Books and movies about trees :)

Good morning from the Fogland! Today is a beautiful day to read and write, it's foggy and rainy!!! All of the surrounding nature is celebrating the blessing of water! Leaves are flirting with the wind! Trees are dancing to every droplet of rain... Trees...

Trees!!!!

Historical and mythological trees... fictional trees... trees that speak, trees that attack, trees that give eternal life! We love trees and everything about them! From the tree of life and Yggdrasil to the Whomping Willow! They all hold the secrets of our past.. unspoken tales, weird dreams and promised salvation! I strongly believe what science has managed to prove what other people already knew centuries ago! They feel.. they think... they're living, breathing and conscious beings! If we were "open" to them, we could have learned so much! Feel even more... and eventually, through this, become better, greater in spirit and able to fix this crying planet! Trees correlate with wisdom, ancient spiritual crafts, religions, ideologies and cosmotheories! Have been used as symbols since the beginning of time, in cities, religions, ancient crafts and house sigils. There's something... otherworldly to trees... as I believe to all nature! They sense things we don't anymore. Actually we are blind and deaf nowadays but with bigger mouths. We feel nothing of this planet anymore. We can't! BUT... there are still some "cloud-walkers"... dreamers and "enchanters" among us.. for those... I write! Those.. can listen... can "see" beyond this "civilization"!

Now... let's have a look on some book titles and movies that talk about special trees ;) Enjoy!

1) Meetings with remarkable trees (Thomas Pakenham) - 1997

Thomas Pakenham's bestselling book of tree portraits. With this astonishing collection of tree portraits, Thomas Pakenham produced a new kind of tree book. The arrangement owed little to conventional botany. The sixty trees were grouped according to their own strong personalities: Natives, Travellers, Shrines, Fantasies and Survivors. From the ancient native trees, many of which are huge and immeasurably old, to the exotic newcomers from Europe, the East and North America, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE TREES captures the history and beauty of these entrancing living structures. Common to all these trees is their power to inspire awe and wonder. This is a lovingly researched book, beautifully illustrated with colour photographs, engravings and maps - a moving testimonial to the Earth's largest and oldest living structures.

Thomas Francis Dermot Pakenham, 8th Earl of Longford, is known simply as Thomas Pakenham. He is an Anglo-Irish historian and arborist who has written several prize-winning books on the diverse subjects of Victorian and post-Victorian British history and trees. He is the son of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, a Labour minister and human rights campaigner, and Elizabeth Longford. The well known English historian Antonia Fraser is his sister.

After graduating from Belvedere College and Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1955, Thomas Pakenham traveled to Ethiopia, a trip which is described in his first book The Mountains of Rasselas. On returning to Britain, he worked on the editorial staff of the Times Educational Supplement and later for ,i>The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer. He divides his time between London and County Westmeath, Ireland, where he is the chairman of the Irish Tree Society and honorary custodian of Tullynally Castle.

Thomas Pakenham does not use his title and did not use his courtesy title before succeeding his father. However, he has not disclaimed his British titles under the Peerage Act 1963, and the Irish peerages cannot be disclaimed as they are not covered by the Act. He is unable to sit in the House of Lords as a hereditary peer as his father had, due to the House of Lords Act 1999 (though his father was created a life peer in addition to his hereditary title in order to be able to retain his seat).

2) Outline: An autobiography (Paul Nash) - 1949

Tate Britain’s winter retrospective demonstrated Paul Nash’s extraordinary and enduring feeling for trees. His autobiography, Outline, works as a companion to his painting career, linking the beech tree in his special childhood place in Kensington Gardens to the mysterious group of beeches silhouetted on the hill at Wittenham Clumps, and then to the devastated, topless trunks in the first world war battlefields of northern France.

