Since college, I have loved learning about trees. I also studied Chinese, so Taiwan's unique natural history and language always kept me dreaming of living here. One documentary I used to watch followed researchers measuring some of the biggest and oldest trees deep in Taiwan's mountains. I loved hearing Mandarin and Taiwanese used to describe these special trees, as well as seeing how the researchers respected the giant trees and treated them as if they were gods. I used my first long weekend to travel into the mountains, where I could learn about the history of these trees and their relationship with humans. The Taiwan beech was not on the top of my list because of its size. Rather, I looked for it because it has a unique natural history and is closely related to the American beech, which I studied in the United States.
The Taiwan beech has smooth bark like the American beech, but many trees on Taiping Mountain had abundant lichens and moss growing on them. Lichens may look similar to moss, but they belong to a different category of organisms. The lichens I saw were light blue -- you can see them in my photo! Taiwan beech leaves are smaller overall and are more slender than American beech leaves. The buds look very similar.
