Have you ever thought of a tree as a chemical factory? That's how Diana Beresford-Kroeger describes a tree. Today's New York Times has an article about this unusual scientist: Advocating an Unusual Role for Trees.She has a bioplan for reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal, and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions. Black walnut and honey locusts could be planted along roads to absorb pollutants. A recent study by researchers at Columbia found that children in neighborhoods that are tree-lined have asthma rates a quarter less than in neighborhoods without trees. Through something called phytoremediation, trees remove mercury and other pollutants from the ground. And most of us know trees pull carbon dioxide out of the air and provide us with oxygen to breathe, making trees important in our attempt to stem global warming.
Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a botanist, medical and agricultural researcher, lecturer, and self-defined "renegade scientist" in the fields of classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic chemistry, and nuclear chemistry. One of her books is Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest.
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NOTE: June mentioned in a comment on this post that she had also posted something about this subject. You really should go read it: Friday Fact - Forest Air Bathing.
