevent sunlight from reaching plankton and algae that serve as a critical food source for many marine animals.  

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

For Sale: A Back To The Future DeLorean

0
0
article-image

This Japanese Delorean replica is on sale. (Photo: Jeremy Thompson/CC BY 2.0)

Marty! Time is running out to buy a replica DeLorean from the last Back To The Future theme park ride in the world! Although it’s not going for cheap.

It’s a bittersweet day for fans of the Back To The Future franchise, as the last remaining Universal Studios ride based on the film trilogy is scheduled to close on May 31st. The Universal Studios locations in America closed their Back To The Future rides back in the early 2000s, but Universal Studios Japan had kept theirs ticking. But while the ride will no longer be taking fans to back in time at 88 mph, the theme park is auctioning off pieces of the ride to the highest bidder.

One of the initial artifacts that has gone up for sale is the full-size replica of the iconic DeLorean time machine that sat outside of the ride, and if the initial bids are any indication, it’s worth more than its weight in Libyan plutonium. According to the Japan Times, the non-functioning car was put up for auction on Sunday night via Yahoo Auctions, and someone has already placed a bid for ¥9,999,999,999, the maximum amount allowable on the site. The bid, which equates to about $91 million, may be nothing more than a troll worthy of Biff Tannen himself, but Universal Studios Japan is looking into the offer.

Whether or not the massive bid is real, when the car does finally sell, the proceeds from it and anything else from the ride will be donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

A Secret Forest Grew for Millennia in North America Without Anyone Noticing

0
0
article-image

A cedar making its life on the cliff face. (Photo: Peter Kelly)

article-image

Doug Larson was not looking for old trees. The ecologist started working on the cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment because, like the tundra where he had studied mosses and lichens, they were relatively untouched by humans. It didn't hurt, either, that his new research spot was close to his home in Guelph, Canada, a university town just over an hour west of Toronto.

Even after he and his students started studying the ecology of cliff face, it took them three years to discover a startling fact, hiding in plain sight—that the cliff's small and gnarled cedar trees were hundreds of years old. No one would have imagined that there could still be an unknown old growth forest so close to a major urban area.

“They were overtly struggling to survive, but we thought the struggle was 60 years old, not 600 years old,” he said.

The first time the idea occurred to Larson, in 1988, he did not trust it. He had been counting the rings of a tree under a microscope, and there had been hundreds. But he could be wrong, he thought: perhaps there was some explanation, other than that this diminutive tree had been alive since before Europeans reached this continent. He didn’t sleep for three days. The area where they had been working was on the outskirts of Toronto, and to find a forest that old in a major city was “heretical at the time,” he says. But the tree ring lab at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory confirmed what they had found—centuries-old trees. The oldest had lived for approximately 700 years.

article-image

The Amputee, born in 1134 A.D., had its limbs cut away by a climber. (Photo: Peter Kelly)

Once, it would not have been so uncommon to find trees that had lived for hundreds of years. In southern Ontario, there would have once been aged oaks, but in most places, those trees have long since been felled to make way for farms or to serve as lumber. What we now call “old-growth” forests are simply communities of trees that have been allowed to continue on undisturbed while most of the forest around them has been thinned or cut down entirely. In North America, even places that look thickly forested to us now are often full of relatively young trees, regrown on patches of land that were farms not so long ago.

For eastern white cedar trees, the cliffs had been a refuge. The Niagara Escarpment is a steep slope that curves around the Michigan basin, from Wisconsin, across Michigan’s upper peninsula, and down across Ontario, until it hits New York State and Niagara Falls. It’s not an easy place to live, but for the birds, snails, spiders and plants that have figured out how to survive there, it has some advantages. There are few predators, no fire, no floods, and hardly any competition.

“There is something wonderful about animals and plants that depend on cliffs,” says Larson. “They’re there because no one else can live there. They have a physiological toughness that allows them to sit out in these places that nothing else can touch, and they thrive there.”

The trees that survived in this way for hundreds of years contorted themselves into incredible shapes. One, nicknamed “The Snake,” slithered down the cliff face with roots crammed into a horizontal crack about a fifth of an inch wide. “If you were able to take the cliff apart, the roots would look like a carpet, a half-centimeter-wide, flat root mass going back into the cliff face,” says Peter Kelly, who worked with Larson to study the trees and the cliffs for 20 years. Another, 875 years old, hung upside down and couldn’t be seen except by a person dangling from ropes down the cliff. When they expanded their area of inquiry to the U.S. and Europe, Larson and his collaborators found one of the oldest trees in the eastern U.S., an 820-year-old eastern red cedar on a cliff near Green Bay. In France, they found a tree that had been alive when Roman occupiers left France. In Canada, they found one tree that they estimated to be more than 1,800 years old when it died and that is "arguably the oldest tree ever documented" in the country, Larson and Kelly wrote

article-image

The Ancient One. This tree was born in 688 A.D. (Photo: Peter Kelly)

Old trees are not necessarily tall trees, as is the case with Larson’s discovery. They might be 20 or so feet in length, at most, but twisted and deformed so that they did not stretch tall. The oldest trees would often have sharp taper, says Kelly. Their bases would be thick and gnarled. They’d have dead branches still hanging on. A branch might keep clinging to the tree for decades after it died. In places, the bark had been worn away, down to the bare wood. The top of the tree was usually dead or broken off, and a side branch had taken over as the main growth, pulling the tree in weird, compelling shapes.