Paul Nash (1889-1946) was one of the most important British artists of the twentieth century. An official war artist in both the First and the Second World Wars, his paintings include some of the most definitive artistic visions of those conflicts. This new edition of Nash’s unfinished autobiography, Outline, is published to coincide with the Tate's major Paul Nash retrospective and incorporates the previously unpublished ‘Memoir of Paul Nash’ by his wife Margaret. Nash started writing Outline in the late 1930s, but it was left incomplete on his sudden death in 1946. Nash had struggled to complete the book, finding that he could not get beyond the beginning of the Great War. Outline is, nevertheless, one of the great English literary works of the period, for Nash was a gifted writer. His autobiography offers considerable insights into to the young life of the artist himself, and the development of his personal and very distinctive vision. When eventually published in 1949 his incomplete memoir was supplemented by letters that Nash wrote to his wife from the Western Front in 1917. This new edition includes these letters for the vivid insight they give into Nash’s experience of the war. The third element of the new edition is Margaret Nash’s revealing (and previously unpublished) 1951 memoir of her husband. What emerges through these different narrative voices and perspectives, enhanced with photographs of Paul and Margaret Nash and reproductions of key works from throughout Nash's career, is a fascinating portrait of a major figure in Modern British art.

3) The Woodlanders ( Thomas Hardy) - 1887

The Woodlanders is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It was serialised from May 1886 to April 1887 in Macmillan's Magazine and published in three volumes in 1887. It is one of his series of Wessex novels.

The story takes place in a small woodland village called Little Hintock, and concerns the efforts of an honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury. Although they have been informally betrothed for some time, her father has made financial sacrifices to give his adored only child a superior education and no longer considers Giles good enough for her. When the new doctor – a well-born and handsome young man named Edred Fitzpiers – takes an interest in Grace, her father does all he can to make Grace forget Giles, and to encourage what he sees as a brilliant match. Grace has misgivings prior to the marriage as she sees a village woman (Suke Damson) coming out of his cottage very early in the morning and suspects he has been sleeping with her. She tells her father that she does not want to go on with the marriage and he becomes very angry. Later Fitzpiers tells her Suke has been to visit him because she was in agony from toothache and he extracted a molar. Grace clutches at this explanation - in fact Fitzpiers has started an affair with Suke some weeks previously. After the honeymoon, the couple take up residence in an unused wing of Melbury's house. Soon, however, Fitzpiers begins an affair with a rich widow named Mrs. Charmond, which Grace and her father discover. Grace finds out by chance that Suke Damson has a full set of teeth and realises that Fitzpiers lied to her. The couple become progressively more estranged and Fitzpiers is assaulted by his father-in-law after he accidentally reveals his true character to him. Both Suke Damson and Mrs Charmond turn up at Grace's house demanding to know whether Fitzpiers is all right - Grace addresses them both sarcastically as "Wives -all". Fitzpiers later deserts Grace and goes to the Continent with Mrs Charmond. Grace realises that she has only ever really loved Giles but as there is no possibility of divorce feels that her love seems hopeless.

Hardy’s novels all show a deep understanding of the natural world, but this one’s so thick with trees that at times the human characters almost get lost in the woods. The woodlands supply everyone with fuel, timber, fruit and a livelihood, but Hardy, never comfortable with pleasing pastoral, directs us to the ominous figure of the elm looming over Marty South’s father. Paralysed by fear of this tree, Mr South becomes too ill to leave his house, but when Dr Fitzpiers arrives with a fresh approach and orders the tree to be felled, the shock of its removal proves far too great. His patient dies the next day.

Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin.

Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

I'm leaving this plane now... venturing to other worlds, hidden from plain sight! Something fascinating... something that makes the trees walk and speak! Follow me............

4) The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R.Tolkien) - 1955

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some distant time in the past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.

The title refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who in an earlier age created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power given to Men, Dwarves, and Elves, in his campaign to conquer all of Middle-earth. From homely beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land reminiscent of the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the quest to destroy the One Ring mainly through the eyes of the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin.

Although often called a trilogy, the work was intended by Tolkien to be one volume of a two-volume set along with The Silmarillion. For economic reasons, The Lord of the Rings was published over the course of a year from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955, in three volumes titled The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. The work is divided internally into six books, two per volume, with several appendices of background material. Some later editions print the entire work in a single volume, following the author's original intent.

