The Trees of GDUFS

My first impression of GDUFS is its greenness. Trees of different kinds are everywhere in sight. Tough I see them everyday, they still amaze me every now and then.

The one group of the trees I like most is on the way from Teaching Building No.2 to the library. The strong trunks of White tea trees (also known as Cajeput or Cajuput) are twined round by ivy of the Scindapsus Aureus variety which form a miniature of a tropical rain forest and bring about a sense of beauty combining hardness with softness.

Trees twined with Ivy

While we walk backward along the road, we will see a neat row of white tea trees with chapped barks. They are just like the strong arms of giant zombies, breaking through the ground up into the air, using so much strength that their dry skins burst and their powerful muscles and bones are revealed.

A row of White Tea trees

Then, we turn right at the corner and a very large tree comes in sight, an Albizia Chinensis Merr that originates in the Maluku Islands of Northeast Indonesia. It slightly spirals up and doesn't open up its tree crown until about 10 meters high. Probably with the gardeners cutting every low branch as it grows up, it becomes the tree with the best and funniest figure in the campus.

Albizia Chinensis Merr

As I head towards the dormitory, trees are always by my side. Some of them are planted in rows with their own kind, some are alone and some form a combination with other kinds of trees like this.

Combinations of trees

Some have an orange tag on them suggesting their name, origin and growth habits waiting for us to read and learn about the friends which keep us accompanied and that provide us with shade.

And, every time I go to the balcony to stretch myself after some hard work, a big tree can hardly be ignored as I look outward. It grows tall and large on the edge between our campus and Baiyun Mountain and looks like an umbrella. It's also like a very mysterious outsider looking down on what happens around it without anybody knowing exactly where it roots or what kind of tree it is.

The mystery tree

All-in-all, it is thanks to the gardeners and nature that we can enjoy such greenness, variety and vitality on campus.