It is not much for its beauty that makes a claim upon mens hearts, as for that subtle, something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit. – Robert Louis Stevenson

But these trees are derelicts—throwing out a wisp of foliage here and there, a truce to death, with each returning spring. – Julia Ellen Rogers, “The Big Tree and the Redwood,” The Tree Book: A

The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French b