TREES are a form of nature that represent life and the sacred continuity of the spiritual, cosmic, and physical worlds. A tree is often used to symbolize a deity or other sacred being, or it may stand for what is sacred in general. The religious beliefs that surround a tree may include as sacred any one or all of the physical parts of the tree: its trunk, branches, leaves, blossoms, sap, or roots. Sacred objects constructed from the wood of special trees are also used for religious purposes.

The physical properties of trees are combined with supernatural or sacred ideas, the beliefs that surround a tree's connection with what constitutes religion in different cultures. Trees are not only sacred in the major religions of the East and West, but also in other traditions where belief in the sacred is combined with beliefs in the power of ancestors, in...