Many of the oldest trees were also hanging upside down. At some point, they had been knocked over, or the place they were growing on had shifted in a rockfall. The tree had been flipped, but it hung on, with at least part of its root structure, and kept growing.

It wasn’t a coincidence that these aged trees were cedars. Most trees use their root systems to feed the entire tree, so if one part of the roots are damaged, the whole tree suffers. In cedars, each part of the roots system is connected to a certain part of the tree. If those roots die, that part of the tree dies, while the rest continues on. In Larson’s lab, they showed how stark this mechanism could be by feed three different sections of roots water dyed three different colors. When they peeled back the bark, the tree looked like a barber shop pole, with the colors swirled separately up its length.

On the cliffs, that meant that if part of the roots system lost access to water or was damaged, the rest of the tree just kept growing. One side of a tree might show 10 years of growth; the other might continued living for a thousand.

article-image

The Mosquito tree is more than 500 years old. (Photo: Peter Kelly)

Many of these trees live in areas that are thick with people; the sites where Larson and Kelly worked might be half an hour away from their homes. “I would wake up in my bed, in Guelph, and by noon I could be touching things that no human had ever touched before,” says Kelly. The trees' choice of dwelling, on the steep cliff, kept them safe from people for centuries, and even today, they’re not formally protected in any way.

They are not invincible, though.  “When it comes to trees, you always have to be worried,” says Kelly. Bugs and blights have wiped out whole forests of trees; the climate is changing, and perhaps these trees won’t do as well under new conditions. There was one cliff forest that Kelly found where the trees had all died, 140 years ago, in the heat of a fire. Many of the old trees they had found showed no evidence of rot; this cliff face had simply become a graveyard of ghost trees.

These centuries-old cedars, though, show no signs of angst. “They just keep bouncing back,” says Larson. They don’t need to be bigger than they are. They produce seeds; they reproduce. They continue on.

An Indian Village Plants 111 Trees Every Time a Girl is Born

0
0
article-image

Rajasthani women partaking in Piplantri's tree planting program. (All photos courtesy of Piplantri.com)

Shyam Sundar Paliwal, the former leader of a small village in Rajasthan, India, lost his daughter Kiran when she was very young. In 2006, he took it upon himself to make sure that the other residents of his village, Piplantri, would cherish the life of each girl child to come. 

Paliwal implemented an initiative to plant 111 trees to celebrate the birth of each girl born in the village. The villagers plant the trees on Piplantri's grazing commons, and the community ensures that the trees survive and grow to adulthood, as the Hindu reports. Village residents collect Rs. 21,000 (around $315) and the girl's parents contribute Rs. 10,000 (around $150), creating a Rs. 31,000 fixed deposit account for the girl which sees her through adulthood. 

In addition, as the parents plant the trees, they sign a legal affidavit stating that their daughter will receive a full education and will not be married before she comes of the legal age of 18, according to Folomojo. 

article-image

Girls from Piplantri gather around a young tree. 

According to Paliwal, around 60 girls are born in Piplantri each year. In over half these cases, he told the Hindu, parents were reluctant to accept girl children because they were viewed as less valuable and more expensive. As a result, the tree-planting program was a way to encourage families to celebrate the girls in their families, and to combat a deep-seated culture of female feticide. As Al Jazeera reports, a 2011 study found that up to 12 million female fetuses had been aborted in India within the last decade.

The Indian government has put in place multiple measures to prevent female feticide; for example, testing the gender of a fetus is illegal in India, as are dowries, which make girl children more expensive to parents than boys. Additionally, a program called "Beti Bacho, Beti Padho" (Save our daughters, Educate our daughters) began in 2014 to target districts in which the gender divide is particularly prevalent.

Piplantri's tree scheme went a step further in that it encouraged parents not only to keep their girl children, but also to celebrate them.

Ten years later, Piplantri's brand of "eco-feminism" is thriving. The village has planted multiple species of trees that have begun to bring it revenue: mango, neem, sheesham and amla, among others. Additionally, the villagers planted aloe vera plants around the trees to act as natural pesticides, which itself became a form of revenue when villagers began processing and selling the aloe vera. The trees, along with the aloe vera plants, now provide livelihoods to a number of Piplantri's 8,000 residents. 

In planting a future for its young women, the town of Piplantri has put itself on the map–and found that money can grow on trees. 


