I WISH THAT once I was a university freshman, a course just like the Harvard seminar known as “Tree” had been a part of the curriculum, as a result of since I discovered concerning the class final yr, I’ve by no means checked out a tree fairly the identical method once more.
It’s not a botany course, nor one for aspiring arborists, regardless of its identify. A sentence from the syllabus for “Tree” hints at its core intention:
“Think about a semester dedicated to connecting two organisms,” it reads. “An individual (you), and a tree (not you).”
After which it provides this: “The purpose of this freshman seminar will likely be to provoke a private and lifelong reference to the opposite, the huge and variant organisms with which we share the planet.”
The creator of the category is evolutionary biologist Ned Friedman, who since 2011 has been director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard College, a 281-acre world-renowned assortment of woody crops based some 150 years in the past. In 2020, he created the curriculum for a brand new freshman seminar known as “Tree,” and every fall since a couple of dozen college students be a part of him on the journey it guarantees. He joined me to speak extra about it, and about what we are able to every be taught from making a connection to a tree (just like the Japanese stewartia, S. pseudocamellia, above, with its extravagantly patterned bark).
Learn alongside as you take heed to the March 23, 2026 version of my public-radio present and podcast utilizing the participant under. You possibly can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts right here).
what a tree can train us, with ned friedman
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Margaret Roach: How are you, Ned?
Ned Friedman: Oh, I’m doing very properly. Solar’s shining, and the Arboretum is correct in entrance of me.
Margaret: Seen any good bushes recently [laughter]? You solely have 16,000, proper?
Ned: Yeah. It’s onerous to slim down, however the different day I needed to do some little bit of a pilgrimage to our Chinese language witch-hazels. And there was one which was simply glowing gold. It was magnificent. So sure, I’m making my little steps and stops across the Arboretum.
Margaret: Effectively, out my window ‘Pallida,’ which is an intermediate hybrid, I feel, and is in a single course. And out the opposite window is, I don’t know the way you say it however ‘Jelena,’ which is orange-ish sort of rusty-colored one. So I’ve two blooming proper now, too. Sure.
Ned: Yeah. They’re simply one thing great. We’ve got one of many hybrids, I feel ‘Diane’ [above], which has a lot redder. Sure. And that one’s having an exceptional yr.
So winter flowering is only one of these items I feel is so counterintuitive to so many individuals. We’ve got that wintersweet, Chimonanthus, and it was so chilly this yr that I assumed all the flower buds that had been sitting on the market shivering had been going to be frozen and weren’t going to come back out. After which I received a tipoff from the keeper of the dwelling collections, Michael Dosmann. “Oh, it’s on.”
Margaret: Yay!
Ned: So I made my pilgrimage over there and naturally 20 ft away, you possibly can shut your eyes and you’ll simply odor your method to a degree supply of extremely stunning aromas.
Margaret: So I’m just a few years previous freshman age [laughter], nevertheless it’s by no means too late for kind of the life enriching and heart-opening teachings in your seminar known as “Tree,” I feel, having discovered about it from you once we did a Instances story not way back, a “New York Instances” story. I used to be so grateful to find out about it, and I’ve thought so much about it since. And I ponder in case you might simply inform us kind of the temporary model of the premise of the category and the way it works. It’s not the stereotypical course the place each session is held in a lecture corridor or something precisely.
Ned: Proper. And truly these freshmen or first-year seminars at Harvard—and I feel many different universities and faculties have related packages—they’re actually meant to get away from that lecture classroom kind of format and have kind of a liberation from the usual pedagogical approaches. And so in a method, you possibly can create something you need for these. It’s a cross/fail class, it’s not for 4 credit; I feel it’s only one credit score. And also you meet as soon as per week.
And once I received to Harvard, I simply thought this simply feels like such an fascinating factor to discover. And the very first thing I did was I really created a course that adopted Charles Darwin’s life via his writings, and I imply via his precise correspondence. After which we really checked out his serial obsessions from earthworms to orchids to you identify it. And a part of what I used to be making an attempt to do there was to make use of Darwin for instance of a life well-lived, one which follows passions, one which had a beautiful household and a close-knit community of mates and correspondents and allies. And in a method, I simply let his voice converse.
