Are trees over 100 years old considered ancient trees? There are many ancient trees in my country that are over 1000 years old.

Editor's Note: Ancient and famous trees are known as "green national treasures" and "living cultural relics". They record the changes of time, carry people's homesickness, and continue the high-quality longevity biological genes. Each tree has its own state. A tree is a book without words, or even a living library and museum. It plays an important role in the fields of ecological environment, garden landscape, historical research, cultural tourism, etc. This newspaper will launch the "Reading Tree Notes" column from today, taking you to listen to the stories of time "told" by ancient trees.

China is a vast country with 5,081,900 ancient and famous trees scattered across the country, like human geography coordinates, standing in mountains, temples, ancestral halls, streets, roadsides or inside and outside villages, "telling" history across time and space. The vicissitudes of time, the course of civilization, and the feelings of family and country are all in them.

Thousands of thousand-year-old trees stand tall in China

The pine knows that the Qin Dynasty was short, while the cypress feels the Han Dynasty’s deep grace.

——Du Jun, "Ancient Trees" in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties

Trees over 100 years old are considered ancient trees. There are many "thousand-year-old trees" in my country. Currently, there are 10,745 ancient trees over 1,000 years old in China. Among the "first echelon" of longevity, gymnosperms such as pine, cypress, fir, ginkgo, and cycads are the majority, and "camphor in the south and locust in the north" are also the main tree species.

The oldest ancient trees in my country are five cypress trees over 5,000 years old, all in Shaanxi. Just by listening to the names, you can tell that they are not ordinary: the cypress planted by Emperor Huangdi, the Baosheng cypress, the Laojun cypress, the cypress planted by Cangjie (jié) and the Yeshan ancient cypress. These towering ancient cypresses, which are at the level of ancestors, have witnessed the ups and downs of China's 5,000-year history and have been with us till now. Cuiyun Corridor in Jiange County, Sichuan, preserves the world's largest group of artificial ancient cypress trees, and is also an "ancient tree time and space corridor".

Following the ancient trees, we can trace the long river of history, and famous scenes are "reappeared" in the wind: King Ling of Chu admired the slender waist of a beauty in the wintersweet forest, Emperor Wu of Han ascended Mount Song and conferred three "General Cypresses", Pan An was so amazed by a qingtan tree that he was willing to demote himself to a "sandalwood slave", the Sixth Patriarch Huineng planted lychee trees in Yunfu Guo'en Temple, Yang Guifei planted pomegranate trees by the Huaqing Pool wearing a pomegranate skirt, Ouyang Xiu wrote a poem about the Zhou cypress in Jin Temple when he visited Taiyuan, and the students of the Imperial College compiled the "Yongle Encyclopedia" under the Six Dynasties pine trees planted by Emperor Wu of Liang for his son Xiao Tong...

No matter how many mountains and rivers you cross, you can never get away from the tree in your hometown

“Trees are the third history book of mankind, alongside language, writing, and cultural relics.”

——Contemporary Liang Heng, "China on the Treetops"

Reading trees is like reading books, and this is especially true for ancient trees.

"Why can a tree live so long? Why does it live so long here?" - The longevity of ancient trees is itself a natural history proposition, involving comprehensive factors such as geographical opportunities, species characteristics, historical opportunities and cultural beliefs.

Seeing once is worse than hearing a hundred times. Natural history focuses on "presence" and "locality". You don't even need any knowledge or words. Just stand under the ancient trees, feel, observe and experience them carefully. They will tell you the simplest and most profound truths about life, nature and culture in their own way.

Sometimes, they take you deep into history; sometimes, they take you back to your hometown.

Looking back at the ancient trees I have encountered, there is one that is the most special. When I was a child, I lived in Chitang Village, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, where my grandmother lived. At the entrance of the village, next to the Gaoyang Xu Clan Ancestral Hall, there is a 900-year-old camphor tree that survived after being struck by lightning. Villagers have to pass by it when they welcome their brides, send their brides off, attend funerals, and send their dead offs. Year after year, the camphor tree "watches" generation after generation of children grow up and become old people. If it speaks, it must use the local accent.

Every year when I return home during the Spring Festival, I will go to see the big camphor tree. The old tree is still healthy and sprouts new branches every year.

(The author Ni Yun is a naturalist and freelance writer)