It's the Brian Laird show on WNYc,

welcome.

It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC.

Welcome back everybody. I'm Matt Katz, reporter in the

WNYc Gothamist Newsroom, and I'm sitting in for Brian today.

We're going to move on to the impacts of this week's storm and how one fallen tree can affect an entire ecosystem.

The New York Botanical Garden lost one of its oldest trees, a giant oak that had been part of the garden since it was established in

1895.

Here to join us to talk more about the impact of the loss of one ancient tree is Eric

Sanderson. He's the vice president of urban

conservation at the New York Botanical Garden. He's also working on a book

about New York City's indigenous landscape. Hi Eric, thanks for being here and I'm so sorry about this old oak. Tell me what happened.

Yeah, hey Matt, yeah, we're all really broken up about it. You know, it's been raining a lot.

I think everybody noticed and this tree is is very old they're actually

outside counting the rings now between 175 and 200 years old so that's's old in the botanical garden. The garden was established in

1891. So this tree was, you know, just just brought you have an acorn maybe when the Erie

Canal was being dug in the 19th century and it's been

standing there for a long time.

You know the old trees of this site in Bronx Park are the reason why the botanical

garden was established here in the first place.

And you can still come and see a lot of the forest.

We have the only unput forest in New York City, 50 acres,

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