Episode 120 Reading From Elif Shafak's Best Selling 2021 Novel, On The International Day Of Forests

Today, in celebration of the International Day of Forests, I was reading from Elif Shafak's new book The Island of Missing Trees. This book is based both in Cyprus and the UK and covers a couple of different times. One of the main characters of the story is a Fig tree, brought over from Cyprus. In addition, I mentioned Peter Wohlleben's book, The Hidden Life of Trees. This book is written by a man who is the custodian of a German forest, but began his career as a forester. He has a great respect for the trees and, as well as bringing us up to date with some of the modern scientific understanding about trees, he also tells stories about the trees in his care. Fig tree - Apparently it's fairly common for people to bring fig trees to northern countries and burying the tree each year helps it to stay alive in the cold winter weather, however, it's quite traumatic for the tree. Hawthorn - Is a very common genus of tree and provides food and support for over 200 kinds of insects, as such it is considered to have a high ecological value. Today we also have a quick introduction to my Grandma's cat who was staying with me. Vocabulary emigrated immigrant - emigrate is to leave your country, immigrate is to arrive in another country to live. Unfortunately in English, immigrate, has a far more negative connotation than emigrate, despite effectively meaning the same thing. From a UK perspective, it's considered acceptable for British people to emigrate to Spain, but not acceptable (especially right now) for anyone, especially refugees and people in need to immigrate to the UK. The irony is real, but rarely discussed in the UK or America. hermaphrodite - someone or thing that has both sexual organs loggers - people who cut trees down as a job Defoliated -to lose the leaves scorched - to burn in the sun stand-offish - to not be very friendly swathes - very large areas of land mycorrhizal networks - the root and fungus network between trees dilemma - a difficult decision or situation where there is no clear or good answer chloroplast - the green colour in plants genetic variations - changes or differences at a gene level offspring - children transgenerational memory - memory that is known across generations archaea - a group of micro-organisms that are similar to, but evolutionarily distinct from bacteria isolated happenstance - something unpredicted that happened, serendipity intrinsic - part of someone or something solidarity - to stand together and support one another immense sadness - extreme or great sapling - a small tree, usually between 2-5 years old