And so I have a look at these alternatives the primary semester of a freshman, a first-year scholar, as a chance to actually insert some expertise that enables the scholars to ponder within the large scheme of issues, what it means to have a superb life, a significant life, a related life. And I had achieved that Darwin seminar for nearly a decade. And I simply thought, what if I might get among the essence of the Arboretum and what I really feel once I was simply describing to you the way it feels to be standing subsequent to this gold cloud of witch-hazels within the snow. I do know I really feel that these connections, and I do know that the Arboretum and the kind of presence of bushes has modified my life. And so I assumed, what if I might flip that round and create an expertise for first-year college students which may have an enduring impact on their sense of being related to the pure world, and delicate and conscious and awake to it?
And my thought was that in creating connections to the opposite, if you are able to do that and also you do it as a apply, you’re in all probability going to be a extra empathic sort of an individual, a extra rooted sort of an individual. And in order that was my purpose actually to do these issues.
Margaret: So to start out the primary class, I consider you are taking a stroll; the group takes a stroll with you throughout kind of the Arboretum. And once more, there’s like 16,000 or one thing woody crops there. And I feel you defined to them that they’re every going to decide on a tree that will likely be sort of their associate for this course, sure?
Ned: Precisely proper. So it’s a couple of mile lengthy, the Arboretum, they usually Uber out and I meet them a mile from the place we’re going to truly have our conversations and discussions concerning the readings every week. And rain or shine, we simply march [laughter]. And that is, properly, it’s both day one of many semester or it’s day six of the semester, relying on the place the calendars fall. However I imply, they barely arrived and we simply have this joyful stroll. They’re attending to know one another. I’m unpacking just a little of the Arboretum and [landscape architect Frederick Law] Olmsted’s design historical past and the collections. And we have a look at this factor, after which within the background, I’m telling them to go searching rigorously, since you’re going to come back again and also you’re going to wander this place with out me and also you’re going to have to seek out certainly one of these woody crops that you just’re going to truly go to with each week and journal and {photograph} and annotate pictures, write poetry about—nonetheless you wish to take what you see and put it into some type that I can expertise, too.
And also you’ll do that each week. And what I feel, as it’s possible you’ll know from our earlier conversations—I do know you do—it’s all the time fascinating to see how every scholar picks a tree. And that’s actually one of many great surprises for me annually.
Margaret: I keep in mind you informed me that for some, what speaks to them is possibly that there’s a shared ancestry, as a result of you will have a famend assortment of crops of Asia, for instance, and a few college students with Asian backgrounds of their household historical past might have mentioned, “Oh, wow, that’s from the identical place as my grandmother or great-grandmother,” no matter, and issues like that. And others have a look at them, the bodily stature or lack of stature [laughter]—a few of them are oddball shapes and a few of them are giants and so plenty of totally different points of interest.
Ned: Yeah, that’s precisely proper. I’m really writing nowadays about what I name “plant ambassadorhood,” and the concept that when you have provenance in your crops, crops in our collections will be these connectors to tradition, cultures all over the world that you’ll have heritage with. And so it’s been a really fascinating journey for me to see that.
And infrequently college students might decide, for instance, a Native American scholar would possibly decide a sugar maple as a result of that’s a extremely vital tree in her cultural historical past and persevering with cultural historical past. Or a Korean or Korean American scholar would possibly decide a tree whose seed was collected in Korea. So these turn out to be, I feel, actually fascinating methods during which the tree isn’t only a tree, it turns into emblematic of one thing. And so it goes past simply the tree.
However then you will have individuals, such as you talked about, stature who need one thing intimate. They need a small tree that they’ll simply … The dimensions is sort of human. After which I’ve individuals who simply are overwhelmed by an previous daybreak redwood, they usually simply can’t think about one thing… And so it’s a really private factor, however every group will have the ability to articulate why they picked that tree, which I feel is great.
