The National Geographic usually contains at least one very interesting story on vegetation in some of the world's exotic locations. The frontispiece of this year's October issue showed a picture of an enormous California tree, a giant redwood. To put its size into perspective one must look closely to see an ant like figure climbing on the trunk, a geographer reaching for the crown. My dreams include a visit to Sequoia National Park with trees so vast one can drive a bus through an opening in the base of one.

One of my favorite books is kept on the coffee table in the living room, "Remarkable Trees of the World" (Thomas Pakenham, 2002). Folk can't help but be amazed at some of our huge west coast trees such as the Douglas Firs on Vancouver Island which were saved by MacMillan- Bloedel in an era when uncut trees were considered to be standing lumber waiting to be harvested.

The awesome experience of walking through the Cathedral Forest was an example of a valuable Canadian tourist attraction. In fact many of the world's cherished botanical wonders have attracted visitors in different countries.

One can't help but be dumbstruck encountering a tree having a girth of over 90 feet or one which has been around for hundreds of years.

Packenham included 'General Sherman' a Sequoia he described as the world's largest tree estimated to be1500 tons and a Bristle cone pine he named 'Old Methuselah' at 4600 years old.

Over the years I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing many interesting examples of exotic trees. One of these has taken me back to my own experience with what I called the 'upside down' tree in Kenya, the Baobab. My name for it came from a trip to the coast of the Indian ocean and one huge, very short tree. I have a picture of a friend standing beside a mammoth Baobob, with a huge trunk hardly taller than the individual.

As this was the dry season there was no foliage making the top look more like a root system than a crown.

Under desert conditions this species produces leaves only a few days of the year at the start of the rains, appearing as a skeleton most of the time.

Two species I have especially appreciated in the tropics were the raintree and the mango. Both grow to immense size providing cooling shade in very hot and dry conditions. In the Philippines one remarkable mango tree occupied an area of about an acre which provided shade for village meetings.

I particularly enjoyed a village in Guyana where our party stayed for close to a week. The aboriginal people of 'Wikki' had never before had overnight visitors. As the village had no commercial accommodation we were 'housed' in hammocks in a school building during evening hours walking to town in the morning along a path through mango trees along the Berbice River. The forest 'floor' was littered with delicious mangos.

We vied with cattle to get the fallen fruit before they were eaten or crushed.

Another notable species was the raintree which was used as carving wood. One carved eagle I would dearly have loved to have in my living room was a chair from a single tree resembling a bird with two clawed legs as arms while the head and beak provided overhead cover. A carving village near Baguio City in the Philippines featured numerous carved North American cigarstore Indians of various sizes up to 8' tall for sale in the Japanese market.

One of the prized possessions in my office is a table top eagle with outstretched wings cleverly carved from dark heartwood with beak, claws and wingtips of white sapwood from the outer part of the trunk.

I have many memories of nature's remarkable trees displayed around the house. Examples include red mahogany and jet black ebony carvings from Asian or African countries or cedrella from South America. There are also many beautiful hardwoods in my collection of sample woods from Costa Rica. Whether as standing trees or carved works of art, Mother Nature has given the world a wide variety of remarkable trees.