84: Tree Talk & Trading Card Art

Can trees talk to each other? And how does that personifying metaphor square with the actual science behind it? And what can we learn from the stories of art on trading cards throughout history?

Images we Talk About: Trade Cards 3 Modern Trading Cards Yuka Morii's Cards Terror Hyalopterus Lemure Preposterous Proportions

Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:08) Tree Talk (00:52:16) Trading Card Art (01:33:47) Outro

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The answer is yes maybe sometimes and no, talking tree folklore, communication as transferring information, The Secret Life of Trees, Caroline WAS vegan, plants feel pain - GOOD, tree self defense, secondary metabollites, you got me AND Ella to write that down, tannin defense mechanism, volatile organic compounds, giraffes avoiding nearby leaves after eating, maybe trees are eavesdropping, mycorrhizal networks, could it be diffusion or a baby tree suckling on its mother, do a stanford prisoner experiment for trees, that tree is giving mother, mother trees - altruistic fungi - and the perils of plant personification, literally talking to trees, your first priority shouldn’t be to not be boring - maybe second, respect for the organisms that are fundamentally unlike us - their unfathomable lives, the modern boom of trading cards, trade cards, mass produced color images were cool and novel, how many credits for that chromo? absurd advertising from the 1800s, anthropomorphic fruits and veggies were all the rage, trade cards were a microcosm of marketing-invention-and collecting, Ella’s baseball impression, looking at a mainstream sport through the nerdiest lens imaginable, cigarette baseball cards, Doug McWilliams photographed 8% of all major league baseball players, oh right photography is an art, and so is building relationships with players, cards began to stand on their own, Richard Garfield wanted baseball cards for nerds, Magic and Pokemon credit their artists - but YuGiOh does not, Yuka Morii’s sculpture cards, Adam Rex’s Terror, Richard Thomas’ Hyalopterous Lemure, Julie Baroh flipping off her classmates, companies screwing over artists, it’s still art in spite of being a piece of cardboard.

Sources: 2010 Paper: Explaining evolution of plant communication by airborne signals New York Times: The Social Life of Forests Book: The Secret Life Of Plants National Geographic: Plants can talk. Yes, really. Here’s how. 2025 Pape: Shrub anti-herbivore defenses exhibit non-linear and varied responses to increased herbivore density 1990 Paper: Acacia Tree Kills Antelope Book: Ethylene in Plant Biology BBC News: Plants send SOS signal to insects TED ED: Can Plants Talk to Each Other? 2015 Paper: Inter-plant communication through mycorrhizal networks mediates complex adaptive behaviour in plant communities 1997 Paper: Net transfer of carbon between ectomycorrhizal tree species in the field 2008 Paper: Hydraulic redistribution of water from Pinus ponderosa trees to seedlings: evidence for an ectomycorrhizal pathway Scientific America: Do Trees Really Support Each Other through a Network of Fungi? 2023 Paper: Positive citation bias and overinterpreted results lead to misinformation on common mycorrhizal networks in forests 2024 Paper: Mother trees, Altruistic Fungi, and the Perils of Plant Personification Facts or Fairy Tales? Peter Wohlleben and the Hidden Life of Trees Video: Project gives 200-year-old Dublin tree ‘a voice’ [Scientific America: The Idea That Trees Talk to Cooperate Is Misleading](The Idea That Trees Talk to Cooperate Is Misleading | Scientific American) Article: The World’s First Talking Tree Helps Young People Reconnect with Nature Smithsonian: Do Trees Talk to Each Other? --- Cornell University on History of Trade Cards History of Chromolithography American Antiquarian Society on Trade Cards PBS on Trade Cards Baseball Card Photography History Doug McWilliams via Baseball Hall of Fame Doug McWilliams Interview with SABR Doug McWilliams NYTimes Interview Richard Garfield on Magic's Creation Yuka Morii's Pokemon Card Art Magic Artist Julie Baroh's Interview Magic Artist Donato Giancola's Points Against Artist Policies Magic Artist Melissa Benson's Artist Advice