#3 Woodland Riddle-April 2022

Riddle #3: This word is defined as “resembling a tree in growth or appearance”. It takes on elevated meaning in a recently published book of poems by the first National Youth Poet Laureate. A derivation of this adjective names the state botanical garden of Kentucky.
Answer: ABORESCENT – resembling a tree in growth or appearance;
arbor – “tree” + escent – “growing into” Latin.

References: See the poem Arborescent I in Call Us What We Carry, a poetry collection by Amanda Gorman, published December 7, 2021 by Viking Press.

Derivation:  The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of KY at UK. Robin Wall Kimmerer uses the term interarboration in discussion of the new Orion book Old Growth (Yale Forest Forum, 9/18/21 at https://yff.yale.edu/). She states that “Trees and forests grow us and grow through us. Old Growth is not about ‘trees,’ but about this tree and that tree as individuals.”