We draw the word 'tree' from an old Scandinavian tongue, and originally it meant, as "tre" still does in Norway, both the tree itself and the wood of its trunk. As we use the word today, it defines a plant of a particular habit of growth, quite easily known. A tree is a land plant that can form a single, upright, firm woody stem, which lasts for many years.

Woody plants are distinguished from other non-woody plants by the presence in their stems of a central column of conductive and structural tissue, briefly their wood, which supports their foliage and carries water upwards. Amongst the woody plants, the trees stand out because a single, upright stem can usually be seen, though it carries side branches. The other groups of woody plants are the shrubs or bushes with many stems not easily divisible into a main one and its branches, and the woody climbers or creepers with stems that lack firmness.

Herbert L. Edlin - Wayside & Woodland Trees (1904)

released September 23, 2018

All Music by The Arborist