Ash Tree: Pasts & Futures

Ash trees are easy to spot by their unique diamond-patterned bark. Their wood is incredibly versatile due to its flexibility, making it an excellent resource for a variety of projects. In the twentieth-century, ash wood was popular in the manufacturing of baseball bats but now we use it for carpentry projects in our homes. The ash tree is a vital part of the ecosystem where it grows. For example, in the forest, the ash tree serves as a habitat as well as a food source for lots of wildlife. In the wetlands, fish feed off of ash leaves, while in the woods, white-tailed deer and rabbits feed off the bark of young ash trees. Up in the canopy, birds eat ash seeds and nest in the safety of its branches. The ash tree is vital our ecosystem because wildlife and humans rely on its resources. 

Both Indigenous and Native to Massachusetts, the ash tree has been used as a medicine and resource for hundreds of years. Indigenous communities like the Abnaki, Cherokee, and Chippewa all have unique relationships with ash trees. The bark and leaves of the tree were used by the Abnaki as a menstrual aid to induce a period and stimulate flow. Members of the Cherokee used the tree as a tonic for an upset stomach or liver. The Chippewa and Abnaki used flexible ash wood for craftsmanship such as fishing rods as well as snowshoe frames (Native American ethnobotany database).

The Kinney Center’s rare book library offers a window onto the long histories of human relationships with ash trees. John Gerard’s Generall Historie of Plantes (1633) emphasizes the medicinal uses of the ash tree. Taken with wine, the leaves on an ash tree eased pain in the spleen and liver and comforted an upset stomach. Due to its filling properties, ash tree leaves were commonly used as a remedy for weight loss. John Evelyn, also provides practical and medicinal uses for the tree in his book Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber (1679). He writes that an oil secreted by the ash tree was a cure for hearing impairment as well as pain in the kidneys and spleens. It could also ease toothaches. Although it was not preferred over white oak, ash tree wood was also commonly used to build houses and furniture.

As ash trees have helped humans across centuries, we must now help the ash trees. The biggest threat to the ash tree is an insect no larger than a penny, but don't be deceived by its size, the emerald ash borer (EAB) has decimated ash trees throughout the world, especially in the US. Introduced to the US in 2002, likely through wood packaging containers from Asia, the EAB destroys the tissue of the tree by tunneling underneath the bark, making snake-like pathways through the tissues called “serpentine galleries”. Since this deformity is below the surface and not readily visible, it can be difficult to spot before it's too late. Luckily, there are other stressors we can identify to assess if an ash tree is suffering. Canopy thinning, early yellowing leaves, and woodpecker activity may indicate that the EAB is present in the tree. The strongest visible evidence of an EAB is the ‘D’ shaped exit holes that the beetle makes when leaving the trees.

Unfortunately, the emerald ash borer has inhabited most ash trees in the US but protective measures are underway to protect ash trees. In Massachusetts, for example, ash tree lumber transportation is closely monitored by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to minimize the spread of larvae. The Massachusetts Department of Conservation has implemented a trapping program to monitor new ash borer populations and better understand the beetle. Monitoring individual ash trees in your area helps foresters identify the beetle and early action helps aid prevention. If you are worried about a tree, contact a certified arborist or tree care expert to assess the best course of action.

Understanding our past relationship with ash trees helps further our knowledge about stewardship of the land in the future. If we lose the ash trees, we will lose another aspect of what makes our ecosystem diverse. Without biodiversity, any species is more susceptible to disease and could result in our forests becoming weaker with every generation. Although it is inevitable for tree species to face danger, humans have the power and knowledge to protect them. Knowing the challenges that ash trees face now, we must take time to protect them so we can keep these ecosystems alive.

Melanie Morgan, RoE Fellow

References:

Akabelowsky, A. (2024b, September 16). Emerald Ash Borer Confirmed In All 72 Counties. Wisconsin DNR Forestry News.

Emerald Ash Borer: Arbor day foundation. Emerald Ash Borer | Arbor Day Foundation.

Emerald Ash Borer. City of O’Fallon, Missouri.

Emerald Ash Borer in Massachusetts. Mass.gov.

Emerald Ash Borer - profile. Invasive Species Centre. (2024, August 26).

Evelyn, J. (1679). Sylva. John Martyn.

Gerard, J. (1633). Herball. Spring Books.

Native american ethnobotany database. BRIT.

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Optics, Cosmography, and Justice in Ralegh’s The History of the World

I first encountered Sir Walter Ralegh’s The History of the World (1614) as a Visiting Scholar at the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies in 2021-2022. At the time, I was in the process of researching and writing a manuscript/documentary film for a Cambridge University Press Element entitled Teaching Shakespeare’s Theatre of the World (under review). Ralegh’s title page illustration vivified how I was imagining the theatrum mundi, but it also raised questions about what constitutes truth and justice.