Tolkien's work, after an initially mixed reception by the literary establishment, has been the subject of extensive analysis of its themes and origins. Influences on this earlier work, and on the story of The Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology, Christianity, earlier fantasy works, and his own experiences in the First World War.

The Lord of the Rings has since been reprinted many times and translated into at least 38 languages. Its enduring popularity has led to numerous references in popular culture, the founding of many societies by fans of Tolkien's works, and the publication of many books about Tolkien and his works. It has inspired numerous derivative works, including artwork, music, films, television, video games, and board games, helping create and shape the modern fantasy genre, within which it is considered one of the greatest books of all time.

Award-winning adaptations of The Lord of the Rings have been made for radio, theatre, and film. It has been named Britain's best novel of all time in the BBC's The Big Read.

Ents, also known as Onodrim (Tree-host) by the Elves, were a very old race of Middle-earth. They were apparently created at the behest of Yavanna after she learned of Aulë's children, the Dwarves, knowing that they would want to fell trees. Becoming "shepherds" of the trees, they protected certain forests from Orcs and other perils. The Elves had tales of teaching the trees and the Ents to talk: although the Ents were sentient beings at the time, they did not know how to speak until the Elves taught them. Treebeard spoke of the Elves "curing the Ents of their dumbness", an unforgettable gift.

Ents are tree-like creatures who over millennia became more and more like the trees they herded. They varied in height, size, colouring, and number of fingers and toes. An individual Ent usually resembled the species of tree they guarded. For example, Quickbeam guarded rowan trees and resembled them closely (tall and slender, etc.).

Ents were very strong, as recounted by Merry and Pippin: "Their punches can crumple iron like tin, and they can tear apart solid rock like breadcrusts." In the Third Age, the forest of Fangorn was supposedly the last remaining residence of Ents, though Huorns still dwelt in other places such as the Old Forest.

Ents spoke words of a slow and exhaustive vocabulary. In fact, their language appears to be based on an ancient form of Common Eldarin, later enriched by Quenya and Sindarin, though including many unique 'tree-ish' additions. Two versions of their tongue can be distinguished:

• Old Entish: originally, the Ents had a language of their own, described as long and sonorous; it was a tonal language (like Chinese). It is unknown if a non-Ent could even pronounce Old Entish correctly: it was filled with many subtle vowel shades, and was very long-winded. Only Ents spoke it, not because they kept their language a secret, as the dwarves did with Khuzdul, but because no others could master it. The Huorns and trees of Fangorn Forest could understand Old Entish and converse with the Ents and each other with it. The only extant sample, a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lindor-burúme, the word for hill (or possibly even just part of the name of a specific hill), was described as a very inaccurate sampling. Even the Elves, master linguists, could not learn Old Entish, nor did they attempt to record it due to its complex sound structure. The grammar structure of Old Entish was also quite bizarre, often described as a lengthy, long-winded discussion of a topic. There may not even have been a word for yes and no: such questions would be answered by a long monologue on why the Ent in question did or did not agree with the Ent who asked the question. The Ent Quickbeam was regarded as a very "hasty" Ent for answering a question before another Ent had finished: the end may only have been another hour away. Ents as a rule would say nothing in Old Entish unless it was worth taking a long time to say. For everyday language function, they usually resorted to "New" Entish.

• "New Entish" (never named as such in the text). Due to contact with the Elves, the Ents learned much. The Ents found the Elvish Quenya to be a lovely language, and adapted it after their fashion to everyday use. However, they basically adapted Quenya vocabulary to Old Entish grammatical structure. Thus, unlike Old Entish, the individual words of "New Entish" that characters such as Treebeard spoke were easily translatable. However, in context they formed lengthy run-on sentences of redundant adjectives that could still stretch well over an hour in length. For example, when Treebeard essentially wanted to tell Merry and Pippin, "There is a shadow of the Great Darkness in the deep dales of the forest", he literally said in New Entish, "Forest-golden-leaves, deep-dales-winter, forest-many-shadowed, deep-valley-black". Unlike Old Entish, a non-Ent conceivably could speak "New" Entish. Even when speaking the Common Speech, Westron, Ents fell into the habit of adapting it into their grammatical structure of repeating compound adjectives used to express fine shades of meaning.

