"The tree was evidently aged, from the size of its stem. It was about six feet high, the branches came out from the stem in a regular and symmetrical manner, and it had all the appearance of a tree in miniature"
About this Quote
Then comes the aesthetic verdict: “regular and symmetrical.” In botanical terms, that’s descriptive; culturally, it’s an endorsement. Symmetry reads as health, order, even virtue. The tree isn’t merely observed but subtly domesticated through language, made legible to a Victorian worldview that prized classification and improvement. Calling it “a tree in miniature” completes the move. Miniature implies charm and manageability: nature rendered portable, displayable, ownable.
That matters in context. Fortune was a 19th-century plant hunter moving through East Asia during an era when British science, commerce, and empire often traveled together. His prose carries that fusion: an ostensibly neutral field note that also flatters the imperial gaze. The tree is reduced from ecosystem to specimen, from place-bound organism to a form that could be imagined in a greenhouse, a drawing, a shipment. Even at six feet tall, it becomes “miniature” because the observer’s frame of reference is the grand tree - and, implicitly, the grand project of collecting the world and arranging it into categories that feel “regular” and “symmetrical” enough to possess.
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| Topic | Nature |
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| Source | Help us find the source |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Fortune, Robert. (2026, January 17). The tree was evidently aged, from the size of its stem. It was about six feet high, the branches came out from the stem in a regular and symmetrical manner, and it had all the appearance of a tree in miniature. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-tree-was-evidently-aged-from-the-size-of-its-80879/
Chicago Style
Fortune, Robert. "The tree was evidently aged, from the size of its stem. It was about six feet high, the branches came out from the stem in a regular and symmetrical manner, and it had all the appearance of a tree in miniature." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-tree-was-evidently-aged-from-the-size-of-its-80879/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The tree was evidently aged, from the size of its stem. It was about six feet high, the branches came out from the stem in a regular and symmetrical manner, and it had all the appearance of a tree in miniature." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-tree-was-evidently-aged-from-the-size-of-its-80879/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
