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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we are very excited to introduce a year-long Brian Lehrer Show Project that we're inviting you to take part in. We're inviting you to adopt a tree, any tree you encounter in your life, and follow it with us over the course of a trip through the four seasons, one full year from today, November 10th to this day next year. Along the way, with the help of our guide, who we are about to meet, we will notice how trees change during the winter, spring, summer, and fall and discuss what they do for and to us, and what we do for and to them.

Start thinking right now about a tree to pick out, one tree, maybe the one in front of your apartment building or house, or just one you notice as you move through your routines to check in with every month, maybe tweet a photo with the #BLTrees. Now let's meet that guide who will give us the tools to have the most fun possible with this and learn the most from it. It's urban botanist Marielle Anzelone who's been on the show several times before and who came up with this idea. Marielle, I am so psyched for this. Thank you for coming up with it, and welcome back to WNYC.

Marielle Anzelone: Oh, Brian, it's such a delight. I'm really excited too.

Brian Lehrer: For this inaugural episode, Marielle is joined by Chris Martine, professor at Plant Genetics and Research at Bucknell University, co-author of the book Trees of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States and host of the YouTube channel called Plants Are Cool, Too!. Welcome Professor Martine.

Chris Martine: Thank you so much, Brian, happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we'll give you instructions in just a few minutes for how to choose a tree and what to observe or to do with it today to launch this project for yourself, but first professor Martine, let's start with the basics. What is a tree? What makes something a tree and not just a really tall plant?

Chris Martine: When I teach about trees, first off, we say that they're woody plants. They've got to be made out of wood. When we think about trees versus something like a shrub, we would say, trees or something that usually is a single stem, one trunk, and maybe greater than 20 feet tall. If you're shorter than 20 feet and have many stems, you're probably a shrub.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. It's got to be woody. There's your basic.

Chris Martine: Woody and tall.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, do you have a question about trees that you would like answered during the series? A favorite type of tree would like to shout out, need help identifying a tree, I'm going to need that help for the one that I picked out. I'll let you know. Tweet us a question @BrianLehrer, using the #BLTrees, or you can call in right now, 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Marielle, let's talk about people choosing their tree to follow during the course of the year. What exactly are we inviting them to do?

Marielle Anzelone: We are inviting them to get to know they're fully our neighbors. I feel like trees don't get enough attention. People pay attention to animals and wildlife especially, people talk about birding in the pandemic, but people should be also talking about getting to know plants in their daily lives. Trees stand, they're all around us in our daily lives, we should get to know them. We're hoping that we'll have some relationships forming, perhaps a love story with a local tree. You want to start by choosing a tree that's easy to get to, like something really basic. If it's hard or difficult, chances are that you're not going to be able to keep up with it once a month.

Once you get to know it, take a good look at it. Sharpen your eyes and slow down and carefully look at the tree and take a look at the arrangement and shapes of their leaves, and the color and texture of the bark. If it has different flowers or fruits on it, what the trunk looks like. All of those things will help you up your tree IQ and will be information that you'll use to help identify what the tree is. I think when you meet someone, you want to know their name.

A good place to start with your tree is by getting to know your tree's name. With that information, you can use a guidebook. There's one that I really like, I'm old school, I like books. I have a New York City Trees: A Field Guide for the Metropolitan Area that was published by New York City Parks and that's a really useful tool. If you're in New Jersey, Chris's book is great. Online, there's also New York City Street Tree Map. You can also look your tree up that way if it's on a street.

You want to know what tree it is. You have a way to start thinking about it and have it be something that's not just like green backdrop, but it's an actual learning like the personality of your tree and what this tree does and how this tree is different from other trees.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. You're suggesting that people take a picture of their chosen tree once a month, and you can see it change over the course of the year when you look at your photo file and see that. Also, you told us about an app called 1 Second Everyday. This seems really cool, I didn't know about it before. 1 Second Everyday where people can shoot a one-second video and post it. In this case, it would be a one-second video of your chosen tree every month.

Then what that app does, I gather, it will smash these together in a montage. At the end of the year, you would have a 12-second montage of how your tree changed over the 12 months of a year. Have you actually ever done that yourself, Marielle?

Marielle Anzelone: No, this is new for me too, but I went out this morning, and I used it and I took a one-second video of my tree. There were people walking underneath and around it, which I thought was fun because it shows also the intersectionality of trees with our lives. We're not always looking at them and paying attention, but they're almost always there.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. Professor Martine, your book, Trees of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States, one, why does New Jersey get top billing, as opposed to any of the other Mid-Atlantic states? Two, would you say the trees that tend to proliferate in New Jersey are different than the ones that tend to proliferate in the other two states in our area, New York and Connecticut?

Chris Martine: Yes, the book Trees of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States was published by the state of New Jersey, so that's the forward name there. To your point, the book does have that longer title. [crosstalk] It does have that longer title because just what you're saying, the trees that occur in New Jersey are pretty much the same throughout the Mid Atlantic and the northeastern region as well.

The trees might be different in certain parts of New Jersey, think Pine Barrens versus maybe some other places, but for the most part, we have a regional set of trees, I think that most people are going to run into and hopefully adopt for this awesome year-long project.

