Who Cares About Urban Trees?

“It seems like there’s nothing to look at,” the urban arborist Lisa Nett admits to a group of early risers who have trudged to a tree identification class in Brooklyn’s McCarren Park. “But you’ve all got more faith and gumption than that!”

A few times a year, Nett teaches tree ID courses through Brooklyn Brainery, a skill-sharing company that hosts crowdsourced classes. Interest peaks in spring and fall, when the buds are just peeking out of branches or the leaves have burst into ostentatious shades of orange and red. I tagged along on a tree ID walk one chilly February morning. Nett calls February and March “liminal months.” There are more leaves, crunchy and brown, on the ground than there are on the branches.