7 Nominees for the Best Tree in Literature

0
0
article-image

All illustrations by Tao Tao Holmes

article-image

The trees we meet in books come in all shapes, sizes, and consciousness levels, enabling different sorts of mysteries, enchantments, and adolescent epiphanies. There’s The Giving Tree, brought to us by poet Shel Silverstein, the iconic baobabs in The Little Prince, the Ents from The Lord of the Rings, and Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas. There’s the beloved Magic Treehouse series, the wheel-trees in His Dark Materials, and Winnie the Pooh’s crucial honey tree.

While these trees are all memorable in their own ways, we at Atlas Obscura have our own favorites. Here are our seven candidates for the best trees in literature.

article-image

MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN: SAM'S HEMLOCK HOMESTEAD
Chosen by Sarah Laskow

Of all the trees in all the books I read as a kid, the one that captured my heart was the tree that Sam hollowed out as his home in My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. In a stand of old trees, this was “the biggest and the oldest and the most kinglike of them all,” a hemlock, rotting away in its heart, inviting Sam to create a place to live and hide in his great escape from the city. How could you not want a tree like this one?

“Inside I felt as cozy as a turtle in its shell,” Sam writes. It was big enough to stand in, so well-hidden that a man could sit beside it all day and never detect it, and stocked full of nuts and other food to feast on. This tree wasn’t doing anything magic or un-tree-like; it was simply standing there, being a perfect tree. “On warm evenings I would lie on my stomach and look out the door, listen to the frogs and nighthawks and hope it would storm so that I could crawl in my tree and be dry,” Sam says.

Other fantasy trees, that talk or walk, that have doors to secret worlds, that are home to elves or fairies, don't have the same pull they once did. But there’s still part of me that imagines running away to live in this one.

article-image

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN: THE TREE OF HEAVEN
Chosen by Hana Glasser

“Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenement districts.”

It’s been a long time since Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published in 1943, but the unsurpassed best, most iconic—dare I say American—tree in literature is still stubbornly thriving in the yard of a Williamsburg tenement building.

The so-called Tree of Heaven grows outside the window of Francie Nolan, a second-generation Irish-American girl coming of age in Brooklyn at the turn of the century. Just as Francie and her family struggle against the odds to make a life for themselves, the tree too manages to prosper without water, light, or care. Francie grows from a girl to young woman under the harsh conditions of tenement life, enduring poverty, assault, loneliness, and betrayal. Through it all, she maintains a deep and abiding inner strength. Like Francie, the tree that grows out of the cement in Brooklyn is tough, tenacious, and blossoming against all odds. It’s the kind of tree you root for.

article-image

THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS: THE TUMTUM TREE
Chosen by David Minkin

I love “Jabberwocky”—a poem from the novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, by Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll—and as a kid my mother would recite it to me. My sister and I would mimic the galumphing, similar to how it was portrayed in The Muppet Show (which was no coincidence since we watched a lot of Muppets). To this day, I think it’s probably the only poem I have memorized. 

The Tumtum tree shows up just once in the third verse. The tree itself isn’t that special—our hero rests by it while waiting for the Jabberwocky to appear. The Internet tells me the word "tumtum" is just a bit of 19th-century English onomatopoeia, the sound of a stringed instrument strummed monotonously. But tumtum is also apparently a Kadu language spoken in Kurdufan, a former province of central Sudan, and in Judaism, can refer to a person whose sex is unknown. 

Despite the Tumtum tree having only a very brief cameo, I'll never forget it. Because it's in “Jabberwocky,” it will always be a special tree to me. 

article-image

PIPPI LONGSTOCKING: THE LEMONADE TREE
Chosen by Tao Tao Holmes

"‘I don’t think you have a very nice way with ladies,’ said Pippi. And she lifted him in her strong arms—high in the air—and carried him to a birch tree and hung him over a branch. Then she took the next boy and hung him over another branch."

I grew up reading a lot of Pippi Longstocking—a children’s series by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren—and for a while, there was perhaps nothing I wanted more in the world than the tree in that supercool nine-year-old girl’s yard. Sure, Pippi (full name: Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim's Daughter Longstocking) had superhuman strength (that she used to hang bullies and rude policemen over branches) and epic ginger braids, but it's the tree that I most clearly remember: it was the most exciting thing I’d ever encountered, and I wanted one in my backyard, stat.

Not only was this tree perfect for climbing, but it grew the classic Swedish soft drink sockerdricka (lemonade in the English version). The “lemonade tree” was hollow, so Pippi and her buddies would climb inside, and down at the bottom they’d find cool glass bottles of sockerdricka (or lemonade). As a kid, I remember the tree sometimes turning up other random items as well, like candies and cakes, but my imagination and sweet tooth might have gotten the better of me. Back then, for a young sprite like me, the idea of spending a summer day playing in a tree, and the tree then giving me sweet, chilled drinks to quench my thirst, was the definition of heaven. In fact, it might still be.

article-image

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: GROOT
Chosen by Eric Grundhauser

Lord of the Rings might have more ents and famous magic trees per capita than any other fictional property, and much deeper roots in my geek heart, but for sheer star power, no tree beats Groot.