Brian Lehrer: What are some of those most common species?

Chris Martine: There's a lot of different kinds of oaks out there that are worth looking around for and a lot of different maples. Then we, of course, we've got things like the tulip trade, and black walnut and the sycamore. I think people would be shocked to know there are dozens and dozens of species of trees out there to choose from. Not all of them necessarily use the street trees, but you could run into them in all sorts of places.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a tree question that's appropriate to this time of year from Eddie in Weston Connecticut. Eddie, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Eddie: Hey, how are you? How's everyone? My two question is, in the fall now, is it true that trees, the deeper hues, the color or hue change depending on how cold it is? First of all, why do they change color?

Brian Lehrer: Eddie, can I ask you a question before we get your question answered?

Eddie: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: There in Weston, have you noticed this being a better or worse or typical year for fall foliage colors?

Eddie: Well, we didn't get as many colors this year, which is one of the reasons why I'm so curious about this.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Martine, can you help answer Eddie's question?

Chris Martine: This is a good question. I'll say that your experience, Eddie, is similar to what a lot of folks in the region are reporting, that it just hasn't been that great this year. In part, it's because when you get really good fall color, it's usually a combination of factors. You get pretty good moisture, you get relatively warm days, and then really cool nights. As everybody-- Look around, we've had lots of moisture, we've had relatively warm days, but only recently have we begun to get cool nights.

Without those three things in combination, your fall color tends to be not that great. I'm looking out my window and seeing that many of the trees have already dropped their leaves without really ever hitting that peak color that we often get.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a climate change gauge on this? Do you find that the fall foliage colors are coming later and later if you look at a 20, 30-year timeline?

Chris Martine: We certainly saw that this year. I think if we continue to get weather like we've had this year and the last couple of years because I'm really keen on knowing when things change over. This year's been a really good example of really late color change and then a shift in when we start to see the first frost, for example, which to me was only three days ago. If that continues, yes, we will see a shift in when that color change occurs and really how deep it is in certain parts of the country.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're in the process of launching a year-long BrianLehrer Show project that anybody can participate in. We're inviting you to choose a tree, any tree from on your block if you're in the city, on an apartment buildings block, or in your own yard, if you have a yard, pick a tree and we're going to follow our trees together with Marielle Anzalone, urban botanist once a month.

She's going to come on the show once a month for the next year and we're going to talk about specific things that we can learn from how our trees are changing. We're inviting you to take a photo once a month of your tree and track the changes that way as well, or use the app 1 Second Everyday, where you can post a one-second video and you'll have 12 of those at the end of the year in a montage, which will be like-- I guess it's like a flipbook. Remember the old flipbooks? You'll see this little cartoon, but in this case, an actual video.

Also with us helping to launch the series is Chris Martine, who is a professor at Bucknell University of Plant Genetics and Research, host of the YouTube channel Plants Are Cool, Too! and co-author of Trees of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States. Laura in Brooklyn already follows a tree. Laura, are you going to model this for us? Hi.

Laura: Oh my goodness. This is so up my alley. I was thinking that when we were all locked down and people were then, I heard, finally paying attention to birds, I was really happy about that. Then I never heard we graduated to-- What about the flora that's all around us? Here we are, we're doing it. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Marielle, to give people a day one thing to do if they want to pick their tree today and then have a way to look at it, what is happening right now, earlier mid-November for most trees?

Marielle Anzalone: Well, they're gearing up for winter. Trees overwinter above ground, a lot of other kinds of plants that we think of as wildflowers have adventitious stems and they die back above ground, but survive through their roots, but trees are fully above ground so they need to winterize. That's one of the reasons why it goes through fall foliage. The colors come out because the photosynthates-- Sorry, the chlorophyll in the leaves that creates the green color gets pulled back into the tree because it's going to get rid of the leaves. The leaves are going to be excised for the winter.

Once the chlorophyll gets pulled out, the colors underneath are revealed, and those colors are always there. The reds and the purples, they're just underneath the green. There's so much green that the green dominates. Those might be some things that people will see in their tree leaves, a mixture of green and some other colors. Maybe the tree is less full because some of the leaves have already fallen.

I went out this morning and took a good look at my tree, which is a pin oak that's not too far from where I live. It's right on a corner in Brooklyn. Pin oaks are native to wet woods in New York City, but my tree is on a city block and right now it's in full autumnal slender and people are-- It's pretty big. I'd say it's probably almost 70 feet tall. People are taking a look at it and also just ignoring it and walking their dogs and kids are hitting it, but it'll just be--

What you're saying about collecting these moments, and then we'll look back at it at the end of the year, I think it helps give you a sense of the way time passes for people and time passes for trees and how much trees offer to us.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say kids are hitting your tree?

Marielle Anzalone: Yes. Little kids, they're curious, and sometimes they're hitting trees. I feel like that's okay as long as they're not really damaging the bark, trees are sturdy and can pretty much handle it.

Brian Lehrer: We have to cut down on anti-tree violence in this society, that's what I think. Chris Martine, anything to add about out what people might look for today as they look at their chosen tree?

