Iam a self-confessed tree hugger. My affection was surely influenced by growing up on the Georgia coast, where I was surrounded by sprawling live oaks draped in Spanish moss and longleaf pines that seemed to punch through the clouds. I spent many a summer day lying flat atop an oak bough, gazing through the leaves and dreaming what I might someday be.

My affection for trees translated into some success when, as a college freshman, I enrolled in a botany class. Professor Daggy taught us to use a dichotomous key to identify specimens we had collected from our field work. I actually set a record for the largest number of plants identified and recorded. He was a demanding taskmaster who left me exhausted at semester’s end, but he also gifted me with a perspective I have never forgotten. He sa

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