Why aren’t people growing weirwoods?

[Canon Claude]

We are told time and time again that the wood from a weirwood tree is considered very useful and valuable. They are also very expensive as a result due to their rarity.

But why are they so rare? Trees release seeds all the time. Why wouldn’t an enterprising person collect a few seeds, grow a couple of weirwoods on their property, and build a forest from there which they harvest over the years? It would be time consuming, sure, but long term it would be super profitable and keep your family in good finances for a long time.

[Daeron the Daring]

52 minutes ago, Canon Claude said:

We are told time and time again that the wood from a weirwood tree is considered very useful and valuable. They are also very expensive as a result due to their rarity.

But why are they so rare? Trees release seeds all the time. Why wouldn’t an enterprising person collect a few seeds, grow a couple of weirwoods on their property, and build a forest from there which they harvest over the years? It would be time consuming, sure, but long term it would be super profitable and keep your family in good finances for a long time.

Well, as Bloodraven would say:

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... a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood

It is possible they don't grow up in a single generation, nor in couple ones.

[Mourning Star]

1 hour ago, Canon Claude said:

We are told time and time again that the wood from a weirwood tree is considered very useful and valuable. They are also very expensive as a result due to their rarity.

But why are they so rare? Trees release seeds all the time. Why wouldn’t an enterprising person collect a few seeds, grow a couple of weirwoods on their property, and build a forest from there which they harvest over the years? It would be time consuming, sure, but long term it would be super profitable and keep your family in good finances for a long time.

Not a terrible question.

First, we see no Weirwood flowers, no pods, no mention of nuts or berries or anything of the sort.

So I think one would have to discover how they reproduce, and if it is even like a mundane flora.

The one mention of “Weirwood seeds” comes from the explanation of what the paste fed to Bran to “wed him to the tree” by the singers.

Can we trust the Singers here?

Are these literal seeds? Is there some truth to Jojenpaste? Is human sacrifice (like the oldest vision Bran sees of the Winterfell Weirwood) required for their growth?

In fact when Bloodraven describes the Weirwoods to Bran, I find it extremely odd that he suddenly talks about oaks/acorns in the middle, and not about whatever Weirwoods come from.

"A man must know how to look before he can hope to see," said Lord Brynden. "Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past."

[Aebram]

A good question, and some good answers!

It occurs to me that weirwoods have had a troubled history since humans came to Westeros.  During the Dawn Age, when the First Men were warring with the children of the forest, weirwoods were hated and feared; the First Men cut them down.  That ended after The Pact, when men began to keep the old gods.  But then the Andals arrived, with their new religion; and once again, weirwoods were a sign of the enemy, at least for most of the populace.

So in much of Westeros, during much of its history, a weirwood plantation would have been a likely target for damage or destruction.  -- And probably its owner, too.

[Evolett]

7 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

First, we see no Weirwood flowers, no pods, no mention of nuts or berries or anything of the sort.

So I think one would have to discover how they reproduce, and if it is even like a mundane flora.

The one mention of “Weirwood seeds” comes from the explanation of what the paste fed to Bran to “wed him to the tree” by the singers.

Can we trust the Singers here?

We do see a couple of young weirwood trees though, so there appears to be some mode of reproduction.  Some tree species like the ash tree have separate male and female trees with male flowers producing pollen while the females flower to bear seeds or fruit. Weirwoods having separate genders would explain a lack of seeds for male trees but also for female trees. Since a godswood usually only has one heart tree and weirwoods grow quite far apart from one another, pollination would be a rare event. But we see no flowers either. 

An educated guess would be that the lack regular flower and seed production is related to the great longevity, the practically undying status of a weirwood.  As Leaf tells Bran:

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The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. 

I think this goes for weirwoods too. There are some real life trees that only bear seeds every five to seven years for instance. A tree that never dies is under no evolutionary pressure to flower and produce seeds on a yearly basis. Perhaps seed production is a very rare occurence, taking place only once in a very blue moon.

8 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood ....

Weirwoods have been "safe" in the North for thousands of years, yet they do not grow all over the place and the trees we see beyond the Wall all appear to be very ancient. Weirwoods having a very low reproductive rate would be another reason why the CotF were so upset over the destruction of their trees. It also means that a bowl of weirwood paste is something rare and precious - and coming to think of it, it should be rare if the seeds are so hard to come by and contribute to activating a greenseer's powers. It also wouldn't do to have all sorts of people consuming it - contrast Shade of the Evening which is drunk in such large quantities by Euron and the warlocks that their lips turn blue. 

