Nick thinks that "He has landed in a druid tree cult… Oak veneration at the oracle at Dodona, the druids' groves in Britain and Gaul, Shinto sakaki worship, India's bejeweled wishing trees, Mayan kapoks, Egyptian sycamores, the Chinese sacred ginkgo – all the branches of the word's first religion." Did you know before reading the novel that so many early cultures valued trees? Why do you think that was? And why is it no longer true, for the most part?