Immigrants Everybody Wants and Needs!

Imagine you are a Roman foot soldier back in the year 65 B.C. You are far from home, fighting in the Caucasian Mountains of Central Asia between the Black and Caspian Seas. You are hungry. On the ground you find some nuts, each one about an inch in diameter. You crack the ridged shell, sniff and inspect the contents. You take a risk, extract the fruit, pop it in your mouth. It tastes good!

You put some in your pack. You are among the lucky soldiers who return home intact. Once back, you unpack your gear and there they are, the last of the nuts. Some fall to the ground and a tree grows. In that way, after having disappeared during the last Ice Age, the walnut tree is reintroduced in Western Europe from the Caucasian Mountains where, in a milder climate, it survived. In fact, the Old English word for walnut, weallhhnutu, means “foreign nut.”

Trees travel. Their seeds travel on wind and in water. Animals and birds carry them from place to place, often in their droppings. Men and women have carried seeds around the world. European immigrants to the USA in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries packed the seeds of their favorite apple trees in their bundles. Navigator-explorers often welcomed botanists and scientists on their ships. King Louis XIV of France counted on the Royal Marine to return home with the seeds or saplings of exotic trees.

Take the expeditions of the English sea captain James Cook (1728-1779), buried on the island of Hawaii, where he was killed because of tensions between his men and the island’s inhabitants. That was during his third voyage to the Pacific. On the first in 1770, he discovered what is today’s Australia. One of his botanists, Joseph Banks, returned to England with seeds of the eucalyptus tree and succeeded in raising certain varieties in London’s Kew Gardens.

The eucalyptus emigrated from Australia to the United States at the time of the 1849 Gold Rush. It quickly took root and was used for fuel, manufacturing and construction. In 1975, on my first visit to Los Angeles, I encountered eucalyptus everywhere. At first, I’ll admit, I didn’t feel “at home” with this tree. Its bark peeled off in long ribbons and it gave off a pungent minty scent. Its leaves had a pale bluish hue but when they fell, they became brown and dry and almost rattled as I dragged my feet through them.

Some Americans left their native soil for Europe. I met one in a beautiful arboretum at Chateau Bellevue, set atop a hill near where I live. Who knows? Perhaps it came from Pennsylvania. In the late 18th century, seeds of the tulip tree were transported back to France from the colony of Nouvelle France, which covered parts of western Pennsylvania. Today tulip trees grow all over the state and I’ve seen some beautiful specimens in Schuylkill County. 

 

In this same arboretum, I met other transplants from North America, the Douglas fir and false acacia, which I used to call “acacia” until Philippe, our guide, set me straight. This tree is also known as “Robinia,” a name that honors the French botanist Jean Robin, the apothecary and gardener of three French kings, Henri III, Henri IV and Louis XIII. In 1601 he was the first to successfully cultivate seeds of this tree brought from North America. We all know (false) acacia honey. In France, the flowers are also used to make a sweet fritter.

“April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom,” sings Ella Fitzgerald. What could be more typically Parisian, more French? I may disappoint you, but those chestnut trees are just another “immigrant.” They were introduced to Western Europe in the 17^th century. A diplomat brought them back from Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire, where they were native to today’s Albania and Greece.

The same goes for the majestic plane trees that line roads and canals in France, a cross between the American sycamore and the Oriental plane tree. Canker stain, another “immigrant” brought from the USA to France during WWII, has put these beautiful trees in mortal danger. They die from the fungus 6 months to 5 years after having been attacked, and I fear the plane trees of France may go the way of elms worldwide. Some readers may remember the beautiful elm-lined walks leading to “Old Main,” on the Penn State campus in State College. Back in the early 1970’s, I loved walking in their shade. I also remember watching the trees disappear.  

Philippe showed us some elms being cultivated in the park. They take root, sprout up, but fall prey to the Dutch elm disease that killed their ancestors. He pointed to the top of the trees, where the branches were dying. Yet, some smaller elms manage to survive. 

 

Philippe is a tree lover and his passion for trees is infectious. He reminds us of all trees provide, shade, pure air, an abundance of goods, edible and other. They live much longer—and more peacefully—than us and once dead, allow other lifeforms to thrive. Trees, we could not live without them. We should welcome them everywhere.

Philippe is also an idealist and a political activist, a member of a French political party Lutte Ouvrière, the Working Class Party, as it is known in the USA, with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. The way Philippe feels about trees, well, that’s the way he feels about us. Give humans a chance and we will thrive anywhere, giving back to our environment much more than we take away.

Once a year, during the annual festival of Lutte Ouvrière, Chateau Belleville and its arboretum are open to the public. The chateau and park belong to a collective whose owners, if not members, are close to this left-wing party, which places its faith in the working class. It also calls for the union of workers and immigrants to overcome capitalist domination.

It would be hard to find a person, be it in the USA or France, who does not like trees, the largest and oldest living organisms on Earth. They are also among the best and most widely travelled, welcomed wherever they take root.

I wonder, I just wonder, if we could learn to treat each other that way.