Exhalation of moss, mycelium, black mould; wafted savor of a thousand earthly growths, damp, clinging, redolent; aroma of mighty roots, of invisible spawn and seed—all the vast stirring of the earth’s desire. – Virginia Garland, “The Rain,” Out West: A Magazine of the Old Pacifi

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? – Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them. – James Russell Lowell