Although the annual cycle of early wood, late wood, and dormancy is generally similar in temperate trees, every species has its own fingerprint: a maple and a spruce growing a few feet apart may tell the same story in different colors and textures.

Have you ever seen a redwood tree? They're majestic and towering - scraping the sky while standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow redwoods in what feels like impossibly close quarters.

They can become so tall that their circulatory system can't pump water to the whole tree, so their upper needles have adapted to drink fog right out of the sky.

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Old trees should not be stereotyped: they are not all massively tall, thick, moss draped. They can be small, their age revealed in bent posture and scars, in roots that run close to the surface, like the veins that rise on the backs of our hands as our skin thins with time.