I won't wander elsewhere for a while, but stay a little bit by Tolkien! Our top favorite author and scholar! Becuase, you see... the movies are those that made LOTR known to every corner of the Earth. It is known, sadly to say, that not everyone on this planet, reads.

Well.. shall we travel to Middle-Earth through the work of Peter Jackson and his fellowship?!

The Lord of the Rings is a series of three epic fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson, based on the novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are subtitled The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003). Produced and distributed by New Line Cinema with the co-production of WingNut Films, it is an international venture between New Zealand and the United States. The films feature an ensemble cast including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Christopher Lee, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Andy Serkis and Sean Bean.

Set in the fictional world of Middle-earth, the films follow the hobbit Frodo Baggins as he and the Fellowship embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring, to ensure the destruction of its maker, the Dark Lord Sauron. The Fellowship eventually splits up and Frodo continues the quest with his loyal companion Sam and the treacherous Gollum. Meanwhile, Aragorn, heir in exile to the throne of Gondor, along with Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, Merry, Pippin and the wizard Gandalf, unite to save the Free Peoples of Middle-earth from the forces of Sauron and rally them in the War of the Ring to aid Frodo by distracting Sauron's attention.

The three films were shot simultaneously and entirely in Jackson's native New Zealand from 11 October 1999 until 22 December 2000, with pick-up shots done from 2001 to 2004. It was one of the biggest and most ambitious film projects ever undertaken, with a budget of $281 million. The first film in the series premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 10 December 2001; the second film premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on 5 December 2002; the third film premiered at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington on 1 December 2003. An extended edition of each film was released on home video a year after its release in cinemas.

The Lord of the Rings is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential film series ever made. It was a major financial success and is among the highest-grossing film series of all time with $2.991 billion in worldwide receipts. Each film was critically acclaimed, with high praise for their innovative special effects, acting, set design, musical score and emotional depth, and heavily awarded, the series winning 17 out of its 30 Academy Award nominations.

But what interests us more at this point and for this article alone, are the trees! Trees that became famous in an instant! Ents in the common tongue or Onodrim in the Elvsih tongue.

The Ents are first introduced when Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) literally run into one as they're escaping into Fangorn forest, running from the orcs and Uruk-hai. Treebeard is the name of this Ent, and he agrees to call the other Ents in the forest to a meeting.

In the Lord of the Rings books, they end up agreeing to fight Saruman at this meeting whereas in the movies, Treebeard calls the other Ents after seeing what Saruman has done to the trees around Isengard. This only happens because of Pippin's suggestion that Treebeard bring him and Merry to Isengard, as that's the last place Saruman will look for them. In both versions of the story, the Ents play a key role in defeating Saruman, and therefore in winning the War of the Ring.

The Ents are very old creatures in Middle Earth. They were created because Yavanna, one of the Ainur and Valar, heard about the creation of dwarves and feared they would cut all the trees in Middle Earth down. In order to protect the trees, Ents were created. The early history of the Ents after their creation is a bit of a mystery. They appeared in tales near the end of the First Age. At one point, all of Eriador was a huge forest, and the Ents protected it. Fangorn forest was only the Eastern part of it. Eventually, though, these forests were destroyed, at some point in the Second Age. There were also ent-wives, but they moved away from the Ents as they enjoyed planting and controlling things.

The Ents have a purpose beyond defeating Saruman and protecting the forests. There is a reason these characters resonate so much and inspire fans so deeply. The Ents are on the side of good, so fans love to root for them. But the Ents are not just characters, not just a fantasy species, they are also symbols of nature. Their defeat of Saruman is nature winning against industrialization. Of course, industrialization itself isn't always entirely a bad thing. It's all about balance. To destroy and not care about nature as Saruman in Lord of the Rings did is wrong, of course. And that is what the Ents show. The Ents inspire viewers to respect and take care of nature.