A living tree that only says one thing and is best friends with a wise-cracking raccoon, Groot is possibly the most insane character to ever make the leap from the comics page to the silver screen, somehow stealing the show in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. In his continuing comic book adventures, Groot's been shown to be a cosmic-level genius and possibly Puerto Rican. Also there was that time he merged with Yggdrasil the World Tree to destroy God Doom's castle. He's also one hell of a dancer. Sorry, but your other trees can go I Am Groot themselves. 

 
article-image

HARRY POTTER: THE WHOMPING WILLOW
Chosen by Lauren Young

“Well, you know the Whomping Willow. It—it doesn’t like being hit.”

In chapter 10 of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ronald Weasley does a good job at summing up the vicious Whomping Willow. The enchanted thrashing, whipping willow gives Harry, Hermione, and Ron a lot of trouble in the second and third books of J.K. Rowling’s series about the wizard “Boy Who Lived.” Located on the ground of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, students fear wandering nearby the Whomping Willow—its branches swing and bat at anything that moves.

The Whomping Willow is arguably one of the most violent, terrifying trees in fiction: It practically demolishes the Weasley family's flying Ford Angila, destroys Harry’s beloved Nimbus 2000, and thrashes the trio around as they try to save Ron from being dragged down a hidden passageway under the tree that leads to the Shrieking Shack, in the village Hogsmeade outside of Hogwarts. Fans believe that the Whomping Willow was planted around the year of 1971. Former Professor of the Dark Arts Remus Lupin told a story about how students used to see how close they dared to get to the trunk: “In the end, a boy called Davey Gudgeon nearly lost an eye, and we were forbidden to go near it.”   

article-image

THE FARAWAY TREE: THE FARAWAY TREE
Chosen by Urvija Banerji

The works of English author Enid Blyton have crept into the collective imaginations of children around the world. As a child I was certainly embedded with a sense of admiration for her ability to create adventures and bring readers into entirely different worlds while still maintaining a sense of jovial familiarity. The Faraway Tree series was one such example that had me entranced; in part because of the wondrous titular tree.

The tree isn't just huge, it's magical. Its inhabitants range from the friendly, if a little neurotic Saucepan Man, Moonface, who owns the tree equivalent of a slip 'n' slide, Dame Washalot, whose dirty washing water is hazardous, and the forgetful Mr. Watzisname. What's more, in addition to the colorful characters that populate it, the Faraway Tree has access to an unlimited amount of magical worlds via its highest canopy, which functions as a portal to strange and wonderful lands, like the Land of Cakes and the Land of Wishes. Can the tree in your backyard do that?

15 Trees That Can't Even Right Now

0
0

Someone, help these trees. A twree-storm. 

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Scientists Just Discovered a New Vulnerability in HIV

0
0
article-image

Green and yellow antibodies attack the red peptide on HIV in this visualization. (Photo: NIAID)

Last week, scientists said they had found something interesting: a vulnerable part of the human immunodeficiency virus, better known as HIV. 

The part, called a fusion peptide, is used by the virus in part to latch on to cells, infecting them. But scientists working for an institute tied to the National Institutes of Health found that some of our body's natural antibodies already the peptide, preventing the virus from latching on to cells.

Using the antibodies, scientists can now design vaccines that would specifically target the peptide, a much simpler structure in the virus than others that scientists have previously targeted for vaccines. That means that an HIV vaccine is closer than ever. 

HIV was first observed 35 years ago, and has been the subject of a vast amount of clinical research, leading to advances in treatment that have made it more livable than ever for those diagnosed. A vaccine, though, remains the ultimate goal. 

“I’m actually sort of excited by just finding something interesting,” Peter Kwong, one of the scientists who made the discovery, told Healthline. “We hope that it will go somewhere. We don’t know, but I do think it’s a promising lead.”

Lumberjack Contests are the Coolest College Extracurricular

0
0
article-image

Carissa Camenson maneuvers a traditional six-foot crosscut saw through a log in a college-level logging competition. (All Photos: Mikayla Camenson)

article-image

Carissa Camenson stood in a vast acre and a half arena in Missoula, Montana, the ground covered with chips and flakes of wood. The sophomore forestry major from Northern Arizona University expertly pulled back and forth on her six-foot-long crosscut saw that sliced through an approximately 20-inch diameter log.

Camenson was competing in the single buck contest, one of the hardest logger sporting events at April's 2016 Association of Western Forestry Clubs (AWFC) Conclave, where some 150 participants sweated to best each other in practices that lumberjacks have used to fell trees for centuries. In the single buck, an individual logger cuts through a large cylinder of wood as quickly as possible with a traditional crosscut saw. Competitive loggers also call the single buck the ‘misery whip’ and the ‘buck-and-chuck.’

“A lot of people do it and then throw up. That’s where they got the ‘buck-and-chuck,’” Camenson says. But despite the rigor and its reputation, single buck is Camenson’s favorite event. “I like team sports, but I like that single buck is 100 percent up to you. If you want to finish that log, it’s not just physical–it’s a mental game. You have to tell yourself that you can do it.”  

article-image

Logger sporting events need to be held at large arenas, like the Grothen Memorial Arena at Fort Missoula, Montana, because it must fit the several obstacle courses for the games.  

