Trees

The time has come to change our thinking and to open our front gardens hidden behind high walls to the street. Together we can return to our typical rural village doorways which have almost disappeared over the time. Let's show our neighbours that we are open to them and offer our front garden with a bench as an attractive semi-public space for meetings and dialogs. If we convert our front garden from a private into a semi-public space, we can help to unify the streetscape. The street will become an attractive and safe public space. Let’s get rid of high fences as a significant barrier, or at least use some lower wooden ones. Let’s move the fence onto the building line of the house as it was in the time of convenient and nice village streets. The rural residential street has the potential to become an attractive and safe public space in an embrace of the greenery, let’s restore the doorways and the affable character of our village streets. The residents will once again become the "masters of the street" instead of currently dominating cars. Front gardens, green strips and islands will thanks to landscape architectural improvements become an adornment of the whole streetscape.

Both research and policy require a transparent approach to monitoring and managing natural and cultural heritage because landscape quality has become a key concept in landscape planning. This paper introduces an advanced approach to natural and cultural heritage inventory for the study of heritage trees. Because trees play different roles in society, different regulations apply to their preservation, which can lead to inconsistencies in records for heritages trees. The inventory of heritage trees and their types in the study area identified within the Karavanke Natura 2000 project, which is presented in this paper, is based on existing lists of heritage trees, fieldwork, and interviews. A new database of heritage trees has been established in which the advantage of geographical information systems unifying various data sources is emphasized.

Elevated atmospheric CO2 can change foliar tissue chemistry. This alters leaf litter palatability to macroinvertebrate detritivores with consequences for decomposition, nutrient turnover, and food-web structure. Currently there is no consensus on the link between CO2 enrichment, litter chemistry, and macroinvertebrate-mediated leaf decomposition. To identify any unifying mechanisms, we presented eight invertebrate species from aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems with litter from Alnus glutinosa (common alder) or Betula pendula (silver birch) trees propagated under ambient (380 ppm) or elevated (ambient +200 ppm) CO2 concentrations. Alder litter was largely unaffected by CO2 enrichment, but birch litter from leaves grown under elevated CO2 had reduced nitrogen concentrations and greater C/N ratios. Invertebrates were provided individually with either (i) two litter discs, one of each CO2 treatment (‘choice’), or (ii) one litter disc of each CO2 treatment alone (‘no-choice’). Consumption was recorded. Only Odontocerum albicorne showed a feeding preference in the choice test, consuming more ambient- than elevated-CO2 birch litter. Species’ responses to alder were highly idiosyncratic in the no-choice test: Gammarus pulex and O. albicorne consumed more elevated-CO2 than ambient-CO2 litter, indicating compensatory feeding, while Oniscus asellus consumed more of the ambient-CO2 litter. No species responded to CO2 treatment when fed birch litter. Overall, these results show how elevated atmospheric CO2 can alter litter chemistry, affecting invertebrate feeding behaviour in species-specific ways. The data highlight the need for greater species-level information when predicting changes to detrital processing–a key ecosystem function–under atmospheric change.

“Tree” as a universal name, is visualized in the mythology of mankind as something that represents the macrocosm, the universe, a world axis that connects the inferno below with the earth and the heavens above, with the four elements. The tree symbolizes both life and death.

В разных местностях России известны легенды о «екатерининских» дорогах, обсаженных по сторонам деревьями. Но на самом деле придорожное благоустройство с насаждением деревьев происходило при другом монархе и в более позднее время – при Александре I. Народ приписывал тяготы этих работ его высокопоставленному приближённому – А. А. Аракчееву. Судя по всему, представление о том, что придорожные берёзки – «екатерининские», могло совмещаться с воспоминаниями о тяжких трудах по дорожному обустройству при Аракчееве.

Palaver trees have long been viewed as both symbols and embodiments of an intrinsically African practice of governance. Historically, these great trees were very real elements of the cultural landscape. Throughout West Africa and Senegambia in particular they served a variety of political and social functions related to collective identities and the exercise of authority within communities and polities, serving for example for the administration of justice or for public displays of princely prerogatives. They were also the principal monuments of pre-colonial settlements. Many of these historic trees still stand today and they are greatly respected by local residents even though they no longer serve their original functions. Rather than idealizing the concept of the palaver tree in support of a contemporary political agenda, this chapter analyzes some of Senegal’s historic trees and argues that they should be considered as part of the country’s cultural heritage. The chapter also argues that palaver trees are still active in the contemporary Senegalese landscape, notably in the configuration of modern Muslim towns and villages. 

Six species of the genus Prunus occur inAndalusia. Matters regarding their ecology, ethnobotanical aspectsand conservation are discussed, as well as knowledge about thegermplasm of those species with greater economic importance and theirdegree of conservation, namely: P.avium, P.mahaleb and P.insititia. Various conservation measures areproposed for wild germplasm and for the germplasm of local varieties:a) conservation efforts should target the best populations,except in the case of P.avium and P.insititia, where every individual should beaddressed, including both wild and local cultivars; b) theDehesa del Camarate (Sierra Nevada) is proposed as an areafor in situ germplasm conservation; c) theawareness of the importance of Prunus germplasmshould be increased among forest workers, environmental managers andthe public; d) some silvicultural techniques are proposed, suchas mixed Prunus patches, hedge treatment,Z-tree selection at the early stages and the protection ofroot suckers; e) improved, selected P.avium and P.mahaleb germplasm should be used at highlyproductive sites since these two species can be cultivated as highvalue timber trees; f) some Prunus speciescan also provide profitable NTFPs in the region. Details regardingdifferent collection areas are covered. Finally, some topics arerecommended for scientific research. Three tables and a distributionmap of Prunus species in Andalusia areincluded.