5) The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky) - 2006

The Fountain is a 2006 American epic magical realism romantic drama film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Blending elements of fantasy, history, spirituality, and science fiction, the film consists of three storylines involving immortality and the resulting loves lost, and one man's pursuit of avoiding this fate in this life or beyond it. Jackman and Weisz play sets of characters bonded by love across time and space: a conquistador and his ill-fated queen, a modern-day scientist and his cancer-stricken wife, and a traveler immersed in a universal journey alongside aspects of his lost love. The storylines—interwoven with use of match cuts and recurring visual motifs—reflect the themes and interplay of love and mortality.

Aronofsky originally planned to direct The Fountain on a $70 million budget with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in the lead roles, but Pitt's withdrawal and cost overruns led Warner Bros. to shut down his production. The director rewrote the script to be sparser, and was able to resurrect the film with a $35 million budget with Jackman and Weisz in the lead roles. Production mainly took place on a sound stage in Montreal, Quebec, and the director used macro photography to create key visual effects for The Fountain at a low cost.

The film was released theatrically in the United States and Canada on November 22, 2006. It grossed $10,144,010 in the United States and Canada and $5,761,344 in other territories for a worldwide total of $15,978,422. Critics' reactions to the film were divided, but it has gained a cult following since its release.

Conquistador Tomás Verde in New Spain fights a band of Mayans to gain entry into a pyramid, where he is attacked by a Mayan priest. The story intercuts to a similar looking man, tending a tall tree in a glass dome biosphere travelling through space, annoyed by a woman called Izzi. Finally, a third iteration, present-day surgeon Tom Creo, is losing his wife Izzi to a brain tumor. Tom is working on a cure using samples from a tree found through exploration in Guatemala, which are being tested for medicinal use for degenerative brain diseases in his lab. Izzi has come to terms with her mortality, but Tom refuses to accept it, focused on his quest to find a cure for her. She writes a story called "The Fountain" about Queen Isabella losing her kingdom to the Inquisition and a commission given by her to Tomás Verde to search for the Tree of Life in the Central American forest in Mayan territory. As she does not expect to finish her book, Izzi asks Tom to finish it for her. As they look up at the golden nebula of Xibalba, she imagines, as the Mayans did, that their souls will meet there after death and when the star goes supernova. She dies shortly thereafter and Tom dedicates himself to curing not only her disease but death itself after seeing experimental success in reversing aging. His colleagues fear that this drive has made him reckless, but they support him in his scientific work and emotionally at Izzi's funeral. Tom plants a sweetgum seed at Izzi's grave in the manner of a story she told him relating how a Mayan guide's dead father lived on in a tree nourished by the organic nutrients of the buried body.

In the Mayan jungle, Tomás finds that most of his fellow knights are exhausted and refuse to continue searching for the Tree of Life. After a failed coup and the death of their priest guide, he takes the few who remain loyal with him to a pyramid, carrying a ceremonial dagger. Once he arrives at the pyramid, the first scene repeats and Tomás engages in combat with the Mayan priest. The space traveller (whether this character is a version of Tom, an element of Izzy's story, or Tom himself in the future is unclear) spends much of his time performing physical or mental exercises, including a form of meditation allowing him to perceive and interact with the past. In that past, Tomás is stabbed in the stomach but, just as the priest is about to kill him, he appears before the figurehead. The priest now believes Tomás is the "First Father" who birthed all life. Tomás kills the priest as a sacrifice and proceeds to a pool with a large tree, convinced this is the Tree of Life. Tomás applies some of its sap to his torso and is cured of his stab wound. He drinks the sap flowing from the bark. But in a reenactment of the Mayan creation myth recounted earlier, his body is turned into flowers and grass that burst forth from it and he literally gives rise to new life, killing himself in the process. In space, the tree finally dies just before the spaceship arrives at its destination, much to the horror of the version of Tom tending it. A final vision of Izzi appears, comforting him in the face of his acceptance of death. The star goes supernova, engulfing the ship and everything within. The traveler's body, engulfed by the dying star inside of the nebula, is absorbed by the tree, causing it to flourish back to life. Izzi's apparition picks a fruit from the new tree of life and hands it to Tom, who plants it in Izzi's grave, accepting her death and moving on.