The lumber industry in the United States dates to precolonial times, and during its height in the 19th century, logging helped drive the economy in New England, the Upper Midwest, and Pacific Northwest. Wood is, of course, an essential building material, but lumberjacks also cut trees to help them regenerate and to maintain healthy forests. But they've been known to have a little fun, too: Logging competitions like the AWFC, also known as timber sports and lumberjack sports, go back to the late 1800s.

At the end of workdays at logging camps, lumberjacks would boast about their strength, speed, and logging technique, Lew Freedman writes in Timber: The Story of the Lumberjack World Championships. This eventually led to lumberjacks challenging each other to contests of skill: chopping wooden blocks with an ax, slicing logs with a saw, and balancing precariously on logs floating in a river.

In addition to winning bragging rights, it’s said that the loggers would bet tobacco or small amounts of money. Local fairs and festivals in Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and Northern New England began staging small logging competitions, primarily for entertainment.

article-image

Camenson launches an ax in the ax throwing event.  

Soon, the competitions became more rigorous and formalized. In 1939, 40 men from 10 universities west of the Mississippi created the Association of Western Forestry Clubs, and in 1952 the organization held the first woodsman’s events. Professional competitions started to pop up; the Lumberjack World Championships arrived in the 1960s and the STIHL Timbersports Series in 1985.

Competitive loggers today still chop wood at lightning speeds, throw axes, race up 60-foot poles, and roll on logs in water, also known as birling. However, unlike in early contests, there are also non-physical forestry skill events like dendrology, or measuring timber, and timber cruising, where contestants identify types of trees.

Many participants see the contests as an opportunity to honor centuries-old logging and forestry practices. “This is just keeping some of the old traditions alive,” Scott Kuehn, a former hot saw world-record holder and founder of the Forestry Days competition in Montana, told the Missoulian. "It’s about the only time people use crosscuts any more."

article-image

One of Camenson's teammates from Northern Arizona University participates in the pole climbing event. 

Women also regularly compete in logging sports, clocking times that some men can’t reach. Timber sports are still male-dominated, but there were a good number of female competitors at the 2016 AWFC Conclave, Camenson says, and they were all very good. Of the 15 participants on her team that went to Missoula, five were female. 

“At first people think that it’s all about being strong, but there’s a ton of technique that goes into most of the events,” Camenson explains. “For sawing, for example, it’s not just how big your muscles are, so you can pull the saw as fast as you can. There are things like having your elbow tucked in, knowing what kind of wood it is, and if you need to put pressure on the saw or not a lot of pressure.”

To achieve fast times, loggers must have both saw skills and knowledge about the wood. The record in the United States for single bucking, the challenging individual competition, is 10.34 seconds. A pair from Camenson’s school took first place in the Jack and Jill event, where a man and a woman team up to saw a log, at the AWFC Conclave. They sawed the log with a 22-inch-diameter in just 28 seconds.

Loggers cut through the wood differently depending on its type (which is selected by the university that is hosting the championship each year). More pressure on the saw is needed if the log is a type of dry wood, whereas lighter, fast pulls are better for soft wood like white fir, Camenson says. The type of saw also matters since some are designed to cut while others scoop the wood out. During the competition, a second person sprays WD-40—an oil and water lubricant—so the saw slides easier and uses a felling wedge that separates the wood so it doesn’t pinch the saw.

The skills that college competitors pick up can often translate to later careers in forestry. Camenson's first foray into logging was when she landed an internship as a wilderness ranger at the Sierra National Forest in central California, during the summer after high school. Since mechanical devices are not permitted in the forest, she had to use a crosscut saw to cut trees that had fallen on trails.

article-image

Two competitors balance carefully on the rolling log (Camenson is on the right). Whoever stays on the longest is the victor.

As a freshman in college, Camenson joined Northern Arizona University’s logging team, and has since competed in two collegiate conclaves. In the single buck event at the AWFC competition in Missoula, she blazed through the 20-inch log in about one minute and 23 seconds, earning her the eighth-place position.

By the bottom third of the log, “my body just hit its wall, and there’s nothing you can do. It was like an overwhelming feeling like I was moving in slow-motion,” Camenson says. “But it was up to me at that point to finish the log–and I did.”

The World's Smallest Porpoises Might Soon Be Extinct

0
0
article-image

(Photo: NOAA/Public Domain)

Vaquitas, or "little cows" in Spanish, are the world's smallest porpoises. 

They've been critically endangered for a while, numbering just 100 in 2014. Primarily found in the northern part of the Gulf of California, they've been dying off, activists say, because of illegal fishing—through the use of gillnets, specifically, which trap vaquitas, killing them.

The Mexican government said last week that the number of vaquitas had plummeted further, to just 60, according to National Geographic, despite efforts to crack down on gillnets. 

The use of gillnets persists in the vaquitas' habitat to capture totoaba, a rare marine mammal prized for its bladder, a delicacy which can fetch high prices in Asia. 

