Sometimes I really do miss the more green spaces of the City, even if their leaves feel odd to the touch, and their trunks have this weird breathing to them. -Mostly the fault of them trying to make trees better, which they failed at — because they're living and worked with how it probably was in the past! These new things are the norm now, have been for centuries, their genetic code is not really comparable. It would be like attaching a human brain to a full robotic body, still a human, but is it?? Still looks like a normal tree.
...Not to try and put shade on those who actually do that, but it's more philosophical. I've had my fair share of people who replaced their whole body with other things, they were still people after.
Animals are actually closer to their originals than trees are, because we could only /slightly/ make the cows better. We just farm them in factories, so.
It makes me wonder if the trees in the outskirts are any different, actually! Maybe there's a sanctuary where old nature is still going about its life. Probably wishful thinking, and I hope we don't have to reroute course to go there at some point.