Trees A Crowdwith David Oakes

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A tree at random Tree 16 Aspen

Uprooting the secrets and stories beneath the 56(ish) native trees of the British Isles.

In an altered format, for a temporarily altered age, series three (three/tree/🌳🌳🌳) set out to uproot the secrets and stories hidden beneath our native trees.

Every Tuesday through the COVID pandemic of 2021, leading up to the winter solstice, David released an episode exploring one of our native British tree species. Along the way, the project grew to include more music, poetry and needless whimsy.

Artwork by Nell Bennett · Music by Bella Hardy

Start with Tree 1: Yew
David’s introduction to the series

I was hoping that this third season would build upon the success of the last two and continue to seek out the unique human voices who find inspiration and purpose from within our natural realm. But, despite having safely stolen a few moments to record a few chance encounters, numerous pandemical lockdowns have left me lacking as many interviews as I might like… but – watch this space – I may well occasionally drop a traditional TAC interview into the forest we’re about to enter.

With that in mind, this year marks a substantial departure of format, but – presuming you don’t tire of my voice – it should hopefully prove informative, inspiring and, on occasion, a little infantile (sorry – not sorry). In researching this series I’ve scoured botany, history, music, medicine, art, folklore, environmental science, personal anecdote and more… hopefully there’ll be a little something for everyone each episode.

The conifers

The series began with our three native conifers.

Taxaceae the yew family

Cupressaceae the cypress family

Pinaceae the pine family

The broad-leaved trees

Then off into the larger forest of our broad-leaved trees, always in roughly taxonomic order.

Buxaceae the box family

Celastraceae the spindle family

Salicaceae the willow family

Rosaceae the rose family

Rhamnaceae the buckthorn family

Elaeagnaceae the oleaster family

Ulmaceae the elm family

Fagaceae the beech family

Betulaceae the birch family

Sapindaceae the soapberry family

Malvaceae the mallow family

Cornaceae the dogwood family

Ericaceae the heath family

Oleaceae the olive family

Viburnaceae the viburnum family

Aquifoliaceae the holly family

A Christmas bonus

As a bonus episode for Christmastime, David adapted an article he wrote for The Spectator to explore ‘our Christmas tree’, a non-native member of the Pinaceae: the Norwegian Spruce.

Pinaceae the pine family

(ish) marks an archaeophyte, non-native or hybrid: basically, an (ish) tree.

With thanks

The artwork: Nell Bennett

This series isn’t designed to help you directly identify each species – a podcast isn’t really the best format for an identification guide (not enough pictures) – so I haven’t tried. BUT each episode is accompanied by some incredible artwork, of one of the most iconic attributes of the species in question, drawn by my fantastic and talented cousin, Nell Bennett. I am indebted to her, and you can find more of her artwork at nells.art.

The music: Bella Hardy

Where would this podcast be without Edale’s Mountain Hare-ess herself, the Trees A Crowd balladeer, Bella Hardy? A massive thank you yet again for being the official minstrel of Trees A Crowd. Much more from her can be found at bellahardy.com.

The voices

You’ll hear lots of little voxpops along this trail through the 56(ish) tree forest: previous guests of the show, future guests of the show and indeed friends of mine. I would be nothing without them. So, thank you all.

The botany: Bubs

Most importantly, a whole herbaceous border of thanks goes to my Great Aunt (a botanist extraordinaire!), without whom I would have made far too many mistakes in both these podcasts, and indeed in life! Thank you, Bubs.

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