Background: It is natural for a human to construct his/her identity from the observation and influences of other non-human living things. Hope Jahren in the second chapter of her book Lab Girl likens the lives of humans to that of trees. Moreover, she specifically analogizes her point by telling a very short story about a blue-tinged spruce(Picea pungens). Jahren honors that perspective by noting, “I remember its ‘needles as sharp and angry against the white snow and gray sky; it seemed a perfect role model for the stoicism being cultivated in me”(27)