But when you think of all the roots they drop,
As much on bottom as there is on top.
A double tree, widespread in earth and air,
Like a reflection in the water there.
--Charlotte Perkins Gilman
What are trees hiding? That’s what I want to know. Like most people, when I see a grand old tree my eyes soar upward along the trunk and into a network of branches reaching skyward. But while I’m looking up, my imagination probes belowground in wonder at unseen tangles of roots. I may marvel at a spire of spruce or an ancient oak with muscular, gnarly limbs defying gravity, but I’m intrigued by what I don’t see.
Trees give definition and beauty to the landscape. Their greenery provides an array of solar collectors and air purifiers. They are habitat to wild neighbors from squirrels to bears. My home is built of their very substance. Among the largest, oldest, and most useful of living things, they’re not possible without the roots most of us don’t notice until tripping over one that’s tilted a sidewalk, or gawking at an occasional specimen snaking along a rock.
