Can You Hear the Trees Talking?. Peter Wohlleben

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Can You Hear the Trees Talking? - Peter Wohlleben


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      decide among themselves when they will bloom.

      Some years their branches have no seeds, and many

      wild boars don't survive the winter. But every three

      to five years, all the beech trees bloom like crazy at

      the

      same

      time.

      There are lots of

      beech nuts—so

      many

      that the wild boars can't eat them all.

      We don't know how trees communicate with each

      other over hundreds of miles to coordinate when they

      will and will not bloom. (You're going to be seeing

      more of these we-just-don't-knows in the course of

      this book, because we still have so much to learn

      about what goes on in the forest.)

      *

      With beeches and

      oaks,

      the seeds fall straight down

      from the mother

      tree.

      That way the tree family stays

      together nicely. But some tree species are loners.

      Willows, poplars, and birches like to stand on their

      own,

      To make

      sure

      their

      children

      can grow up faraway,

      they produce seeds that are very tiny and covered

      with small hairs or

      fluff,

      so they can be easily caught

      up in a gust of wind and carried several miles away.

      Other seeds, such as those of maples or many

      conifers, are too big and heavy to simply blow away.

      So these trees have come up with another strategy:

      each seed is equipped with wings. That way the seed

      can spin like a helicopter propeller in the air. Even

      without a motor, the seed can slowly float to the

      ground,

      and if it's caught up in

      a

      strong

      wind,

      it can

      fly

      a

      few hundred yards.

      Tree Seeds

      LARGE SEEDS WITHOUT WINGS OR FUZZ prefer to

      fall beneath their mother tree. Beechnuts, for

      example, like to stay close to home. Smaller

      seeds with propellers, like the maple seeds

      pictured

      here,

      or tiny, fluffy seeds like those of

      the willow, fly far awory from the mother tree.

      The children of these trees don't mind growing

      up without family close by.

      If you come from a big family, you probably have lots of other relatives besides

      your parents.

      You

      might have siblings, cousins, aunts and

      uncles,

      and grand-

      parents, too. But how do the trees in the forest know who is related to whom?

      WHEN

      IT

      COMES

      TO

      TREES,

      THAT'S much harder to figure

      out

      than

      it

      is

      for

      humans.

      After

      all,

      we

      can ask

      questions

      and get

      answers.

      And sometimes family members look

      so much alike that we know even without asking that

      people are related.

      Trees recognize each other differently. They

      communicate with each other through their roots

      below the ground. Trees can feel more through the

      tips of their roots than we can with our

      fingers.

      They

      can even make decisions with them! A root tip Is

      almost like

      a

      small brain.

      If

      a

      tree's roots meet those of

      a

      neighboring tree,

      they can check whether they belong to the same

      species, If so, then those trees are probably part of

      the same family. Now their roots will grow together.

      The

      trees

      can

      send messages and exchange the sugar

      they have

      made

      through this connection. It's

      as

      if they

      had invited each other to dinner.

      It's nice to have family and friends, but not all trees

      like each other. Some prefer not to share.

      You

      can look at old tree stumps to see which trees

      belong to

      a

      community and which stand alone. If the

      bark is falling off and the stump is rotten, the tree is

      out of touch with its neighbors. If the edge of

      an

      old

      stump is very hard and still has solid bark, the stump

      is still alive. That's only possible when the stump is

      getting food from its family through its roots.

      This is what true tree friends look like. They

      stand


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