Trees and Shrubs

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    One-Third of World’s Trees Face Extinction Risk, Report at COP16 Says

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    They play an essential role in supporting life on Earth, but many species are in decline, researchers found.More than a third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction, according to the first comprehensive assessment of trees by the world’s leading scientific authority on the status of species.The findings, announced on Monday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, are especially sobering given the amount of life that trees sustain. Countless species of other plants, animals and fungi rely on forest ecosystems. Trees are also fundamental to regulating water, nutrients and planet-warming carbon.“Trees are essential to support life on Earth through their vital role in ecosystems, and millions of people depend on them for their lives and livelihoods,” Grethel Aguilar, director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said in a statement.The tree assessment is considered comprehensive because it includes more than 80 percent of known tree species. In all, 38 percent were found to be at risk of extinction. More than a thousand experts from around the world contributed.Island biodiversity is particularly vulnerable, in part because those species often have small populations that exist nowhere else, and island trees accounted for the highest proportion of trees threatened with extinction. In Madagascar, for example, numerous species of rosewoods and ebonies are threatened. In Borneo, 99 species in the family of trees called Dipterocarpaceae are imperiled. In Cuba, fewer than 75 mature individuals of the red-flowered Harpalyce macrocarpa, known in Spanish as maiden’s blood, remain.Around the world, the biggest threats to trees are agriculture and logging, followed by urbanization, said Emily Beech, head of conservation prioritization at Botanic Gardens Conservation International, a nonprofit group that led the research now included in the Red List.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Tallahassee, Residents Worry About a Defining City Feature: Its Trees

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      Tallahassee, Fla., with its towering oaks, stately pines and shaded streets, faces a severe threat to its iconic canopy of trees as Helene approaches.The state’s capital, Tallahassee has long prioritized protecting its trees, which cover more than half the city and are a cherished part of its identity. Its famous canopy roads, shaded by moss-draped live oaks, sweet gums and hickories are a defining feature.Among the city’s notable trees is the Lichgate Oak, an ancient tree that has become a natural landmark. The city is also believed to be the home of two “Moon Trees” — a sycamore and a loblolly pine — grown from seeds taken into space during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. However, the very trees that shape Tallahassee’s character could become a hazard during the storm. A city report on its urban forest warns that much of the city’s trees are short-lived and have wood that is prone to breakage under stress, making them particularly vulnerable to strong winds. Helene could test this vulnerability. Though Tallahassee is located at least 30 miles inland, the city is under a rare hurricane warning. Forecasters have warned that the storm could bring gusts of up to 75 miles per hour, and potentially stronger winds exceeding 110 m.p.h. The city has never before recorded sustaining hurricane-force winds.Brenda Geddes, 60, a longtime Tallahassee resident who was stocking up at a Walmart on Wednesday in advance of the storm, said of the trees, “When it’s a storm like this, you can only do so much.” In past hurricanes, the city has largely been protected from strong winds because of its geography, but storms have still caused significant damage outside the city.Donna Staab, 67, who lives about an hour and a half southeast of Tallahassee in Keaton Beach, recalled how Hurricane Idalia last year felled over a dozen trees on her neighbor’s property and a few on her own. The sound of wood chippers became a familiar backdrop.“You could hear it for weeks afterward,” Ms. Staab said.The fear of similar destruction is weighing on Tallahassee residents such as Natasha Sutherland, 39, who, along with her husband, decided to head to Alabama for safety on Wednesday. As she drove north, she became emotional while taking in the view of the city’s overhanging trees and her favorite places.“I started crying a little bit,” she said, as a thought occurred to her: “‘Gosh, this might be the last time I see it like this ever again.’” More

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      Summer 2023 Was the Northern Hemisphere’s Hottest in 2,000 Years, Study Finds

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      Scientists used tree rings to compare last year’s extreme heat with temperatures over the past two millenniums.The summer of 2023 was exceptionally hot. Scientists have already established that it was the warmest Northern Hemisphere summer since around 1850, when people started systematically measuring and recording temperatures.Now, researchers say it was the hottest in 2,000 years, according to a new study published in the journal Nature that compares 2023 with a longer temperature record across most of the Northern Hemisphere. The study goes back before the advent of thermometers and weather stations, to the year A.D. 1, using evidence from tree rings.“That gives us the full picture of natural climate variability,” said Jan Esper, a climatologist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany and lead author of the paper.Extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels are responsible for most of the recent increases in Earth’s temperature, but other factors — including El Niño, an undersea volcanic eruption and a reduction in sulfur dioxide aerosol pollution from container ships — may have contributed to the extremity of the heat last year.The average temperature from June through August 2023 was 2.20 degrees Celsius warmer than the average summer temperature between the years 1 and 1890, according to the researchers’ tree ring data.And last summer was 2.07 degrees Celsius warmer than the average summer temperature between 1850 and 1900, the years typically considered the base line for the period before human-caused climate change.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Zealanders Are Crazy for This Fruit. It’s Not the Kiwi.

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      Autumn in New Zealand heralds the arrival of a green, egg-size fruit that falls off trees in such abundance that it is often given to neighbors and colleagues by the bucket or even the wheelbarrow load. Only in cases of extreme desperation do people buy any.The fresh fruit, whose flesh is gritty, jellylike and cream-colored, is used in muffins, cakes, jams and smoothies, and it begins appearing on high-end menus each March — the start of fall in the Southern Hemisphere. Off-season, it is found in food and drink as varied as juices and wine, yogurt and kombucha, and chocolate and popcorn.This ubiquitous fruit is the feijoa (pronounced fee-jo-ah). Known in the United States as the pineapple guava, it was first brought to New Zealand from South America via France and California in the early 1900s.Its tangy taste is hard to describe, even for die-hard fans. But what is easy to pinpoint is that like the kiwi fruit, which originated in China, and the kiwi, a native bird, the feijoa has become for many here a quintessential symbol of New Zealand, or Aotearoa, as the country is known in the Indigenous Maori language.The feijoa is a quintessential symbol of New Zealand.The flesh is gritty, jellylike and cream-colored.Fresh feijoa is used in muffins, cakes, jams, smoothies and cocktails.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Some of Washington’s Iconic Cherry Trees Are About to Disappear

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      The National Park Service plans to chop down 140 of the trees as it builds a new sea wall to protect the area around the Jefferson Memorial.Around 140 cherry trees that form part of Washington’s iconic spring attraction will be chopped down this year to make way for the construction of new, taller sea walls to protect the area around the Jefferson Memorial.The National Park Service, which is overseeing the project, said on Wednesday that it had tried to minimize the loss of the trees, which erupt each year in a burst of pink and white splendor that draws more than 1.5 million visitors. But the age of the existing barriers, rising sea levels and poor drainage forced its hand.The current sea walls have sunk as much as five feet since their construction in the late 1800s and are no longer an effective bulwark against tidal waves and storm surges. Tides submerge parts of the walls twice a day, the Park Service said.“Despite various repairs over the decades, the sea walls are no longer structurally sound and threaten visitor safety and the historic setting, including the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin,” the Park Service said in a statement.The sea walls at the Tidal Basin have sunk as much as five feet.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesBlossom lovers still have one chance to experience the blooms in their full glory. Construction will not start until late May, after the conclusion of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which runs from late March to mid-April.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More