Activists, calling for more patrols and enforcement of existing fishing law, said this was probably the last chance for the vaquita. 

“Despite all the best efforts, we are losing the battle to stop totoaba fishing and save the vaquita,” said Omar Vidal, the CEO of the World Wildlife Fund's Mexico unit. “In addition to a fishing ban, Mexico, the United States, and China need to take urgent and coordinated action to stop the illegal fishing, trafficking and consumption of totoaba.”

They've got their work cut out for them. Totoaba bladders can be sold for up to $645,000 in Asian markets, which increasingly get them directly from Mexico. Chinese immigrants discovered totoaba decades ago, believing it to have similar healing properties to giant yellow croaker, whose existence was threatened by overfishing. 

As for the vaquita, though, as Vidal said, "There is no time to wait."

Help Us Grow The Ultimate Tree Playlist

0
0
article-image

Lets rock the bark off some trees. (Photo: Courtney Rhodes/CC BY 2.0)

article-image

For Tree Week here on Atlas Obscura, we're putting together the ultimate playlist of songs about trees to listen to while we explore the wide world of amazing arbors, and we want to hear from you!

Our playlist below for you to listen to, and add your own favorite song about trees. Just log in to Spotify, follow the playlist, and add your favorite tunes about trees, forests, and the like. Let's branch out!

This Guy Tried to Grow Food on 'Martian' Soil and Was Surprised When It Worked

0
0
article-image

Mars, in an image shot by the Hubble Space Telescope. (Photo: NASA/Public Domain)

It won't be easy growing food on Mars. NASA is trying, of course, in case humans ever get there. But the conditions are tough. You've got little oxygen, constant sand storms, and subzero temperatures. 

There's also the problem of the soil. Would vegetables grown in Martian soil even be safe to eat? Would they grow at all? 

At least one researcher, in the Netherlands, says he's already done it, albeit here on Earth. 

Wieger Wamelink, a Dutch agricultural researcher, tells Agence France-Presse that he has replicated some of the conditions on Mars with soil purchased for $3,080 from NASA. 

The soil isn't Martian, but, according to Wamelink, it's close enough, originating from a volcano in Hawaii. 

Wamelink planted some peas, tomatoes, and cresses, among others, to see what would happen. To Wamelink's surprise, they grew. 

“Especially in the Martian soil, plants were growing very fast and very good. They even started to flower, something that we never anticipated,” Wamelink told AFP

Wamelink has some advantages, of course—no freezing cold or sand storms to deal with—but he says his experiment shows that Martian produce is far from impossible. 

But it's still perhaps a long ways away. 


Do Not Eat, Touch, Or Even Inhale the Air Around the Manchineel Tree

0
0
article-image

The fruit of the Manchineel tree. (Photo: Barry Stock/CC BY-SA 2.0)

article-image

Throughout the coasts of the Caribbean, Central America, the northern edges of South America, and even in south Florida, there can be found a pleasant-looking beachy sort of tree, often laden with small greenish-yellow fruits that look not unlike apples.

You might be tempted to eat the fruit. Do not eat the fruit. You might want to rest your hand on the trunk, or touch a branch.  Do not touch the tree trunk or any branches. Do not stand under or even near the tree for any length of time whatsoever. Do not touch your eyes while near the tree. Do not pick up any of the ominously shiny, tropic-green leaves. If you want to slowly but firmly back away from this tree, you would not find any argument from any botanist who has studied it.

After all, it is rumored to have killed the famed explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon.

This is the manchineel, known sometimes as the beach apple, or more accurately in Spanish-speaking countries as la manzanilla de la muerte, which translates to “the little apple of death,” or as arbol de la muerte, “tree of death.”

article-image

A warning sign for the Manchineel tree. (Photo: Scott Hughes/CC BY-SA 2.0)

“Warning: all parts of manchineel are extremely poisonous. The content in this document is strictly informational. Interaction with and ingestion of any part of this tree may be lethal,” write Michael G. Andreu and Melissa H. Friedman of the University of Florida in a brief guide to the tree. This is not an exaggeration. The fruits, though described as sweet and tasty, are extraordinarily toxic. Fatalities are not known in modern literature, though it’s certainly possible that people have died from eating the fruit of the manchineel. “Shipwrecked sailors have been reported to have eaten manchineel fruits and, rather than dying a violent death, they had inflammations and blistering around the mouth. Other people have been diagnosed with severe stomach and intestinal issues,” says Roger Hammer, a naturalist and botanist who has written many books about the flora of Florida.

We do have, thankfully, a description of what it’s like to eat this fruit; Mother Nature Network alerts us to a paper written by radiologist Nicola Strickland, who unwisely chomped down on a manchineel fruit back in 2000 on the Caribbean island of Tobago. A quote from her paper:

I rashly took a bite from this fruit and found it pleasantly sweet. My friend also partook (at my suggestion). Moments later we noticed a strange peppery feeling in our mouths, which gradually progressed to a burning, tearing sensation and tightness of the throat. The symptoms worsened over a couple of hours until we could barely swallow solid food because of the excruciating pain and the feeling of a huge obstructing pharyngeal lump. Sadly, the pain was exacerbated by most alcoholic beverages, although mildly appeased by pina coladas, but more so by milk alone.

