The tension of forest hikers increases in coniferous forests and decreases in oak ones. I’m wondering why? Well, endangered forests are unstable and do not constitute a suitable living environment for humans due to the olfactory alarm messages of trees threatened by dehydration. Yes. When you walk through the forest or climb a mountain and come across trees, you probably have no idea that the tall beautiful giants communicate with each other.
Peter Wohlleben‘s book – The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from a Secret World is fascinating.
I think that this kind of curiosity about the elements that surround the paths we walk on is very useful and helps us appreciate nature even more.
Peter was born in 1964 and was employed at the forest administration in Hümmel (Germany) after studying forestry. After many years he resigned and decided to manage a forest in Eifel.
The communication language of trees is of olfactory nature. When an animal feeds from the tree, the latter will emit poisonous substances and signals at a distance to his “brothers” to notify them of the danger.
Why does mountain air or forest air feel so good? The air in young spruce forests is almost free of bacteria thanks to the phytoncides secreted by the needles, thus the trees disinfect the environment in which they live. That’s why we long to escape the urban jungle for some fresh air. Our nose does not lie to us.
In a handful of forest land dwell more beings than people on earth. Hyphae, networks of fungi, are a kind of internet of the forest. Trees communicate through the chemicals they transmit through these intermediaries. Trees help each other. Mother-trees, before they fall, transmit through their roots the last reserves to the children, thus helping them to change their growth rate. What’s interesting is that man-planted forests have a different supporting network, in the sense that it seems that through human intervention, those trees lose some of their ability to communicate underground. In the virgin forests you can observe, as a specialist, those networks of old “friendships” between the trees. For example, when a tree is struck by lightning, others within a radius of 15 meters also die, because in the underground they were connected to the “victim” and thus they also received a fatal shock. And for a tree a hole in the bark is, therefore, almost as unpleasant as a wound in the skin for us. Fascinating, isn’t it? We often pass by these giants thinking they don’t feel anything. Well, we were wrong.
How long can a tree live? Much more than you, that’s for sure. Although if I think about the trees in Romania… I don’t know if they will have such a long life. The appetite for furniture is great… The irony of fate is that we, these ephemeral creatures, strangle the life through massive deforestation of those who may outlive us by thousands of years in longevity. Research of secular spruce trees in the Swedish province of Dalarna with the C14 radiocarbon method showed an age of….hold on…9550 years. And now don’t you feel angry because of the ignorants who dream of cutting wood for a table on which to put their cheap pint of beer? To cut down trees in ignorance is to lose that fundamental respect for life and lack the vision for the good of future generations.
The beech tree begins to reproduce from the age of 80-150 years, and by the age of 400 it can produce at least 60 times fruits and 1.8 million seeds. Of these only one will become a mature tree. To produce 1 kg of wood, a beech tree uses 180 liters of water. The trunk of a mature beech tree needs for growth an amount of sugar and cellulose equal to the harvest of a wheat field of 10,000 m². You see, this kind of details shows how difficult and long-lasting it is for a tree to mature. To see a forest and know the life story of a tree is something that should be taught in schools and families. A respect for nature is acquired through knowledge and education.
We also have street children when it comes to trees. It is about the less fortunate, about the trees planted in the cities. Poor them! The acid in the dog’s urine attacks the bark and can cause the roots to die. So you don’t do any good when you let your friend “quench” the tree’s thirst, on the contrary. The salt thrown on the streets in the winter is another enemy, and the night lighting is terrible for them. In the United States at one time, 9% of oak tree deaths in an american city were due to nighttime lighting. Trees need sleep too. I looked with different eyes after finishing this book at the roadside trees. No support network, no soil full of hyphae, no natural conditions…. I felt sad…
We are at the beginning of spring. The highest pressure is measured in the trees now, before sprouting. Then the water enters the trunk with such a force, that it can be heard with a stethoscope placed on the bark. I’d call it the symphony of life, and I think that without an appreciation of the leafy giants we may soon be left quietly, with a stethoscope on…nothing. Furniture gives us neither oxygen, nor symphony.
I think we need more books like this one to show people how much we need nature, much more than it needs us.
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