Margaret: After which one of many different parts, and when it comes to if we kind of transition to love, O.Ok., so I’m not a first-year scholar at Harvard and I’m not going to take [laughter], sadly—not going to come back and take your seminar. But when we had been translating among the parts of it, of a kind of do-it-yourself at residence sort of factor, or for that matter, in your native arboretum, wherever you’re or within the park or down the road or no matter within the forest close by, there’s additionally these readings. So it’s not like there’s a botany textbook and also you learn chapter one the primary week and chapter two the second week and no matter, and have a quiz. It’s like you will have this range of readings that additional illuminate the topic, each the tree and the connection, the concept of constructing empathy and “the opposite,” realizing the opposite.
And I feel as you mentioned to me once we did the Instances story, kind of studying to like one thing that may’t essentially love you again. Yeah? [Above: a majestic dawn redwood that came from China to the Arnold as a seed in 1948 is often chosen by a seminar student.]
Ned: Precisely proper. And I feel that’s the place studying literature, studying the primary chapter, Richard Powers’ “The Overstory” concerning the immigrant household and chestnuts. And it’s a good looking, stunning kind of examination of a household over generations and simply a person tree. Or Robin Wall Kimmerer and “The Council of Pecans” in her “Braiding Sweetgrass.” And also you get these alternatives to examine bushes.
We even have poetry that we examine, for instance, abcission within the fall, when leaves fall off. Or certainly one of my favourite phenomena, which is marcescence, which is when deciduous woody crops don’t drop their leaves within the fall, however they maintain them shivering via the winds within the snow, like beech bushes and younger oaks and different issues.
And we additionally learn some fairly critical science. We really return in time to think about a world that didn’t have bushes, and what wouldn’t it have been like? After which what had been the primary forests like again 385 million years in the past?
However apparently, I can pair that paper and that science with some writings of Lucretius, in “On the Nature of Issues.” He writes about this nice race of herbaceous crops to race to the sky to be the primary one there. And amazingly, that little passage from Lucretius is an ideal encapsulation of the Devonian. Clearly, he was speculating, however I feel that that signifies that there are such a lot of totally different ways in which individuals can work together with, examine, after which have interaction with bushes that I really actually take pleasure in the truth that it isn’t a science class. It has some science in it, and there’s no query that that may be plenty of enjoyable—concerning the science of fall colours, why some leaves are pink, why some are yellow, why there are extra red-colored fall woody crops in New England than there are in Europe.
Effectively, we are able to do these issues, nevertheless it’s sort of a enjoyable factor. After which what will we do after we’ve had our dialogue? We march on the market and have a look at fall colours, [laughter] and that’s fairly nice.
Margaret: Proper. And so right here from the traditional Roman poet, such as you mentioned, Lucretius, to up to date literature, the syllabus—and I’ll give a few of the place I can discover a hyperlink to both the entire piece of literature or learn how to get it or no matter.
Ned: Oh, please do. So after the “New York Instances” piece that you just so splendidly actually captured the bottled essence of the category, we now have posted my syllabus on the Arboretum web site and I’d love anybody who needs to interact with this materials, if you wish to self-assemble a gaggle of mates in your neighborhood or city that love the woods and bushes and so forth, you are able to do it. Or you will get collectively on Zoom with mates and decide a tree and meet weekly. However that is all meant to be shared with anybody on the planet who’d like to interact.
Margaret: Effectively, that’s nice that the syllabus is on-line. That’s nice. One of many tales that you’ve individuals learn is by Carson McCullers known as “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.” And that sort of blew me away. I don’t know if I’d ever learn it, however once I did, and I don’t know if you wish to give the quick model of it or what [laughter], however wow, it was like what an surprising, and once more, juxtaposed towards within the syllabus, additionally some scientific papers and a few historical past papers and another sorts of literature, it was actually startling, actually a good looking piece.
Ned: Yeah, that quick story, which actually, I imply, it’s only a very quick story, I feel has turn out to be one thing so central to kind of giving voice to the best way I take into consideration what nature can do. And it’s really got here, I used to be launched to it from a session known as “Ought to Timber Have Authorized Standing?” during which we learn what’s a extremely basic piece of writing by a regulation professor, Christopher Stone, who was on the College of Southern California, from a case during which there was an try to forestall an enormous improvement within the mountains in Southern California that might’ve been, I feel, a Disney operation. And the query was, who might sue on behalf of this ecosystem of those bushes? And in the long run, it went to the Supreme Court docket and the bushes didn’t win [laughter]. However what’s fascinating is Stone wrote this very highly effective factor, “Ought to Timber Have Authorized Standing?”
