Editing Two Trees of Valinor (section)

=== Creation ===

The Valar retreat to [[Valinor]] to make their home on the western continent, and there one of them, [[Yavanna]] the Vala of living things, sings into existence the Two Trees to provide a new pair of light-sources. Of the two, Telperion is male and silver, while the other, Laurelin, is female and golden. The Trees stand on the hill Ezellohar, outside Valimar, the city of the Valar. They grow in the presence of all the Valar, watered by the tears of the Vala of pity and mourning, [[Nienna]].<ref name="Of the Beginning of Days" group=T/> Telperion's leaves are dark green above and silver below.<ref name="Of the Beginning of Days" group=T/> His flowers are white like cherry blossom,<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1987}}, p. 209</ref> and his silvery dew is collected as a source of water and of light. Varda used the dew to form stars in the sky, in preparation for the arrival of the Elves. Laurelin has leaves of a young green, like newly opened beech leaves trimmed with gold, and her dew is collected by the Vala of light [[Varda (Middle-earth)|Varda]].<ref name="Of the Beginning of Days" group=T/>

Each Tree, in turn, gives off light for seven hours (waxing to full brightness and then slowly waning again), with the ends of their cycles overlapping, so that at one hour each of "dawn" and "dusk" soft gold and silver light are given off together. Each "day" of first silver then gold light lasts twelve hours.<ref name="Of the Beginning of Days" group=T/>

<gallery class=center mode=nolines heights=175px widths=330px>
File:Arda in the Years of the Trees.svg|Arda in the Years of the Trees
File:Jornada arboles de Valinor.png|Tolkien stated that the light from the Two Trees of Valinor alternately waxed and waned, overlapping by an hour.<ref name="Of the Beginning of Days" group=T/>
</gallery>