The Songs of Trees by David George Haskell: A Book Review

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“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story…” The spirit of these immortal words, the opening lines of Homer’s Odyssey, is at play in David George Haskell’s book The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors. In his exploration of the arboreal world, Haskell describes the songs of trees and the stories they tell. But in Haskell’s view, trees are less soloists than part of life’s choir, a chorale in which all living things lift their voices together. As Haskell describes trees in different settings, from remote locales to buzzing metropolises, he reveals their parts, and ours, in creating life’s harmony.

As a New Yorker, I found Haskell’s chapter on the Callery pear to be especially compelling. The tree was named after Joseph-Marie Callery, a plant collecting Frenchman who sent seedlings of the tree from China to the West in the mid-1800s. The Callery pear first appeared on the American horticultural landscape in the early twentieth century when agronomists hybridized Chinese and European pear trees to develop a species resistant to fire blight, a bacterium that was felling local pear trees. A variant from a Maryland plant breeder proved singularly resilient, and the Callery pear became a popular choice for street trees among urban planners. The tree is now a common sight in New York City, and, in fact, a Callery pear tree grows just down the street from my apartment building in Hell's Kitchen.
 
Over the years, the Callery pear has lost its lustre among American botanists; as a non-native species, it has little to offer to native birds and insects. In addition, as the tree has spread beyond planned communities and now competes with native species for resources, it has developed a reputation as a weedy invasive plant. However, the Callery pear makes a profound contribution to New York City in several critical ways. First, the tree’s leaves and bark help channel storm water into the soil around its base. By serving as a storm water buffer, the tree helps prevent sewage overflow at local water treatment facilities and preserves aquatic life in the Hudson and East Rivers. In addition, trees like the Callery pear absorb particulate pollution into their leaves and bark, acting as giant air filters. On an annual basis, New York City’s trees remove more than forty thousand tons of carbon dioxide alone from the air. Further, as they provide shade and release water into the air through their leaves, trees such as the Callery pear lower the air temperature. Depending on the size of the tree canopy, certain city neighborhoods can be ten degrees cooler than others: a margin that can make the difference between life and death. Last but not least, simply with their presence, the Callery pear and its arboreal neighbors reduce onlookers’ levels of the stress hormone cortisol and instill a sense of calm.
 
In sum, Haskell's story of the Callery pear- a tree that protects our waterways, filters and cools the air we breathe, and increases our sense of well-being- is one worthy of song.