Concord, NH: The furry orange protagonist of The Lorax and the Truffula trees for which he spoke may have been inspired by specific monkeys and trees in Kenya… The 1971 book pits a short, mustachioed “sort of man” who “speaks for the trees” against the Once-ler, a greedy industrialist harvesting the trees into near extinction. …Some have speculated that Seuss was inspired by cypress trees near his California home. But anthropology professor Nathaniel Dominy suggests the whistling thorn acacia commonly found in Kenya makes more sense, given that Seuss wrote much of the book while visiting a safari club there. The region also is home to the patas monkey, which, like the Lorax, has orange fur and stands on two feet.