6) Avatar (James Cameron) - 2009

Avatar (marketed as James Cameron's Avatar) is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to a genetically engineered Na'vi body operated from the brain of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.

Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to humans, is inhabited by the Na'vi, a species of 10-foot tall (3.0 m), blue-skinned, sapient humanoids that live in harmony with nature and worship a mother goddess named Eywa.

To explore Pandora's biosphere, scientists use Na'vi-human hybrids called "avatars", operated by genetically matched humans. Jake Sully, a paraplegic former Marine, replaces his deceased identical twin brother as an operator of one. Dr. Grace Augustine, head of the Avatar Program, considers Sully an inadequate replacement but accepts his assignment as a bodyguard. While escorting the avatars of Grace and fellow scientist Dr. Norm Spellman, Jake's avatar is attacked by a thanator and flees into the forest, where he is rescued by Neytiri, a female Na'vi. Witnessing an auspicious sign, she takes him to her clan. Neytiri's mother Mo'at, the clan's spiritual leader, orders her daughter to initiate Jake into their society.

Colonel Miles Quaritch, head of RDA's private security force, promises Jake that the company will restore his legs if he gathers information about the Na'vi and the clan's gathering place, a giant tree called Hometree, which stands above the richest deposit of unobtanium in the area. When Grace learns of this, she transfers herself, Jake, and Norm to an outpost. Over the following three months, Jake and Neytiri fall in love as Jake grows to sympathize with the natives. After Jake is initiated into the tribe, he and Neytiri choose each other as mates. Soon afterward, Jake reveals his change of allegiance when he attempts to disable a bulldozer that threatens to destroy a sacred Na'vi site. When Quaritch shows a video recording of Jake's attack on the bulldozer to Administrator Parker Selfridge, and another in which Jake admits that the Na'vi will never abandon Hometree, Selfridge orders Hometree destroyed.

Despite Grace's argument that destroying Hometree could damage the biological neural network native to Pandora, Selfridge gives Jake and Grace one hour to convince the Na'vi to evacuate before commencing the attack. Jake confesses to the Na'vi that he was a spy, and they take him and Grace captive. Quaritch's men destroy Hometree, killing Neytiri's father (the clan chief) and many others. Mo'at frees Jake and Grace, but they are detached from their avatars and imprisoned by Quaritch's forces. Pilot Trudy Chacón, disgusted by Quaritch's brutality, frees Jake, Grace, and Norm, and airlifts them to Grace's outpost, but Grace is shot by Quaritch during the escape.

To regain the Na'vi's trust, Jake connects his mind to that of Toruk, a dragon-like predator feared and honored by the Na'vi. Jake finds the refugees at the sacred Tree of Souls and pleads with Mo'at to heal Grace. The clan attempts to transfer Grace from her human body into her avatar with the aid of the Tree of Souls, but she dies before the process can be completed. Supported by the new chief Tsu'tey, Jake unites the clan and tells them to gather all of the clans to battle the RDA. Quaritch organizes a pre-emptive strike against the Tree of Souls, believing that its destruction will demoralize the natives. On the eve of battle, Jake prays to Eywa, via a neural connection with the Tree of Souls, to intercede on behalf of the Na'vi.

Eywa is the guiding force and deity of Pandora and the Na'vi. The Na'vi believe that Eywa acts to keep the ecosystem of Pandora in perfect equilibrium. It is sometimes theorized by human scientists that all living things on Pandora connect to Eywa through a system of neuro-conductive antennae; this often explains why Na'vi can mount their direhorse or mountain banshee steeds and ride them immediately without going through the necessary steps required to domesticate such wild animals.

Some believe that this interconnectedness, which on Earth is merely a spiritual concept, exists in a physical and tangible way on Pandora, in the form of a strange, collective psionic consciousness embedded in the planet, drawn from all Pandoran life. It is, in a way, a little like a huge biological internet; the trees being computer servers that store information. The Na'vi can upload or download memories from it using their queues and it can even be used for mind transfers in certain cases.

