and respiration and can literally cause a tree to suffocate. Weakened by such forms of stress, a city tree is all the more vulnerable to parasitic insects or some microbial malady like anthracnose, Dutch elm disease, canker, oak wilt. Even these problems, according to Benepe, are not the worst of it. âI once saw a tree that died quickly after an exterminator poured his exterminating liquid on its roots.â And then again thereâs the poisonous insult of dog urine, contributed to the environment of New Yorkâs streets at the rate of roughly 22,000 gallons a day. Small wonder that the life expectancy of a tree in Manhattan is only seven years. Itâs not easy being green in that place.
âBut trees are highly loved and respected by most people in New York,â Benepe told me. âI think thereâs a tremendous sense that trees in New York make the city livable.â
Impelled by that conviction, Benepeâs department back in 1984 performed an interesting and, I think, very admirable exercise. The people of New York were asked to nominate individual trees that held special meaning, special value, in their own lives. Thenominations were culled by a panel, and in 1985 a book titled The Great Trees of New York City appeared. Here was well-merited recognition, at last, for a certain old ginkgo at the corner of 211th and Broadway; for a certain elm at St. Nicholas Avenue and 163rd; for another elm, five feet in diameter and maybe a century old, casting its shade over Washington Square Park.
No mention was made, though, of the westernmost of two saplings on Forty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth. That tree (probably either a Callery pear or a locust, Adrian Benepe told me) is still in its adolescence. With great luck, against the odds, it might live to adulthood. And if we both manage to survive another thirty or forty years, I look forward to nominating it for a later edition.
THE ONTOLOGICAL GIRAFFE
Wherein Norwegian Leo Talks Straight and True, Mostly
Norwegian Leo called recently, out of the wild blue, long-distance from San Jose this time, with a zoological stumper question. As always, it was delightful and confusing to hear from him.
âDave, listen.â He sounded breathless and exigent, and as always the conversation began in the middle. âWhatâs the largest mammal youâve never heard of?â
I thought about that for a moment. Norwegian Leo is a mechanical engineer by profession, a precise and intelligent man of far-ranging but focused enthusiasms, a man who writes letters containing better English prose than most of what I read in magazines, who loves crisp language and German cameras and improbable living creatures, who is accustomed by disposition as well as by training to checking his facts down to the fourth decimal place. I knew he had said exactly what he intended to say. I thought passingly about several largish animals of the mammalian persuasion. And then I couldnât help thinking also about St. Anselm, an eleventh-century Italian monk with a smart-aleck streak who made a name for himself in the history of philosophy by inventing an infuriatingly clever piece of logic called the ontological argument. The ontological argument claims to be a prooffor the existence of God, a proof that relies only on pure rational deduction, and believe me itâs as air-tight as a can of Spanish peanuts. I had all but forgotten about St. Anselm since the week he gave me a king-size headache during one college term back in 1968, but as I held the receiver to my ear now I dimly recalled that his ontological argument works from a premise not too unlike asking Whatâs the largest mammal youâve never heard of? I still didnât know the answer, but since Norwegian Leo (unlike St. Anselm and, for that matter, God) is such a down-to-earth and persuasive presence, even over the telephone, I did not doubt for an instant that an answer must exist.
âItâs
âBut trees are highly loved and respected by most people in New York,â Benepe told me. âI think thereâs a tremendous sense that trees in New York make the city livable.â
Impelled by that conviction, Benepeâs department back in 1984 performed an interesting and, I think, very admirable exercise. The people of New York were asked to nominate individual trees that held special meaning, special value, in their own lives. Thenominations were culled by a panel, and in 1985 a book titled The Great Trees of New York City appeared. Here was well-merited recognition, at last, for a certain old ginkgo at the corner of 211th and Broadway; for a certain elm at St. Nicholas Avenue and 163rd; for another elm, five feet in diameter and maybe a century old, casting its shade over Washington Square Park.
No mention was made, though, of the westernmost of two saplings on Forty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth. That tree (probably either a Callery pear or a locust, Adrian Benepe told me) is still in its adolescence. With great luck, against the odds, it might live to adulthood. And if we both manage to survive another thirty or forty years, I look forward to nominating it for a later edition.
THE ONTOLOGICAL GIRAFFE
Wherein Norwegian Leo Talks Straight and True, Mostly
Norwegian Leo called recently, out of the wild blue, long-distance from San Jose this time, with a zoological stumper question. As always, it was delightful and confusing to hear from him.
âDave, listen.â He sounded breathless and exigent, and as always the conversation began in the middle. âWhatâs the largest mammal youâve never heard of?â
I thought about that for a moment. Norwegian Leo is a mechanical engineer by profession, a precise and intelligent man of far-ranging but focused enthusiasms, a man who writes letters containing better English prose than most of what I read in magazines, who loves crisp language and German cameras and improbable living creatures, who is accustomed by disposition as well as by training to checking his facts down to the fourth decimal place. I knew he had said exactly what he intended to say. I thought passingly about several largish animals of the mammalian persuasion. And then I couldnât help thinking also about St. Anselm, an eleventh-century Italian monk with a smart-aleck streak who made a name for himself in the history of philosophy by inventing an infuriatingly clever piece of logic called the ontological argument. The ontological argument claims to be a prooffor the existence of God, a proof that relies only on pure rational deduction, and believe me itâs as air-tight as a can of Spanish peanuts. I had all but forgotten about St. Anselm since the week he gave me a king-size headache during one college term back in 1968, but as I held the receiver to my ear now I dimly recalled that his ontological argument works from a premise not too unlike asking Whatâs the largest mammal youâve never heard of? I still didnât know the answer, but since Norwegian Leo (unlike St. Anselm and, for that matter, God) is such a down-to-earth and persuasive presence, even over the telephone, I did not doubt for an instant that an answer must exist.
âItâs
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