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"Flowers and Trees" is a [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1932]] WesternAnimation/SillySymphonies short subject, directed by [[UsefulNotes/NoteworthyDisneyStaff Burt Gillett]]. It covers the ''very'' basic story of two trees falling in love, only for an ugly, rotten tree to try and wreak havoc with a fire.

"Flowers and Trees" was already in production [[WhatCouldHaveBeen as a black and white cartoon]] before Creator/WaltDisney saw Herbert Kalmus's three-strip Technicolor tests. Deciding that ''Flowers and Trees'' would make a perfect test for the process, he completely scrapped the black and white footage and had the short redone in color. As a result, ''Flowers and Trees'' was a commercial and critical success and thus won the first UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Animated Short Subjects--another step forward to animation becoming a respected medium.

As a result of the success of ''Flowers and Trees'', all future WesternAnimation/SillySymphonies cartoons were produced in three-strip Technicolor, and the added novelty of color helped to boost the series' previously disappointing returns. Disney's other cartoon series, the WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse shorts, were deemed successful enough not to need the extra boost of color, and therefore remained in black-and-white until 1935's "WesternAnimation/TheBandConcert".

Disney's exclusive contract with Technicolor, in effect until the end of 1935, forced other studio imitations of the series such as Creator/UbIwerks's ''WesternAnimation/ComicolorCartoons'', Creator/WarnerBros's ''[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Merrie Melodies]]'', and Max Fleischer's ''WesternAnimation/ColorClassics'' to use Technicolor's inferior two-color process or a competing two-color system such as Cinecolor.

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!!"Flowers and Trees" provides examples of:

* AnimationBump: Besides the added benefit of lush color, the animation is much more polished than the typical Silly Symphony of the time.
* BigBad: The evil tree, who wants to get rid of the hero tree to gain the girl tree's affection.
* CirclingVultures: After the fire is out, the two vultures that were originally perched on it circle over the body of the evil tree.
* DesertSkull: A rare non-desert example. The evil tree lives in a dead patch of the forest which has the skull of a cow (or some similar animal) on the ground.
* EvilLivingFlames: When the evil tree tries to burn down the forest out of [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]] over the protagonist tree getting the girl, the fire is represented as little impish flames chasing the forest's denizens around and setting things alight. They're put out when a flock of birds starts up a rainstorm but not before [[KarmicDeath the flames tackle the evil tree, killing him]].
* ExposedAnimalBellybutton: During his duel with the protagonist tree, the evil tree [[SuddenAnatomy suddenly]] gains a hole in his trunk that resembles a belly button, which the protagonist tickles with his improvised sword.
* {{Flynning}}: The protagonist and the evil stump engage in this with two sticks.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** The evil tree fittingly meets his end when he gets burned alive by the very flames he made.
** One of the animated flames manages to escape the rainstorm by hiding under a leaf... until its top burns a hole in it, allowing the water collected in the leaf to pour down and douse the flame.
* KillItWithFire: The evil tree is burned to the ground by the fire he started.
* TheKilljoy: The evil tree is a jaded old stump who tries to destroy the bright and colorful world he lives in, only to end up being destroyed himself.
* LohengrinAndMendelssohn: The wedding march from ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' plays at the end when the boy tree and the girl tree get married.
* NamelessNarrative: None of the characters are named.
* ObviouslyEvil: While the other characters are beautiful, colorful flora and fauna, the evil tree is rotten and gray, has a lizard in his mouth that acts like his tongue, lives in an area with dead trees and a skull, and is introduced with vultures perched on him and bats flying out of his mouth. You'd better be-leaf he's evil.
* {{Planimal}}: A pine tree acts like a chicken, leading its chicks/seedlings to safety during the fire.
* PlantPerson: All the characters in the cartoon, except for some birds and insects, are animated trees and flowers.
* SceneryPorn: For the first three-strip color cartoon, they got it started with a bang!
* SilenceIsGolden: There is no dialogue.
* StandardSnippet:
** The "Dawn" part of "The William Tell Overture" is heard when the male tree courts the female tree with the worm ring.
** Chopin's Funeral March plays when it appears that the evil tree died after his duel with the hero tree.
** Schubert's "Erlkönig" and the "Storm" part of "The William Tell Overture" play during the forest fire.
* TooDumbToLive:
** The main characters since at one point there's a clear path for the trees to run away from the flames -- but, instead, the male tree tries to put out the flames with his foot.
** The evil tree, whose plan to set a fire to threaten the other trees evidently never factored in that he is also made of flammable wood, directly leading to his own demise.
* {{Treants}}: The short focuses on three such beings, two lover trees and one evil tree who pines for the female tree, out of a larger population inhabiting a forest also home to animated flowers and woodland critters. [[IfICantHaveYou Out of rage]] after his attempts to woo the female tree fail, the evil tree tries to burn the forest down [[HoistByHisOwnPetard but is killed in the ensuing fire]].
* VillainousBadlandHeroicArcadia: The protagonists live in an idyllic open woodland full of living trees and flowers and friendly woodland critters. The evil tree, by contrast, lives alongside a pair of vultures in a barren patch of the forest full of broken stumps and sickly gray soil.
* WeaksauceWeakness: The evil tree loses his fight with the protagonist tree by having his bellybutton tickled.
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