The Tree of Souls grants the Na'vi access to the psychic essences of their deceased, which is how the Na'vi communicate with their ancestors. The roots of the trees are capable of extending above the ground and connecting to the nervous system of any living thing, even humans. This is how Jake Sully's consciousness was transferred to his avatar permanently.

The Tree of Souls (Na'vi name: Vitraya Ramunong ) is a giant willow tree that is said to be the closest connection to Eywa on Pandora. As pointed out by Miles Quaritch, the tree is a point of extreme spiritual significance to the Na'vi, more so than any other point on Pandora. As of 2154, the site has been spiritually significant for at least 3,000 years.

The Tree of Souls, besides being a connection to Eywa, also works as a way for her to directly interact with the world through the seeds of the tree. The tree has the capability to connect directly to the human nervous system, despite humans lacking a queue. The roots of the Tree of Souls are capable of initiating a neural link with the Na'vi, like with the Tree of Voices. This allows all of the Na'vi to unite as one.

The tree has been threatened at least twice in the past. The destruction of the Tree of Souls would prove devastating to the Na'vi as a whole, and would create a cultural and religious void that would decimate the race entirely.

7) Harry Potter (David Heyman) (J. K. Rowling) - 2001-2011

Once again our task leads us to Harry Potter series!

Harry Potter is a film series based on the eponymous novels by J. K. Rowling. The series is distributed by Warner Bros. and consists of eight fantasy films, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and culminating with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). A spin-off prequel series that will consist of five films started with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), marking the beginning of the Wizarding World shared media franchise.

The series was mainly produced by David Heyman, and stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson as the three leading characters: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. Four directors worked on the series: Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, and David Yates. Michael Goldenberg wrote the screenplay for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), while the remaining films' screenplays were written by Steve Kloves. Production took place over ten years, with the main story arc following Harry's quest to overcome his arch-enemy Lord Voldemort.

What interests us at this point, is the significant trees that appear in Harry Potter stories. And the winner would be , as you all might agree... Whomping Willow!

The most famous Whomping Willow was the one planted on the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Whomping Willow was planted around the year 1971 to cover up the opening of a secret passage leading from the Hogwarts grounds to the Shrieking Shack in the village of Hogsmeade.

It had a small knot near the base. Pressing the knot caused the tree to become immobilised. This allowed Remus Lupin to travel unnoticed to and from the Shrieking Shack, where he was able to undergo his transformation into a werewolf in privacy. To access the tunnel, Lupin's friend Peter Pettigrew would transform into his rat animagus form, becoming small enough to easily avoid the willow's branches and press the knot.

The willow's movements afterwards prevented Lupin from leaving while in his feral state.

Students would challenge each other to get as close as possible to the tree's trunk until the tree nearly took the eye of student Davey Gudgeon.

During the 1989–1990 school year at Hogwarts, Professor Pomona Sprout taught her sixth year Herbology students about how to care for young Whomping Willows.

"Ron gasped, staring through the windshield, and Harry looked around just in time to see a branch as thick as a python smash into it. The tree they had hit was attacking them. Its trunk was bent almost double, and its gnarled boughs were pummelling every inch of the car it could reach."

— Ron Weasley and Harry Potter having crashed the Flying Ford Anglia into the Hogwarts Whomping Willow.

The significant and special plants in Harry Potter are way too many, but I'll just mention a few;

Beech tree on the edge of the Black Lake:

There was a towering beech tree on one of the banks of the Black Lake, at the Hogwarts Grounds, in Scotland.

After his Defence Against the Dark Arts Ordinary Wizarding Level exam in 1976, Severus Snape sat under the shade of this beech tree to read through his exam paper. Moments later, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew arrived. Noticing Snape, James and Sirius started bullying him, having turned him upside-down in midair and exposing his "pair of greying underpants" to the laughing student crowd that had assembled there. Lily Evans came to Severus's defence, but this only made things worse: in a subsequent lashing out at James in an attempt to recover his lost dignity, Severus inadvertently called Lily a Mudblood. Lily refused to forgive him for it, even after his repeated apologies. This would forever be Severus's worst memory.