The theatre of the world metaphor has circulated for millennia as a figure that invites cosmographical contemplation. For example, at the turn of the Common Era, Plutarch claims “life is a festival,” a temporary foray on earth before humanity faces final judgment at the hands of the Gods. The options for eternity are stark: one either goes ‘up’ to Elysium, or ‘down’ to Hades. Christian theologians later typologized the metaphor. John of Salisbury’s twelfth-century satire Policraticus: Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers reflects the shift to monotheism and the absolute authority of the Christian God as he reminds mundane monarchs and leaders that they are not exempt from final judgment (Ed. Pike, 1938). But by the time Shakespeare’s Jacques says “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” the cosmological and theological certainties had become catastrophically fractured (Folger, AYLI 2.7).

The 1572 supernova in Cassiopeia marks a key moment of epistemological disruption. When this new star appeared in November 1572 and shone brightly day and night for weeks, it shook the foundations of mathematics and natural philosophy. What NASA now calls ‘Cass A’ (Chandra; Webb) gave rise to advances in measuring parallax that dissolved Aristotle’s solid spheres and confirmed heliocentrism and infinity. At the same time, Alhazen’s De Aspectibus, or Perspectiva, was republished. Alhazen’s (or Ibn al Haytham) theory of optics fed into questions surrounding epistemology writ large. Broadly speaking, Alhazen proposed a double-scope model of vision that synthesized Aristotelian intromission, a theory by which light passes through an external object and into the eye stimulating vision, and extromission, a theory that posited vision generated by the viewer who emits beams of light (see Anne-Valérie Dulac, “Shakespeare’s Alhazen” in Chiari & Popelard, 2017). This double-scope model, like parallax, requires the measurement of multiple viewpoints to arrive at an understanding of a third term or perceived object. One finds Shakespeare exploring the challenges these ideas raise for the theatre of the world and its associations with divine and mundane justice systems – so too, Ralegh.

As I return to Ralegh’s incorporation of the History of the World into the stage play of life, I’m struck by how it grapples with challenges posed by optics and perspective in relation to sociocultural (including theological) and political constructions of “justice.” Ralegh’s The History of the World was not printed until 1614, well after Elizabeth’s death in 1603 and James I’s accession. Already one may see how the title page disrupts strictly vertical judicial hierarchies even as it conveys Ralegh’s masterfully duplicitous rhetoric. Early iterations of the theatrum mundi allocated the adjudication of justice to the singular “Apollonian Eye” of divinity; each individual gets one trial, and there are no appeals.

Title page of Ralegh’s The History of the World (1614) in the collection at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies.

Although Ralegh’s title page prominently features what appears to be such a singular eye, Providentia emerges from beams of light generated by the horn of Fama Bona and wafting smoke from that of Fama Mala. These figures mediate information generated from a relatively small rendering of a planetary globe, held for their inspection by Magistra Vitae, or History. History is proportionately larger than the globe she supports, a robust, Amazonian-like figure with the power to crush Death and Oblivion blow.

Like divine Providence, History emerges from double-scope inputs that challenge vertical hierarchies of justice and reflect the challenges that optics pose to epistemology. Flanked by a wizened rendering of Experience and a youthful depiction of Truth sharing her light, Magistra vitae absorbs their beamy contributions before projecting her own light to the world above.

On one level of interpretation, History might be read as a record of God’s providence, and as a caution to readers – including King James who was holding Ralegh prisoner at the time of composition. But History is not objective or unmediated. She is informed by both Experientia (Experience) and Veritas (Truth). The optics here are weird on several levels of interpretation, not least the fact that all three allegorical figures are bare-breasted women. Experience sounds the depths and reports to Magistra Vitae whilst Truth sends light from her palm. Truth is proportionately small, about equal to Experience, but far slighter than History, or the figures of Fame that ultimately report to Providence.

From Ralegh’s perspective outlined here, Fame – Rumor – Reputation: these are humanity’s ultimate rewards. But that’s not what’s shocking. What’s shocking is the fact that Ralegh’s engraver has captured the challenge perspective itself poses to law, equity, and mercy – the elements of justice. Is Ralegh cynical about the role of Truth in a judicial equation? Perhaps so. I think we all are. But as a master rhetor himself, one who repeatedly attempts to rewrite his own story in the world, he reminds his audience that Truth is not absolute. She is part of a complex system. She has the power to illuminate History, but once out into the world, her light is subject to perception. Ralegh’s The History of the World raises a question that is urgent now: Will her light survive the tests put forth by world and time?

—Kristen Abbott Bennett, Associate Professor, Framingham State University & Visiting Scholar, Kinney Center

Sources
Raleigh, Walter. The Historie of the World : In Fiue Bookes. Edited by Renold Elstracke, et al., London, 1621.