To spin this thought further, I wonder if it's a combination of weirwoods being separate male and female plants as well as their longevity and what this could mean in respect of the "Three Singers" growing at Highgarden. Three weirwoods growing in such close proximity that they are intertwined. Hmm. 

So, to answer the OP's very good question, I think would be quite impossible to raise a weirwood farm for profit. It would definitely devalue their reputation as "gods" at well. 

[Bowen 747]

The weirwoods require human sacrifice.  The dominant Andal culture and its Seven faith do not approve of human sacrifice. 

[Mourning Star]

2 hours ago, Evolett said:

Weirwoods have been "safe" in the North for thousands of years, yet they do not grow all over the place and the trees we see beyond the Wall all appear to be very ancient. Weirwoods having a very low reproductive rate would be another reason why the CotF were so upset over the destruction of their trees. It also means that a bowl of weirwood paste is something rare and precious - and coming to think of it, it should be rare if the seeds are so hard to come by and contribute to activating a greenseer's powers. It also wouldn't do to have all sorts of people consuming it - contrast Shade of the Evening which is drunk in such large quantities by Euron and the warlocks that their lips turn blue. 

The fact that we do not see them growing all over the place, rather I would suggest they only grow where blood is spilled, probably with other conditions, leads me to a different conclusion.

I like the comparison to the trees of the Undying, although I believe that those are also Weirwoods and the shade of the evening and the paste given to Bran are very similar substances.

[Springwatch]

Weirwoods might have been seen as a problem in the south, because they don't rot. There might have been an excess of huge dead hulks like the Blackwood tree.  Too big to hide, and too stone-like to carve up.

[Canon Claude]

10 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

The fact that we do not see them growing all over the place, rather I would suggest they only grow where blood is spilled, probably with other conditions, leads me to a different conclusion.

I like the comparison to the trees of the Undying, although I believe that those are also Weirwoods and the shade of the evening and the paste given to Bran are very similar substances.

So, does that mean the COTF were sacrificing each other to grow the first weirwoods?

[Mourning Star]

5 minutes ago, Canon Claude said:

So, does that mean the COTF were sacrificing each other to grow the first weirwoods?

Is it such a stretch to think the "Children of the Forest" are part of the seed process for the Weirwoods?

And so they did, gathering in their hundreds (some say on the Isle of Faces), and calling on their old gods with song and prayer and grisly sacrifice (a thousand captive men were fed to the weirwood, one version of the tale goes, whilst another claims the children used the blood of their own young).

It may even be that men intermarried with the children and it is this "blood" that is needed, rather than just any human sacrifice? I would even suggest that this interbreeding is the origins of people having magic, and perhaps even that we better know this blood as "king's blood". But, obviously I'm speculating wildly.

[Moiraine Sedai]

I don’t remember if it was ever explained how the tree species propagate. No fruits, no seeds.  The trees almost seem like tombstones to me. Beneath every tree is a dreaming Greenseer.  The Stark tree has one of Bran’s ancestors beneath its roots.  The thing must be petrified by now.  

[LynnS]

On 6/30/2022 at 12:32 PM, Mourning Star said:

First, we see no Weirwood flowers, no pods, no mention of nuts or berries or anything of the sort.

So I think one would have to discover how they reproduce, and if it is even like a mundane flora.

The one mention of “Weirwood seeds” comes from the explanation of what the paste fed to Bran to “wed him to the tree” by the singers.

Can we trust the Singers here?

I wonder about weirwood nuts also.  Not sure I do trust the COTF on that score.  

I think it's possible that the wierwood net is one organism that propagates through its root system without the need for flowers, fruit, nuts or seeds.  Someone advanced the theory that the weirnet is a pando organism.  

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Pando (Latin for "I spread"), also known as the trembling giant,^[1] is a clonal colony of an individual male quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) determined to be a single living organism by identical genetic markers^[2] and assumed to have one massive underground root system. The plant is located in the Fremont River Ranger District of the Fishlake National Forest at the western edge of the Colorado Plateau in south-central Utah, United States, around 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of Fish Lake.^[3] Pando occupies 108 acres (43.6 ha) and is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000 tonnes (6,000,000 kg),^[4] making it the heaviest known organism.^[5][6] The root system of Pando is estimated to be up to several thousand years old,^[7] placing Pando among the oldest known living organisms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

[Evolett]

15 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

The fact that we do not see them growing all over the place, rather I would suggest they only grow where blood is spilled, probably with other conditions, leads me to a different conclusion.

Since weirwoods appear to require blood sacrifice, I can certainly envision seeds needing to be watered with blood in order for germination to occur and a seedling to sprout. 

