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“Right you are, Charlie! But what kind of a tree? Not the Douglas fir. Not the oak. Not the cedar. No, no, my boy. It is a tree called the Bristlecone pine that grows upon the slopes of Wheeler Peak in Nevada, U.S.A. You can find Bristlecone Pines on Wheeler Peak today that are over 4000 years old! This is fact, Charlie. Ask any dendrochronologist you like (and look that word up in the dictionary when you get home, will you please?). So that started me off. I jumped into the Great Glass Elevator and rushed all over the world collecting special items from the oldest living things...
Explanation:
Willy Wonka gets an idea to prepare the antidote. He asks Charlie what the oldest living thing in the world was. Charlies gives him the reply as trees. Wonka appreciates the boy's knowledge on such things. But he looks for even more specific details. He asks him as to what kind of trees have the longest life on earth. This is because one cannot go by random and general information when it comes to making the potion. He is already facing an issue owing to one of his medicines having gone wrong. So he ensures that everything is specific this time.
Age reversal
Willy Wonka very carefully explains to Charlie why it is important to know what kind of tree has to be used in making the potion. He lists out the names of trees that are considered to be big and old. The Douglas Fir is a tree in pine family, which is found around the Western part of North America. The oak tree is considered one of the biggest trees, next to Cedar which is also the strongest tree. But Wonka says that in spite of being the biggest and longest living trees in the world, they are not the ones needed for making the antidote. He says that the Bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the whole world. By adding parts of the oldest trees, he feels he might be able to make the grandparents old again. The Bristlecone pine is forty eight centuries old, which is \(4000\) years and is found on the White Mountains in California and grows upon the slopes of Wheeler Peak in Nevada, U.S.A.
Bristlecone pine
He also says that if Charlie has any doubts, he may consult a dendrochronologist to check the facts. A dendrochronologist is a person who dates the tree rings to the exact date they were formed. He also studies about various climatic conditions during different periods in history with the help of wood. He is also pretty sure that Charlie would not know the meaning of the word and asks him to look up the word in the dictionary when he reaches his home. This also shows that he is pretty confident that they would escape and go home. It is also a way to make Charlie trust in the process and has something to look forward to. Saying that, Willy Wonka positively jumps into the elevator to collect the materials needed to make the potion. He went in search of the longest living things in the world.
Wood rings
Meaning of difficult words:
| S.No | Words | Meaning |
1 | Slope | A surface where one side is higher than the other |
2 | Peak | The pointed top of a mountain |
3 | Dendrochronologist | A person who can date back the time of trees forming |
4 | Century | A period of one hundred years |
Reference:
National Council of Educational Research and Training (2007). Honeycomb. The Invention of Vita-Wonk- Roald Dahl (pp. 99-106). Published at the Publication Division by the Secretary, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi.
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