Colorful Characters: Island Trees | An Arbor Day Celebration

Colorful Characters: Island Trees | An Arbor Day Celebration
Daufuskie Island, South Carolina’s femme fatale
live oak. Photo by Anna Marlis Burgard
Tybee Island, Georgia’s “leave it all behind” tie
tree. Photo by Anna Marlis Burgard
A Southern island’s notable features generally fall into the categories of beach, boat,
lighthouse and wildlife, among other photo-friendly elements. Trees may be less likely must-see candidates on a vacation, but many capture the spirit of these places,
serving as arboreal mirrors of their history and character—and senses of humor. In
honor of Arbor Day, here are a few entertaining and artful examples.
Daufuskie Island, South Carolina is a Gullah community—one that rose after
the Civil War from the families of freed slaves. Part of that culture is the practice of
root medicine—a more austere Baptist/Methodist version of Louisiana’s Catholicinfluenced voodoo. On Daufuskie you’ll see Loblolly pines with painted deer bones
tied to their trunks that are part of that history—a means of keeping the “haints” or
ghosts away. But a more lighthearted tree—deep in a palmetto thicket and found only
with the help of an 11th-generation Lowcountry local—is a lively-limbed live oak with
rather human curves. Her palm frond skirt is the perfect adornment on this laid-back
island that reverts to its true spirit once the day trippers get back on the ferry. Only
the locals have cars, so these secret spaces remain untainted.
Tybee Island, Georgia has a spindly tree set back off the main road in the marsh
that has fraying sun-bleached ties wrapped around its lichened arms. The pun for
the island’s name aside, this tree signals that Tybee is no place for suits or anything
they represent. The soup of the day is cold beer, the preferred footwear is flip flops,
and the annual festival is the Beach Bum Parade—a giant water battle where plastic
pistols, hoses and buckets deliver the aquatic ammunition. No one comes to Tybee
for anything that has to do with rules, restriction or formality.
An injured live oak on Galveston transformed as
boxer Jack Johnson. Photo by Candace Garcia
A gumbo-limbo tree’s “tourist” bark on Cook’s
Island, Florida. Photo by Anna Marlis Burgard
On Galveston in Texas, the resilient spirit of an island hit multiple times by devastating hurricanes is seen in the remains of decimated live oak trees carved into
everything from a railway conductor to the Tin Man and Toto. Hurricane Ike stripped
40,000 moss-draped trees of their leaves, bark and limbs in 2008, leaving behind an
amputated urban forest. Local Donna Leibbert led a mood-lifting effort that brought
in carvers whose saws and chisels transformed the remains into objects of beauty
in parks and on lawns. The tree that best represents the fighting spirit of Galvestonians was sculpted by BOI (“born on island”) Earl Jones, who carved the “Galveston
Giant”—legendary boxer Jack Johnson who rose from poverty on the island to become the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion in 1908.
Cook’s Island, a private oasis in the Florida Keys, is called “Lethargy Island” by its
handful of homeowners. Guests who arrive with ambitious plans for fishing, snorkeling and kayaking soon abandon them for sittin’, sippin’ and sunnin’. Regarding the
latter, there’s a gumbo-limbo tree on the island with reddish bark that peels in a fashion that earned it the nickname “tourist tree”—for those who don’t fully comprehend
the blistering power of the Southern Florida sun.
Whether humble, funky or artful, these and other trees tell you a bit about the
islands and the people living on them. They reflect the past and witness the present,
and inspire in the process. You just never know what a sapling will rise up to become.
Anna Marlis Burgard’s work has been featured on Atlas Obscura, BBC Radio and NPR and in The New Yorker, Town
& Country, USAToday and Yahoo! Travel. She is the author and principal photographer for Islands of America: A River,
Lake and Sea Odyssey www.islandsofamerica.com