Over the next eight hours our oral symptoms slowly began to subside, but our cervical lymph nodes became very tender and easily palpable. Recounting our experience to the locals elicited frank horror and incredulity, such was the fruit's poisonous reputation.

The sap, white and milky, is spectacularly toxic; it causes burn-like blisters upon any contact with skin, and if you’re unfortunate enough to get it in your eyes, temporary blindness is highly likely. This sap is found throughout the tree, including in the bark and leaves, so, you know, don’t touch any of it.

article-image

The toxic Manchineel tree. (Photo: Yinan Chen/Public Domain)

The specific toxins found in this sap and in the fruits remain partially unknown, but not unused. The aboriginal peoples of the Caribbean were familiar with the tree and used it for many purposes; the sap, in particular, was used to tip arrows. “It is believed that the Calusa used it in that manner to kill Juan Ponce de Leon on his second trip to Florida in 1521,” says Hammer.

Manchineel is a member of a family of plants known as the spurges. (The name comes from “purge,” because, although all these plants have toxic sap, the toxicity varies, and some can be used as a laxative.) Spurges are found worldwide, in various forms, ranging from tiny herb-like plants to large bushes and trees. Manchineel is one of the largest, reaching up to 50 feet in height, but despite its dangerous reputation is not the most famous—that’d be the pointsettia, the manchineel’s more festive cousin.

article-image

Juan Ponce de Leon. The arrow that killed him was said to be tipped with sap from the Manchineel tree. (Photo: Public Domain)

The manchineel tends to live along the coast, especially in brackish water. Generally speaking, it likes the same environments as the mangrove, though it’s nowhere near as common. In Florida (and in the US in general), the manchineel is endangered, but tends to occur in clusters. Assuming you want to find one for some reason, it’s most common in the Flamingo section of Everglades National Park, along with some smaller Floridian islands like Elliott Key and Key Largo. “There are other very small populations elsewhere in the Keys,” says Hammer. “It’s quite common around some of the coastal mangrove-buttonwood forests near Flamingo.”

In looking into the manchineel I was most curious about its place in the chaotic ecosystems of south Florida and the Caribbean. What could possibly be the evolutionary reason, I wondered, for a tree to be this toxic? The sap is fairly easy to explain, as a method of deterring herbivores who might otherwise want to harm the tree by eating its leaves or bark. But the fruit, in particular, baffled me: fruits, typically, are designed to trick animals into spreading seeds, since trees can’t spread seeds themselves. The tree wants animals to eat the fruit; the animal, ideally, will eat the fruit and poop out the seeds somewhere else, scattering them with a nice helping of fertilizer (read: poop) to help them grow somewhere new.

article-image

The poinsettia is in the same family of plants as the Manchineel. (Photo: Marcus Hsieh/shutterstock.com)

Hammer says that mammals generally find the manchineel fruit completely toxic; its Linnaean (also known as Latin or scientific) name is Hippomane mancinella, which translates to “little apple that makes horses mad,” showing that we’re not the only species to find the fruit problematic. Iguanas appear immune to the toxins, and in parts of Central and South America do indeed eat the fruits and disperse the seeds.

But iguanas are not native to south Florida; the few that are there are, like the Mystery Monkey of Tampa, foreigners who have been dropped into the ecosystem and have found it to their liking. Instead, says Hammer, the Floridian manchineels look not to animals but to the seas for help spreading seeds. “In much of its range its a coastal species so tides and currents are its principal dispersal mechanism,” he says. Fruit drops from the tree into nearby water, and thanks to its buoyancy, is taken by the tides somewhere else. Eventually the fruit rots and the seeds can grow. This isn’t an uncommon method of seed dispersal, also being used by such common plants as the coconut palm.

article-image

The spotted water hemlock, or cicuta maculata, is also found in Florida and is far more toxic. (Photo: Public Domain)

The toxicity to humans, though, that’s a mystery. “There really isn’t an evolutionary answer to its being toxic, other than to just say it’s a biological mistake because it certainly doesn’t gain anything by being toxic to humans,” says Hammer. It could be simply a holdover from some past point in its evolutionary history when the tree had to discourage animals from eating it; the fruit doesn’t gain anything, sure, but because its seeds can be dispersed by water, it also doesn’t lose much. (It’s not all bad, though. The wood has been used for non-lethal purposes, and actually prized for some purposes like cabinetry and servingware. To make it usable, it has to be burned at the base to cut it down—nobody has any interest in getting in there with an axe and chopping at a manchineel trunk—and then dried for several days in the sun to neutralize the sap.)