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

I think it's possible that the wierwood net is one organism that propagates through its root system without the need for flowers, fruit, nuts or seeds.  Someone advanced the theory that the weirnet is a pando organism.  

And this is also possible, once a tree is established. The Casterly Rock weirwood is a close example. From the wiki:

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The Stone Garden is a godswood in a cave within the Rock. It contains a twisted weirwood, a tenth the size of Raventree Hall's, whose tangled roots have almost filled the cave, choking out all other growth.

This one grows in a cave, underground, presumably in semi-darkness, which is interesting in itself and the roots almost fill the entire cave. That it grows within a cave, a in a castle that is basically a rocky mine, reinforced by the name of the godswood, Stone Garden, contradicts the claim in the Eyrie that a weirwood will not take root in stoney soil. It's obviously twisted and stunted as well, suggesting it struggles to obtain nutrients.  I don't see the Lannisters making blood offerings to this tree and being underground, it is probably isolated from any other animal life that might provide the occasional blood meal. I would say all this points to blood being a definite requirement for growth with light and other nutrients perhaps secondary sources.

[Mourning Star]

51 minutes ago, Evolett said:

This one grows in a cave, underground, presumably in semi-darkness, which is interesting in itself and the roots almost fill the entire cave. That it grows within a cave, a in a castle that is basically a rocky mine, reinforced by the name of the godswood, Stone Garden, contradicts the claim in the Eyrie that a weirwood will not take root in stoney soil. It's obviously twisted and stunted as well, suggesting it struggles to obtain nutrients.  I don't see the Lannisters making blood offerings to this tree and being underground, it is probably isolated from any other animal life that might provide the occasional blood meal. I would say all this points to blood being a definite requirement for growth with light and other nutrients perhaps secondary sources.

Side note on Casterly Rock, it may have to do with the Lannisters, namely the eponymous Lann the Clever, taking the castle, and presumably the Weirwood (that may have predated the castle?) from the Casterlys.

The Arryns of the Vale are an Andal House. 

I would suggest this might fit the pattern of who's blood is being "sacrificed" mattering in the planting/growth of Weirwoods.

[Evolett]

25 minutes ago, Mourning Star said:

I would suggest this might fit the pattern of who's blood is being "sacrificed" mattering in the planting/growth of Weirwoods.

Not sure. For planting/germination maybe but in respect of growth we do see random people such as the slavers who were sacrificed to the weirwood at the Wolf's Den or Maester Luwin dragging himself to the Winterfell weirwood where he bleeds out under the tree and is subsequently mercy-killed by Osha. Gared's blood from Ned's sword? 

And I recall an excerpt from the World Book mentioning an Arryn marrying a child of the forest who died in childbirth. So both the tree and the CotF "die in childbirth" or "don't take root." Might she not have known how to promote the growth of a weirwood? If we are to connect the woman of the CotF that dies with the weirwood that does not grow at the Eyrie, perhaps there is something about the Eyrie or the Vale that is anathema to both weirwoods and CotF? I'm no expert on the locations of weirwoods in Westeros but do we see weirwoods in the Vale? Do the Redforts or Royces have a godswood? Most may follow the Seven but we do see followers  of the Faith with godswoods in other regions. 

[Mourning Star]

1 hour ago, Evolett said:

Not sure. For planting/germination maybe but in respect of growth we do see random people such as the slavers who were sacrificed to the weirwood at the Wolf's Den or Maester Luwin dragging himself to the Winterfell weirwood where he bleeds out under the tree and is subsequently mercy-killed by Osha. Gared's blood from Ned's sword? 

And I recall an excerpt from the World Book mentioning an Arryn marrying a child of the forest who died in childbirth. So both the tree and the CotF "die in childbirth" or "don't take root." Might she not have known how to promote the growth of a weirwood? If we are to connect the woman of the CotF that dies with the weirwood that does not grow at the Eyrie, perhaps there is something about the Eyrie or the Vale that is anathema to both weirwoods and CotF? I'm no expert on the locations of weirwoods in Westeros but do we see weirwoods in the Vale? Do the Redforts or Royces have a godswood? Most may follow the Seven but we do see followers  of the Faith with godswoods in other regions. 

Fair enough.

I would point out that if it's true Weirwoods are particular about the blood sacrificed, that might not stop people from sacrificing "non-special" blood, especially after many generations separated from the lore of the Singers. Plenty of people got sacrificed in real life without there being any magical trees.