And he was really a philosophy concentrator at Harvard, so he was very properly and extensively learn. And on this piece, he references Carson McCullers, and that was my introduction. And on this quick story, I instantly related. It’s a Nineteen Fifties piece of a diner within the morning, there are males in it on their approach to work, having their espresso. And there’s a boy who’s a paper boy, who is available in for his espresso. And there’s kind of a vagrant man who’s in there who begins to speak to this boy. And the boy doesn’t fairly know what’s occurring, however he begins to inform a narrative of how he fell in love years in the past with a girl who he married. After which ultimately, after just a few years, she leaves him, and he spends years looking for her, however to no avail.
After which he realizes kind of an fascinating perception, which is possibly he wasn’t prepared for human love.
And that there’s a science to going about how to have the ability to love. And he talks about increase his apply. He says to the boy, I feel at one level, “I can love something.” And this comes again to what I consider as unreciprocated love. And he talks about, “I can love a cloud. I can love a tree. I can love a rock.”
And he actually is on this course of of claiming, “Don’t begin on the deep finish with human love, however construct your apply up as a way to love something and be prepared for that. ” And he turns to the pure world. And naturally, this boy is taking it in, not fairly positive what to make of it, however in fact the essence of that story is that people ought to and might turn out to be extra loving, extra able to empathy, by turning to the pure world.
And I simply suppose it’s stunning to learn that story and ponder.
Margaret: And that one I used to be capable of finding on-line and so forth even. It simply offers me the shivers [laughter].
Ned: Me, too.
Margaret: And within the kind of opening scene, the person, I feel he’s hunched over his beer [laughter], and right here it’s morning, in a single nook of the diner. And because the boy is available in, he calls out to the boy, “I like you.”
Ned: Yeah.
Margaret: And that’s, I feel, how the alternate begins. And it’s like precisely what he mentioned: He’s discovered; even a stranger. To open up our hearts like that and see what occurs, proper?
Ned: Proper. And I feel the quick tales, in case you can’t discover it on-line, you possibly can order from Amazon, or go to your native bookstore, hopefully. However I feel this enterprise of studying to like with out kind of assuming you’ll be liked again is a strong kind of mind-set, particularly on the planet now, the place a lot of what we’re surrounded by is kind of an preliminary take, which is to hate, or to suspect, or to oppose, and it by no means lets something in.
And I feel one of many issues that I feel you and I related very a lot on in our conversations and for “The New York Instances” items, I would like this course to be a hopeful course, a mind-set that all of us, in our personal small methods, can go a couple of apply that can assist us make the world in our personal little corners collectively higher and extra loving, extra sympathetic, empathetic, extra able to not having an preliminary response like, “You’re not like me, due to this fact there’s one thing incorrect.”
Margaret: Proper. Not finger-pointing at “the opposite,” like, “I’m good, you’re unhealthy since you’re the opposite,” not that sort, which we see in every little thing at this time, it looks like.
Ned: That’s proper.
Margaret: And so if I wished to do that myself [laughter], I’ve received to exit and decide a tree.
Ned: You do.
Margaret: And that’s actually, actually onerous. And we talked about among the ways in which the scholars, what influences them or no matter. And so every week then they write one thing about it, or draw one thing about it, or all the above, take photos of it, no matter. They kind of find out about it by interacting with it in these kind of artistic methods or documenting it in these methods. [Above, a student using an increment borer to core a tree and look at the annual growth rings.]
Ned: Yeah. And this actually will be, in case you’re dwelling in New York Metropolis, it may be a tree you stroll by day by day and will not have even given a second thought to. And rapidly, in case you decide that tree and also you say, “Each week, I’m simply going to be taking a look at this tree for half an hour,” you’re going to be enthusiastic about it. You’ve begun the journey. Impulsively you’re taking a look at bark. Earlier than it, in case you decide it, relying on the season, you’re seeing buds flush as we are going to. And possibly you’ve by no means checked out what does a winter bud seem like, or a dormant bud seem like, on this tree subsequent to you.
