I’ve chosen to draw a pine tree that has grown on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Its warped trunk and windswept branches are proof of the struggles it has encountered as it grew.

Mondrian’s tree paintings and scientific theory highlight the importance of the thickness of tree branches. Consilience is when different lines of evidence and reasoning reach the same conclusions.

Few tree fossils that date back to Earth’s earliest forests have ever been found, according to Gastaldo. Their discovery helps fill in some missing pieces of an incomplete fossil record.