Gabby and I took a last-minute adventure to the Big Apple on Sunday. We visited Williamsburg for lunch, near the area of 7th and 8th and Bedford; and then on to Times Square for the Christmas Village in Bryant Park and a musical (Almost Famous) on Broadway at a theatre on 45th street. The city is an intimidating place. And while it wasn’t a terribly far drive, I felt a little out of place.

Of course, along our way I admired the trees in the city, which provided me with a familiar subject (in photographic order): 

1. Planetree leaning on copper pipe (Platanus occidentalis).

2. Japanese pagoda tree (Styphnolobium japonicum).

3. Fig in front stoop garden (Ficus).

4. Dawn redwood and scooter (Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

5. River Birch allee with lights (Betula nigra).

6. Planetree alle in Bryant Park.

7. Ginkgo leaf on wet sidewalk in Times Square (Ginkgo biloba).

I admired their sense of place; the trees belonged there. Not in a panic, but cool and collected, an integral part of that place, and sharing a common, challenging ground. Whether they grew out of a tree pit or a raised planting box, or a park lawn, the trees softened the hard edges. They grew amongst the garbage, they grew against the iron fences and onto copper racks. They spilled over it. They swallowed it up without complaint. They broke up the monotony of the strait edges, they stood in the way of the vanishing points; the architecture of nature illuding industrial design. It was the trees in all of their isolated microclimates that stitched the neighborhoods together, filled in the dead space with life.

I saw Norway Maples still in fall color in the fill banks along the highway. I saw Autumn olive and foxtail growing in a slender space between the concrete curb and retaining wall, mulched with litter, vigorously, courageously, adventurously growing. In Peter Del Tredici’s language, these were ‘spontaneous’ landscapes. Nature’s design seems to be just that, spontaneous. Especially when its projected against a large and looming industrial architecture.

Perhaps that is what this urban flora can teach us. That it is good and exciting to feel a little out of place, a little uncomfortable with where we land. There is courage in spontaneity. It’s the heart and soul of any good adventure.