Oak, The Same Age As The Universe

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

If mosses are the same age as life on earth's land, then Oak is listed as the same age as the Universe. Looking at its power and longevity, all doubts about this disappear

Wonders of the world

The world is full of wonders. One of them, according to Gaius Pliny, who lived in Rome in the 1st century AD, is the oak trees, whose age he equated with the age of the universe.

I do not know if the oaks that grew in Rome under Pliny have survived to this day, but, for example, in Lithuania, people protect an oak that is 2 thousand years old. He even has a personal name, "Stelmuzhsky old man", assigned to the oak tree after the name of the village in which he managed to settle down so well.

As for the oak forests of Europe, which once made up half of the European forests, they have thinned significantly and barely get to the number "3" when it comes to their percentage in the total mass of forests on this continent.

The hard lot of the heroes

It is good to be small, like moss, which is pressed tightly to the ground and staunchly resists all violence. No matter how much Humanity tramples on it, the moss continues to grow for itself, conquering ever large territories.

The fate of the bogatyrs, who can be seen from a mile away, is completely different. Everyone seeks to use their strength and strength for his own good, without worrying about the future of the plant. This was the case with oak trees, which were mercilessly cut down in Europe in order to expand the cultivated area to feed the growing population; to lay down the walls of knightly castles and houses of commoners; heat living quarters in the winter.

Today, travelers around Rome do not write about slender oak groves, but only mention an almost dried oak that is found when descending from a Roman hill, the Janiculum. And they remember him not because the oak fell victim to lightning, but because in the middle of the 16th century, an Italian poet with a difficult and sad fate, Torquato Tasso, loved to rest under this oak tree. Having written the poem "Jerusalem Liberated", in which he glorified the heroism of the crusaders to free the Holy Sepulcher from the Gentiles, he rewrote his creation several times under the influence of critics of all stripes. Since it is never possible to please everyone, he ended up just ruining his poem. Sorry for the digression, because we are not talking about poets, but about Oaks, under which not only poets like to sit.

Weakness of Oak

Even the bravest Achilles, who, like Jesus Christ, was a half-man-demigod (although in his case the mother was the goddess, and the father was a mortal man, so he did not have to invent the virgin birth), had a weak point. What then can we say about fragile plants, forced to stand in one place all their lives.

The mighty Oak also has weaknesses. He is afraid of spring frosts, and therefore shows the world his greenery almost the last of our trees, sometimes by the beginning of summer. But, every cloud has a silver lining. This was used by spring primroses with a short life cycle and a love of light.

In the spring, light oak forests are filled with Anemone and Corydalis, Medunitsa and Lilies of the Valley, Goose Onions, which have time to give seeds and retire until next spring, while the oak is about to open its buds to release leaves.

Oak's little trick

Oak has one trick that rescues him from the cunning of man and the gluttony of caterpillars. These are emergency buds that sleep on the trunk while no one encroaches on the life of the tree. But, it is worth cutting down the Oak, as the buds on the stump wake up and give birth to young shoots, characterized by large leaves. And they are large because the powerful roots of a felled tree provide them with food.

There are also such dormant buds on the branches of a tree. If the caterpillars are able to chew all the blossoming leaves, then the buds wake up and make up for the loss.

The tree is fighting for its presence in this world, which is sometimes so hostile. A person is able to help Oak, one has only to want. After all, who knows, perhaps, with the disappearance of the oak, the entire Universe will disappear from solidarity with a peer.