John is thirty feet in front of me and I can’t seem to keep up. The black earth is damp and spongy and I move ahead slowly, taking pleasure in the buoyancy I feel with each step. Moss carpets the ground in lumpy patches, like English country hills seen from far above. The smell of wet leaves is everywhere.

The trees are the real draw here. Unlike the mosses and flowers, which shrink away and reappear again when the days lengthen, the trees are a fixed presence year-round. In spring, battered but hardy, they regain their foliage, triumphant.

Image by Elodie Pauwels

A history teacher I once had at the private high school I attended in a rural part of New Jersey led the entire class outside one afternoon. “Find a tree,” he coaxed. “Find a tree and hug that tree, and take a minute to see what it feels like.” We scattered. We found our trees. Skin to bark, we pressed our bodies against immense trunks. (A class full of high school seniors is a skeptical bunch. A class full of high school seniors is also easily persuaded to try something new if it means leaving a classroom.)

I hesitate to even attempt a description of what hugging a tree can feel like. It’s not so much that I’m afraid of ridicule as that I lack the words to capture what I feel when I do it. I will say only this: that the feeling of hugging a tree can be likened to that of a child who finds himself at an adult dinner party, arms wrapped snugly around the legs of a parent. Humbled, he ceases his pleading, his whining, his mischievous play. All at once he is shy, respectful in the presence of elders. The world is older, bigger, and wiser than he.

I have taught John the practice of hugging trees. Later in the hike, I catch him, his arms wrapped fully around a thick trunk. I find my own, a sturdy oak with thick ridges of rough gray bark. I gaze up into its still-barren branches, the white sky visible between them.

This is a piece of New York, I think. I have to keep reminding myself; an hour and a half north of the city on the train and the landscape bears so little resemblance to the Brooklyn neighborhood I’ve left behind.
New York City, however, is not without its natural wonders. It is at these transitional times of year that we do find our eyes drawn, once again, to what grows and blossoms and blooms right outside our apartment windows, along the sidewalk as we stroll to work, in the parks we now purposefully try to wander through en route to wherever else we are obliged to go. We sniff, we squint, we touch, like Lucy emerging from the wardrobe.

Here in New York City, where trees seem diminutive beneath the gleam of soaring buildings, we would be wise to train our eyes to recognize what we see, the better to prevent ourselves from losing sight of what’s around. There is beauty to appreciate year-round in urban vegetation, just as in urban architecture.

A start: A recent tree census from 2005-2006 conducted by the city Parks Department found that the following are the top ten tree species in New York City streets. (This was made possible thanks to 1,100 volunteers who spent two summers recording information for every single street tree in New York City.) The percentages show the breakdown within the top ten.

1. London plane tree 15.3%
2. Norway maple, 14.1%
3. Callery pear, 10.9%
4. Honey locust, 8.9%
5. Pin oak, 7.5%
6. Little leaf linden, 4.7%
7. Green ash, 3.5%
8. Red maple, 3.5%
9. Silver maple, 3.2%
10. Ginkgo, 2.8%

Interestingly, this was the second citywide count of trees that grow on New York City streets and are managed by Parks. The 2005-2006 Street Tree Census found 592,130 street trees (a figure that does not include the roughly 4.5 million trees in parks and on private land). Notably, this was nearly a 20% increase over the last census ten years prior.

And so it seems that we inhabit a city that has a strong sense of the value of its greenery. It is a city that shows it, perhaps not with hugs but with actions that demonstrate appreciation in other significant ways. This year, the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and New York Restoration Project launched MillionTreesNYC, a citywide initiative to plant and care for one million trees across the City’s five boroughs. Mayor Bloomberg and Rockefeller University’s own trustee, David Rockefeller, have jointly pledged $10 million to the project; tree-huggers of a different variety.

On the trail, John and I weave our way along the sloping path, glimpsing vistas that become more breathtaking as we ascend. At last, we reach our destination—a rocky summit warmed by the mid-day sunlight—and unpack our lunches. Soon, it is time to descend, and we pull on our packs and hoist one another up. The spindly shadows of branches fall across us, lengthened by the late day sun, as we enter the woods again.

Miles away, the city—vibrant and teetering on the cusp of the new season—awaits our return.