I agree with Gemp that trees – or at least some trees – should be purple. It would be a nice change from all that brown and green.
However, I’ve recently learned that there’s a type of tree that’s already going several steps beyond and that has been glamming up the forests of south-east Asia for millennia: Eucalyptus deglupta, commonly known as the Rainbow Eucalyptus.
Its size makes it an impressive tree already: up to 75 metres with a trunk as wide as a motorcycle. But it’s the way the its bark regenerates that gives this tree its name and its spot in the Tree Hall of Fame.
Bark does for a tree what our skin does for us; protects the fragile inner workings from the bacterial dangers of the outside world. However unlike our skin, which you’ve probably heard sloughs off and regenerates over time, the bark of most trees simply thickens as the tree ages.
The Rainbow Eucalyptus is an exception; its bark comes off in thin strips throughout its life. Each strip exposes a light green patch of wood underneath. This new wood gradually changes colour, from purple to blue to orange to red to yellow. Because the strips fall off at various times, at any given moment each tree is covered in a beautiful vertically-striped patchwork of hues.
Like many beautiful things in nature, they look too fake to be real.
But they’re real.
So I hope that Gemp knows about the Rainbow Eucalyptus, and that maybe they can pay one a visit sometime, because yes, trees should be purple. And red. And green and yellow and maroon.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. It opens with crickets. I know plenty of songs do this, but it sets such a great forest mood I’m fine with it.
2. For a track that is loosely within the “lofi” genre, there’s a lot of high-frequency sounds going on; the crickets, the guitars, the keys. Makes for a nice lush canopy layer.
3. Counteracting all that high-frequency stuff is the kick drum. Sometimes, like at 1:09, everything else drops out and only the kick drum is left. It’s like when a tree’s roots poke out in the middle of a forest path, just to remind you they’re there.
Recommended listening activity:
High-fiving a tree.