Chris Martine: I think if it's a tree that you have some sort of relationship with already, that's a big help. I know that I can point out some of my favorite trees in my town and my neighborhood and I think it sounds like this is the kind of thing where folks really want to invest a year-long in watching this thing. If you've got some connection to it already, I think that's pretty great. If it's got some cool fall color going on right now, that's an awesome starting point for you just like Marielle's pin oak.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Listeners, can we get a nice collection of photos from you today as you pick out your tree, or even if it's not today, maybe you're going to do a tomorrow or the next day. We'd love to gather up a lot of photos using Twitter, just use the #BLTrees, #BL Trees. Post a day one photo of your tree of choice, and we'll create a little gallery of them so we can see the different trees that people are looking at today or this week. Kate in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kate.

Kate: Hi. I'm so excited about this. I really am so excited. I love the trees in New York. There's a tree in Alley Pond Park, I used to walk there every week and I could never figure out what it was. It's a baby tree. It's got a super straight trunk and the leaves-- I used to call it the disco tree because the branches go around in a spiral up it. I've been searching through my photos, trying to find a picture of the leaves. I know I've taken pictures of, but obviously, I can't find it in this moment when I need it.

I'm curious if that description sounds like any kind of tree that you would recognize. It looks like it's dancing, but it's a very straight trunk, and then the branches are a little squiggly, but they go around in the spiral.

Brian Lehrer: The dancing disco tree with the spiral. Can either of you get it from that description?

Marielle Anzalone: The really straight trunk would be a tulip tree. Those have the straightest trunks in New York City. They are just straight and true, but what she's saying about the branches doesn't track for me. Having a description of what the leaves look like would be really helpful. For people who are having trouble, they can also post on Twitter with the hashtag, but Chris, do you have a good guess?

Chris Martine: There's a lot of trees where some of the cultivars, the cultivated varieties have this upright columnar form and those tend to be-- As you were describing it, it sounds like maybe it was that kind of a thing. Sometimes purple beeches and some other trees have been bred to have that almost spiraling, columnar form. It sounds to me like what we might be talking about.

Brian Lehrer: Marielle, did you just volunteer to identify people's trees from pictures that they tweet?

Marielle Anzalone: Yes, of course, I did. It's a favorite thing. I have people that I meet at parties when they find out that I'm a botanist, they're like, "OMG," and now I'm getting text messages, "What is this? What is this?" I love it.

Brian Lehrer: Spoiler alert, I'm going to take advantage of that offer today and tweet my own tree at BLTrees from outside my building that I do not know what it is, even though I'm in love with it. I'll start there too and some other people, you can do that too. Marta in Jackson Heights, you're on WNYC. Hello, Marta.

Marta: Hi, thank you so much for doing this, Brian. It's so much fun. I'm so excited. I'm part of a tree group here in Jackson Heights and I just joined it over COVID. I had two little questions. I will be sending a picture for Marielle for my indoor tree that nobody can identify, I inherited it. My quick question is do Marielle or Chris have any suggestions of residents for planting a tree as we work with street trees for this area of things that would be maybe very hardy or easy to grow so that we can put it in the ground and it just does its thing and it's a little easy?

Brian Lehrer: Marielle.

Marielle Anzalone: That's a great question. I think there are lots of trees that are hardy. I know that's the mindset that we have, it's like, "Will it survive our urban conditions as a street tree?" I think when we do that calculation, we also want to include this idea of ecological benefits, and will this tree also feed wildlife around us and survive what New York City throws at it? In that case, I'd be thinking about oaks, pin oak is commonly planted. That's a really great street tree.

There are a number of maples. Red maple is a really good one. It depends on what you're looking for in terms of if you want something that has beautiful flowers in the spring, that could be a flowering dogwood, that's another native tree. There are a lot of different choices.

Chris Martine: I was like the second, the oak idea because oaks not only do the obvious thing like produce acorns for wildlife, but it turns out that oak support more caterpillars than any other type of tree in our region and that might not sound like a big deal, but then those feed birds so you end up with more birds in the city if you have more oaks for the caterpillars to eat.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you want to hear more from Chris Martine from Bucknell University, he hosts the Plants Are Cool, Too! YouTube channel and he's the co-author of Trees of New Jersey and the Mid Atlantic States. Chris, thank you so much.

Chris Martine: Sure. For thanks for having me on.

Brian Lehrer: Marielle, I can't wait for this to unfold as you're going to come back every month for the next year. Listeners, one more time you invited today or anytime the next few days, take a photo of a tree that you choose, tweet it with a #BLtrees like Brian Lehrer, BL trees, and then we're going to follow our chosen trees over the next year with Marielle Anzalone urban botanist and founder of New York City Wildflower Week. Thank you so much for coming up with this idea. I am so psyched.

Marielle Anzalone: Me too. We're going to have a lot of fun with our trees.

Brian Lehrer: Talk to you next month. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. The show was produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Max Bolton. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen works on our daily podcast, Sham Sundra and Juliana Fonda at the audio controls.

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