These trees live in inaccessible places, steep cliffs or islands in lochs places where they can’t be eaten by the sheep that graze most of the Shetland Islands. Compared to the lush large trees found on the mainland, these relics are often disappointing to see, especially after long walks and hours of searching, small, wind cropped, salt lashed, struggling to find nutrients in the acidic soil, or lay down deep roots in the shallow soil with hard rock below. However tall and insignificant they might seem; they are powerful and important trees and in their own ways The Trees of Life.