As for the Arryn's and the Child... I would point to this, and suggest that the House Arryn (Andal) that rules the Vale up to our stories events, and built the Weirless Eyrie, isn't the same bloodline as the one who married a Singer:

There is abundant historical evidence for the existence of Ser Artys Arryn, the Falcon Knight, the first Arryn king to rule over Mountain and Vale. His victory over King Robar II at the Battle of the Seven Stars is well attested to, even though the details of that victory might have been somewhat embroidered in the centuries that followed. King Artys was undoubtedly a real man, albeit an extraordinary one.
In the Vale, however, the deeds of this real historical personage have become utterly confused with those of his legendary namesake, another Artys Arryn, who lived many thousands of years earlier during the Age of Heroes, and is remembered in song and story as the Winged Knight.
The first Ser Artys Arryn supposedly rode upon a huge falcon (possibly a distorted memory of dragonriders seen from afar, Archmaester Perestan suggests). Armies of eagles fought at his command. To win the Vale, he flew to the top of the Giant's Lance and slew the Griffin King. He counted giants and merlings amongst his friends, and wed a woman of the children of the forest, though she died giving birth to his son.

And this:

The singers say that the Andal hero Ser Artys Arryn rode upon a falcon to slay the Griffon King upon the Giant's Lance, thereby founding the kingly line of House Arryn. This is foolishness, however, a corruption of the true history of the Arryns with legends out of the Age of Heroes. Instead, the Arryn kings supplanted the High Kings of House Royce.

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, Evolett said:

And this is also possible, once a tree is established.

If GRRM is using the Quaking Aspen organism as a model;  the trees are male and clones of each other.  I'm reminded of 'the brothers":

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. They fixed on the longsword trembling on high, watched the moonlight running cold along the metal. For a heartbeat he dared to hope.

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.

 

It seems likely that blood and decaying matter act as a nutrient.  I'm not sure what the magical role of blood sacrifice plays in the growth of the tree, unless it powers the magic of greenseers.   There is the strange weirwood growing out of the stone floor at the Night Fort.  The sun and the moon seem important.

[Mourning Star]

44 minutes ago, LynnS said:

The sun and the moon seem important.

Just because it is an excuse to use one of my favorite quotes from the series...

You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me.

[Evolett]

21 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm not sure what the magical role of blood sacrifice plays in the growth of the tree, unless it powers the magic of greenseers.

But then why sacrifice  to weirwoods that are not wedded to greenseers? Coldhands leads us to believe that Bloodraven is the last greenseer (before Bran at least):

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Meera’s gloved hand tightened around the shaft of her frog spear. “Who sent you? Who is this three-eyed crow?” “A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer.”

Bloodraven himself is an ongoing sacrifice to the tree. He's almost used up now, gaunt and dry but he was "full of blood" once. The tree feeds on him:

Quote

“Most of him has gone into the tree,” explained the singer Meera called Leaf. “He has lived beyond his mortal span, and yet he lingers. For us, for you, for the realms of men. Only a little strength remains in his flesh. 

It's an exchange - the tree feeds on blood (possibly for growth) and the greenseer gets to access the consiousness of the tree in return. There are bones and skulls of all sorts of animals, also humans in the cave and the CotF seem to live quite comfortably with them. My guess is most of these were sacrificed to the tree to feed it. Or perhaps the dead (both animals and men) were simply dragged underground as nourishment for the trees. So the weirwoods could be saprophytic pando organisms. Saprophytes, usually fungi, obtain nutrients directly from dead and decaying matter and they operate by means of a mycelium that extends way beyond the point of origin. 

Considering this, wights are probably not suitable as nourishment for weirwoods. Their blood stops flowing, becoming hard and dry and they do not rot. This leads me to a new thought. I wonder if the Others raising the dead was originally a tactic meant to prevent weirwoods from obtaining nourishment? 

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 6/30/2022 at 10:47 AM, Canon Claude said:

We are told time and time again that the wood from a weirwood tree is considered very useful and valuable. They are also very expensive as a result due to their rarity.

But why are they so rare? Trees release seeds all the time. Why wouldn’t an enterprising person collect a few seeds, grow a couple of weirwoods on their property, and build a forest from there which they harvest over the years? It would be time consuming, sure, but long term it would be super profitable and keep your family in good finances for a long time.

The tree grows slowly.  Plant today and your great-grandchildren may benefit from the lumber.  Might as well ask why people don't invest today for the welfare of their great-grandchildren.  People simply do not plan that long.  The tree is also very costly to fertilize because it is nurtured by human blood.  The average person will consider it folly to kill people for fertilizer.  Only the very serious (or the very evil) Old God supporters would commit to the murder of hundreds to nourish a single tree.