The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben - Part 2

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 129

  May 9, 2017 

Book 37 - The Hidden Life of Trees -
What they Feel, How they Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
Peter Wohlleben (2015)
 Part 2- pages 31-59
Reading Time - 1 hour

Tree babies... little saplings... so cute! But saplings that look really young, can actually be very old. Growing up under the canopy of the older trees, most saplings have access to very little light. So they tend to grow very slowly. This is actually a good thing, because trees that have a very slow youth, can live to a ripe old age. When a mother tree dies, the young saplings can sprout up and head for the sun.

Trees need to learn a few things as they grow. There is an ideal shape for each tree that aids their stability. If trees grow a bit crooked or get forks, they will discover, over time that they lack some stability. Another lesson trees need to learn is conserve moisture. If trees don't conserve moisture, they can get splits, which is very dangerous. Fungi and bacteria get into the split and the tree tries desperately to repair and heal the wound. The thing that puzzles scientists is this... if trees can learn, where do they store the information?

Trees are social beings who help each other out... with the aid of the fungal networks. One fungi can cover 2000 acres and be over 2500 years old. The fungi and the trees partner up. The fungi help to connect the trees and in return, the fungi get about 1/3 of the tree's food resources. They can also filter heavy metals out of the soil and fight off bad bacteria and fungi. While trees can partner with different fungi... most fungi are sensitive to what trees they work with.

One of the mysteries that remain about trees is how they draw water up from the ground into their leaves. Scientists have looked at several options like capillary action, transpiration and osmosis. None of those explain the process so... scientists really have no idea! There is so much we don't know about trees... and yet they are all around us.