This is a very special tree called a Wandering Cherry Tree. It likes to roam all over Ancient Worlds, bringing a little cheer and helping neighbors meet one another.

If you'd like to help the tree travel, just copy the image (image number 84037) and this text, then attach your name and a brief tidbit of trivia about a favorite ancient history subject. Then drop the tree off at the hood residence of a fellow citizen, with a personal message, if you'd like. To keep it fun, copy all of the tidbits from previous citizens whom the tree has visited!

The tree is not like a chain letter, so if you choose not to pass it on, then nothing terrible will happen to you. You'll just end up with a pretty tree! But, don't you agree that it's more interesting to let the tree wander around? Who knows where it will end up!

Tidbit #1 from Shibori Murasaka: Shibori is the Japanese word for a variety of ways of embellishing textiles by shaping cloth and securing it before dyeing. The word comes from the verb root shiboru, meaning "to wring, squeeze, press." Small bits of fabric are secured in a number of ways, such as binding and knotting, and then the garment is dipped in dye, producing beautiful and intricate patterns. In the West, it's better known as "tie-dye". :)

Tidbit #2 from Fei Xue Qin: Silk was being woven into fabric possibly as early as 6000 BC in China, but its production was kept secret from other nations and sericulture only reached Europe around AD 550. According to legend, monks working for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian were the first to bring silkworm eggs to Constantinople hidden inside their hollowed-out walking sticks.

Tidbit #3 from Feiyan Zhou: In medieval India, the walled towns were often planned around two wide streets set at right angles to each other in order to allow fresh breezes to blow through the town.

Tidbit #4 from Flower Song: Nosegay is a little bouquet of flowers held in hand and sniffed for its fragrance. This brought to mind that the flowers celebrated in Japan are not generally fragrant: camelia, cherry, azalea, peony, chrysanthemum, among others. In the West abundance and variety were elebrated as we see in flower paintings in Holland and France in the 17th century. In fact, flowers that bloom in different seasons were artificially brought together in a single vase for the effect; the more the merrier was the idea. Flowers brought in the house were in Japan markers of the season; so, the painters also painted only one variety on one panel. The teamaster Rikyu, in receiving a dignitary who visited him specifically to see the morning glory for which he was famous, found not single blossom on the vines along the approach to the tea house. Whe he entered the room, however, there was one large morning glory blossom in a vase. Rikyu had plucked all the other blossoms to focus on this one glorious blossom. Smelling flowers is a bit indiscreet. Nosegay is an expression of love. In the West flowers allude to Spring, embodied in Flora, who is also Love; they are all aspects of Venus.

Tidbit #5 from Shanti Ashoka: The indian curry exists for more than 3 ooo years and the word "curry", "kari" in tamil, means sauce.