Perhaps then, “Oh, I see there’s scars on this, the twigs, that have to be the place the leaves had been hooked up final yr.” After which the buds flush, and to me, there’s nothing extra stunning than seeing leaf-out within the spring. It’s such an ephemeral sort of a factor for every tree.
And so I feel there isn’t any one approach to decide a tree, and it doesn’t actually matter. You create your individual causes. For this reason I feel it’s very empowering and vital that I not kind of inform individuals what to do, as a result of it doesn’t matter. It’s the journey you and a tree could have. And over weeks and weeks and weeks, that tree will turn out to be one thing fairly totally different than it was in methods the place you’ll really feel, I feel, a robust attachment to that tree. However one which’s grounded in what I consider as giving that tree standing, really saying, “It is a one-to-one relationship. That tree has a life journey simply as I do. It’s not simply an nameless background piece of inexperienced.”
After which anybody can do that. And I feel what’s thrilling is when you will have a gaggle of individuals which might be doing it, you possibly can really speak to one another about it via your pictures, via, as I say, I’ve had college students who’ve written poetry about their bushes.
Margaret: Didn’t you will have like a craft mission or two? [Laughter.] [Above, students plant seeds to watch a tree be “born” as part of the “Tree” seminar.]
Ned: Oh, completely. Oh, I had a scholar who crocheted a daybreak redwood. Oh. So yeah, once more, the vital factor right here is to not be prescriptive, however to via this course and thru the syllabus and thru these practices that I encourage to let everybody make it their very own and to make it their very own journey. And I feel in case you try this alone, which I feel is an excellent factor, otherwise you do it with a associate or a partner or along with your youngsters or with mates, there’s simply nobody approach to do it. However a part of it’s you will have this dialog in a way, this backwards and forwards with the tree. The tree is there, however now your eyes can see it and take it in, and you are able to do something you wish to kind of doc and ponder.
Margaret: I’m simply going to have to choose. It’s actually going to be actually, actually onerous as a result of I’m in love with quite a few the bushes right here [laughter].
Ned: Effectively, and I’ll let you know, you possibly can decide one tree after which possibly you say, “I’m going to strive that apply on one other tree” at one other time as a result of I don’t know that I’d be … ” I’ve plenty of bushes I’d decide.
Margaret: Effectively, once more, you will have 16,000 woody crops there to take a look at [laughter].
Ned: And I’d really, if I used to be to ask to choose now, I’d say, there’s sure bushes right here I’ve to return to on a regular basis, yearly, however possibly it might be, if I used to be going to say, “What would I do? ” Perhaps I’d wish to discover a tree I’d by no means actually observed as a result of …
And it’s humorous, we had a beautiful speak about our expedition to Bosnia and Herzegovina this fall to gather the Bosnian spruce, which is that this magnificent skinny spruce, however fairly endangered. And we now have the seeds and we now have a few of them on the bottom, however rapidly after this speak, I walked out the door of the constructing and I knew there have been two of them, simply 150 ft from that entrance door, however I had by no means actually checked out them rigorously.
Margaret: Sure, I do know. Isn’t it superb?
Ned: I used to be simply mortified, however somebody had given me the portal and now I assumed, what could be extra enjoyable? What may very well be extra enjoyable? Then possibly these are the bushes I’d decide as a result of I had been not observing them.
Margaret: Sure. Effectively, I’m all the time glad to speak to you, Ned, and all the time glad to consider the Arnold Arboretum. And I’ll embrace details about visiting, in fact, and the hyperlink to our Instances story collectively and issues like that. And clearly the Arnold web site, which is so stuffed with details about so many unimaginable woody crops. So thanks. Thanks for making time at this time.
Ned: Oh, thanks, Margaret. It’s all the time such a beautiful factor to have a dialog with you.
(All images from Ned Friedman or the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard College web site.)
extra from the arnold arboretum about ‘tree’
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