"The sky was a clear, misty, opalescent blue. Directly ahead of him, Harry could see the towering beech tree below which his father had once tormented Snape."

Let's see some history though...

OAK (dair)

Ireland

• Oak has been identified at numerous Irish prehistoric sites, especially crannógs, which were artificial islands built in lakes or marshes. A crannóg excavated at Ballinderry was found to have been constructed using oak piles. Some of the foundations were oak planks more than half a metre across and 10cm thick. Likewise, some excavated toghers, or ancient trackways found across marshy ground, were constructed using split and shaped logs of oak laid on runners of alder. Oak wood was also used extensively for barrel staves as well as for a number of domestic and other items, including a 7.5 metre long dugout boat which was excavated at Ballinderry.

• Eo Mugna was one of the five legendary trees of Ireland. Its name suggests that it was a yew, but this unlikely tree was reputed to be an oak which bore apples, acorns and hazelnuts. It was supposed to have been a son of the Tree of Knowledge, found in the Garden of Eden. It is reputed to have fallen sometime before 600 AD.

• Derry, the anglicised version of doire (the Gaelic for ‘oakwood’), is a frequent component of place names throughout Ireland.

• Cloth can be dyed black using oak bark and acorns. The bark alone can be used for tanning leather, and is also used as kindling in the smoke house for curing bacon and fish.

• The St. Lawrence family, the Earls of Howth, is associated with a large oak tree at Howth Castle in Co. Dublin. It is believed that when the tree falls, the family’s direct line will come to an end. Hence, the branches are strongly supported by wooden uprights!

Internationally

• The oak is known in Scotland as the ‘grief tree’ or the ‘gallows tree’. The tree was normally planted on high ground by highland chieftains, so that the public could see it from a distance. The reason for this was that the chieftains would hang their enemies or any deserter from it. Many such locations can still be found, not just in Scotland, but all across England and Wales. The high ground became known as ‘gallows hill’.

• An old Greek myth relates that when the announcement of Christ’s crucifixion was made, all the trees met together and agreed that none of them wished to be part of the event. When the time came for the wood to be selected by the soldiers, each piece began to split and break into many other pieces, making it impossible to use. However, only the evergreen oak or the ‘Ilex’ did not split and allowed itself to be used. Hence, the other trees looked upon the oak as a traitor, another Judas. As a result, some Greek people will not have any part of the evergreen oak tree brought into the house, or allow their axes to come into contact with the tree. Just like Judas, the tree is seen to be eternally condemned. (as a Greek, never heard of that before)

HAZEL (coll)

Ireland

• In the Ancient Days, the Nine Hazels of Wisdom grew at the source of the River Boyne, at the well of Segais. Hazel, as such, is considered the Tree of Knowledge in Irish traditions, and under the Bretha Comaithchesa, the Laws of the Neighbour-hood, hazel was granted the highest rank as one of airig fedo, ‘a noble of the wood’.

• Hazelnuts were undoubtedly an important source of seasonal food in Ireland and elsewhere. The nuts have to be picked on a dry, mid-autumn day when they are about to fall. The dry nuts, once cleaned of the husk, can be stored for some time (providing the storage area is cool and well-aired) and may be eaten as required.

• It was thought that a hazelnut kept in the pocket wards off rheumatism and lumbago. The liquid from hazel catkins was used as an olive-coloured pigment in paint.

“Holly and hazel, elder and rowan and bright ash from beside the ford.”

Hazel catkins – (photo D. Steaven)

“Cuileann agus coll, trom agus cárthan Agus, fuinseóg gheal o bhéal an átha.”

There's so many significant trees in literature and the cinema but... be patient for the next article ;)

Magical or not, we should treat the trees as equals (although I believe they are superior than us anyway)... try talk to the trees near your house... ask for their blessing,... feel them, understand Nature as a living being! Protect Mother Nature, trust her.. it's all magic!!!

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