Interestingly, though Hammer confirms the manchineel is the deadliest tree in the country, he says it’s not the deadliest plant. “There are other plants (not trees) in Florida that are far more toxic than manchineel, and one is spotted water hemlock (Cicuta maculata). A quarter-inch of the stem is enough to kill a person,” he says, calling it “probably the most violently poisonous plant on the North American continent.” Of course, it's also found in Florida—America’s weirdest, most fascinating, and, apparently, most treacherous ecosystem.

Found: A Stolen Letter From Christopher Columbus

0
0
article-image

The document. (Photo: ICE)

In March of 1493, newly returned from what Europeans would call the “New World," Christopher Columbus wrote a letter to the king and queen of Spain, the financiers of his recent voyage. He told his patrons about the native people, fruit trees and birds, how he gave the islands he visited new names, and what types of boats the islanders used. This wasn’t just a letter to the monarchs, though; it was printed and spread wide. It was how people in Europe began to learn what lay across the ocean.

There are only a few dozen original copies of Columbus' letter left in the world, and one of them was held in Florence’s Riccardiana Library. Or so everyone thought. In 2012, American immigration and customs authors got a tip that the copy in the library was a forgery—a really, really good photocopy. That tip, it turned out, was accurate, as was the person’s information about where the letter had ended up.

It was in the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress was at the end of a line of owners of the letter. The library received it as a donation, in 2004. Before that, it had been sold at auction, in 1992, in New York City. The buyer, anonymous, paid more than $300,000 for it. The seller was a rare-books collector, who obtained it in 1990. Before that, it’s a mystery. The head of the Italian library said they believe the letter may have been stolen all the way back in 1950, when it made a trip to Rome.

The document is now back in Italy, where it was shown alongside the forgery.

Bonus find: An Egyptian tax device

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

Places You Can No Longer Go: The Mammoth Tree

Boston's Sidewalks Are Covered In Secret Poems

0
0

Clouds usually spell bad news for pedestrians. But for frequenters of some lucky Boston sidewalks, a shower uncovers a secret—a poem, stenciled in waterproof paint and revealed by the rain as if by magic.

"Raining Poetry," a collaboration between City Hall and the nonprofit Mass Poetry, is slowly bringing secret art to the streets. Langston Hughes hides outside an unassuming cafe in Dudley Square. Local poet Barbara Helfgott Hyett whispers in Roslindale.

Members of the Mayor's Mural Crew, a city-sponsored youth group that helps to create public art, have been installing the poems in batches since the first day of April. Photos from this weekend show two crew members spray painting their creations on dry sidewalks, and then testing them out via controlled splash.

Currently, there are poems hiding in various parts of the city—on busy Park Street, at a hopping Roslindale intersection, and outside the historic Strand theater in Uphams Corner, to name a few. Organizers plan keep adding more, and in more languages. "Our hope is in the next two years, everyone in the state will encounter a poem in their daily lives at least once or twice a month," Sara Siegel, Mass Poetry's program director, told the Globe.

So next time Boston rains all over your parade, make sure to look down. You might see a poem beaming back up at you.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

Trees—They're Just Like Us!

0
0
article-image
article-image

(Photo: pcdazero/CC0 Public Domain)

They love to play with kittens!


article-image

(Photo: National Park Service Digital Image Archives/Public Domain)

They force themselves to take risks!


article-image

(Photo: Shifra Levyathan/CC BY 2.5)

Sometimes they feel trapped in their own surroundings.


article-image

(Photo: Darron Birgenheier/CC BY-SA 2.0)

They're into antique automobiles!


article-image

(Photo: Simon_sees/CC BY 2.0)

They love to sit and watch the sunset.


article-image

(Photo: Fabian Bromann/CC BY 2.0)

Some days, they just can't


article-image

(Photo: Horiuchi/Public Domain)

They like to explore their spirituality. 


article-image

(Photo: Stephen Craven/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sometimes they just need a hug.


article-image

(Photo: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain)

And other times, they just want to be alone. 


article-image

(Photo: Serge Melki/CC BY 2.0)

They like to hang out at the beach!


article-image

(Photo: Pixeleye/CC0 Public Domain)

They come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. 


article-image

(Photo: Sage Ross/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Some are really short... 


article-image

(Photo: Allie_Caulfield/CC BY 2.0)

And others are really really tall.


article-image

(Photo: Cassi Saari/CC BY 3.0)

Some are skinny...


article-image

(Photo: tree-species/CC BY 2.0)

And others aren't.


article-image

(Photo: Mark v1.0/CC BY 3.0)

Sometimes their bodies do weird things they can't control.


article-image

(Photo: tintenfieber/CC0 Public Domain)

And sometimes they get really hungry.


article-image

(Photo: Mauro halpern/Public Domain)

When it's nice out, they like to put flowers in their hair.


article-image

(Photo: Leimenide/CC BY 2.0)

Sometimes they get sad. 


article-image

(Photo: LoggaWiggler/CC0 Public Domain)

And sometimes they just wanna dance!


article-image

(Photo: Dan Perry/CC BY 2.0)

And at the end of the day, they just need to sit back and chillax.

Viewing all 11437 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images