I hope this is in the right place! (Also, I promise to someday stop prefacing all my posts this way... /cough...)

Selling this tree's sap to Ysolda in Whiterun for the first time this morning, I inquired about the Sleeping Tree, and my interest was peaked when she relayed one of the theories she'd heard regarding its origins. For anyone who may not have had this dialogue with her: After suggesting the tree might've grown from within the crater of a stray bit of Vvardenfell after the eruption, she then goes on to say, "I've also heard that it was a spore that fell from an island floating in the sky, but that just sounds like nonsense."

I didn't give much thought to the Sleeping Tree when I first stumbled across it, though it is undoubtedly beautiful, and the sap seems to be no more than a quirky item good for a bit of extra cash... but typically, when a NPC dismisses a rumor or a legend as nonsense, I've come to believe it's probably far from it. Is this possibly a subtle foreshadowing of some kind? Is there a mysterious island filled with hallucinogenic trees floating around somewhere over Tamriel? Why would it be there and where might it have come from? Would the sap serve some larger purpose (i.e. as an alchemical reagent) when used in combination with other elements from that homeland?

Does anyone else have any other theories regarding the origins of the Sleeping Tree?

Is this interesting to anyone else? Or am I reading way too much into this?

I probably am... I've had a lot of coffee.

It's a reference to http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Umbriel, from the TES Novels.

Oh, hey! Look at that... Did not know that. Thank you!

I feel a little silly now, but at least it's good to know I've learned well not to trust skeptical NPC's...

Keep in mind, too, that Umbriel's "trees" were believed to be a variant of the Hist, IIRC. That would definitely explain why the sap of the Sleeping Tree is hallucinogenic. Hist sap is very, very strange stuff.