Celebrate Arbor Day on Friday, April 27, from 6 to 8 p.m., with a reception at Campbell House Galleries for the traveling photo exhibit "Every Tree Tells A Story."

Sponsored by the Arts Council of Moore County and the Walthour-Moss Foundation, the exhibit, created by the Cultural Landscape Foundation, features some of the nation's most significant trees, including the Bleeding Pines of Weymouth.

Over the past year the show has been featured in several national publications, including American Photo, Garden Design, American Forests and USA Today, and in galleries across the country.

The event will be hosted by Longleaf Ensemble, with remarks and entertainment by choirmaster Rod Brower and Together-N-Unity Choir offered at 7 p.m.

In addition to commemorating "Every Tree Tells A Story," the event will also celebrate the recent determination by the National Register Advisory Committee (NRAC) that several thousand acres of woodlands surrounding Southern Pines are eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

The lands that have been accepted onto the National Register Study List include the original hunt lands of writer James Boyd and his family that is known today as the Walthour-Moss Foundation, the Moss estate known as Mile-Away, and the Moore County Hounds Kennels. The Weymouth Heights subdivision in Southern Pines is also being considered for inclusion on the Study List.

Research for the historic designation of Weymouth Heights was conducted by preservation landscape architect Glenn Stach, of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Longleaf Ensemble, the creators of the cultural theater performance "Bleeding Pines of Turpentine."

Written by Ray Owen, founding creative director of the troupe, the play tells the story of the oldest longleaf pines and the woman who saved them after encountering a group of turpentiners working in the forest. Glenn Stach, along with historian Davyd Foard Hood, also conducted the Boyd Hunt Lands Study.

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the nation's historic places worthy of preservation. The oldest remnant of a once 90 million-acre expanse of long-leaf pines is located in Southern Pines, and the town is named for this forest. Many of the trees are scarred with gashes to let loose the flow of sap collected for turpentine, pitch and rosin. Hundreds of the trees remain, more than in any other town in America.

According to Stach, "These parklands should be recognized as among the most significant cultural landscapes in the nation."

Earl Ijames, curator of African-American and Community History at the N.C. Museum of History, calls the forest preserves surrounding Southern Pines "the witness trees, the nation's greatest remaining example of longleaf pines forest with the oldest pines and the mark of humanity found all across the land."

Campbell House Galleries is located at 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines.

For more information, visit www.mooreart.org or contact the Arts Council of Moore County at (910) 692-2787 or email acmc@mooreart.org.