One year, I got a book called The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben as a Christmas present. I don't even know how long ago. I think I was in college. It sat on my bookshelf until Lee-Anne was going to have an invasive surgery done for an intra-cranial observation of her seizures. I brought a variety of reading material to use as a distraction, and because life was so intense, I wanted something kind of unrelated. A book about tree facts seemed about right.
Now having read it, I feel like it's a piece of literature with almost spiritual importance to me. I'd just got done the book Bittersweet, by Susan Cain on the importance of sadness, and before that, I read Staring at the Sun, by Irvin Yalom on mortality and why we should pay attention to it. But of these three, it's the book on tree facts that made me feel closer to an understanding about existence.
When I was in middle school, I used to go out into a local forest with two of my friends. We would have shared delusions about being able to communicate with spirits that resided there, who we called the Three Protectors. As I grew older, I lost this sense of direct connection with nature. But I've always felt that humans have an innate psychic connection with trees, and I've taken offense when others have contested this thought.
Wohlleben speaks at length of the sophistication of trees and makes a case for their autonomy. Near the end of the book, he says "You can talk to trees", and it felt very validating.
In a forest, root networks are connected by fungi. This allows individuals to communicate potential hazards, and it gives them the ability to share nutrients. Because maintaining a canopy is so important to an ecoystem, trees will often work with rival species for the benefit of the forest.
However, they will sometimes share based on what appears to be sentimentality. Wohlleben gives the example of trees gifting nutrients to their dead neighbours, and discovering that this is usually based on a parent-child relationship. Paying tribute to their fallen mother.
He also gives the example of three oak trees, grown next to each other under the same conditions. One of them will consistently drop its leaves for winter earlier than the other two, describing it as being more cautious.
It made me realize that what I'd convinced myself was merely a child's imagination might have been something more. Although what me and my friends interpreted as "forest spirits" taking the form of the "Three Protectors" may have just been three individual trees. Our conversations were obviously not in English, but in the general sense that we reached out to them and they, on some level, reciprocated.
I took this book seriously enough that, at work I casually mentioned in front of some coworkers and students that I could talk to trees. I can do it!
Reframing the concept of a forest spirit to being a community of autonomous individuals inspired me to show more compassion for city trees. Wohlleben describes them as "traumatized" from isolation, not having mentors to teach them how to manage their sunlight and water intake, or how to manage their chlorophyl. He says they are a combination of spoiled and neglected, as they have resources provided to them in abundance, making them grow faster. But this means their cells become larger and more prone to illness, and they become more reliant on human donations. They look beautiful to us, but it's sort of the equivalent of being clinically obese.
I've noticed that I never get the sense that they are "talking" like forest trees do. In fact, they are much quieter because of their lack of community. I used to think of forests as having one "spirit" built of individual trees, with the underground root network functioning as a sort of brain. Considering each tree autonomous adds a new implication of horror. Perhaps city trees, grown without a canopy or shared root system, are the equivalent of human "feral children".
But Wohlleben cools this thought process as well, asserting that they do still speak, just a little quieter. He says that they are just doing their best under the circumstance, and encourages us to go out and engage with them. I've since found a few city trees that I'm quite fond of, specifically a willow and a cedar in Victoria Park.
Weirdly, much of the discussion made me feel some relief about climate change. This book really helped me to see trees as more than just the passive victims of human-induced behaviour. They are not waiting for us to rescue them from our failings. They are observing the changes in the world and adapting, coming up with solutions that will take hundreds of years to implement. Because of their long lives, they make long-term decisions beyond our own ability.
For example, trees are apparently growing 30% faster than they used to in response to higher carbon content in the air. Unfortunately, this means their cells become larger and more prone to illness. They are also learning to absorb the chlorophyl in their leaves earlier in response to later winters.
That doesn't mean climate change isn't a concern for us though. It's a solution to the human problem. If we don't change our ways, we will go extinct. There is a quote in it that I haven't been able to find again, but it was something to the tune of "Those that learn to take without consequence will destroy themselves by taking too much from what they are consuming"
The book refers to old growth trees as our allies in the fight against climate change. We live in their world, not the other way around. He mentions that humans have had a positive relationship with nature for millenia, and it will likely take 300-500 years to correct it. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that anyone reading near the time of this writing will live to see the planet heal. But it does give hope for the future and reduce my existential guilt.
If I'm going to offer a criticism, it was somewhat limited in scope. The author is from Central Europe, and most of the knowledge he passses on has to do with his local ecosystems. He does give a lot of props to Canada for having such vast quantities of old growth wilderness, but he doesn't go into detail the way he does for his homeland. Fair enough, but I would read another entire book in the same style based on the trees of North America.
The author definitely has a bias against conifers. He even mentions it at one point. He refers to them as "staunch perfectionists" that won't adapt to the climate by shifting their posture, even though there is evolutionary purpose for that disposition.
I think his bias comes from, as he explains, the fact that Central Europe made a concentrated effort to replace most of the deciduous beech and oak in favour of conifers. This is because they grew faster and could be used for logging more efficiently. But the climate is not well-suited for them, so while they spread, they did not grow healthily. Now Central Europe is covered in sickly evergreens.
But I was surprised that most people feel the same way. I was so excited to learn about the differences in behaviour between species that I tried matching the people in my life with different types of trees. Whenever I compared someone to a coniferous species, it would bother them. And this is in Canada, where they grow natively.
I like them. My grandparents live in Northern Ontario on the Canadian Shield. It's one of the most breathtaking examples of nature I've ever been exposed to. Rolling hills of mossy rock with sparse woods. Because of a fire that tore through there about 100 years ago, there are plenty of pioneering trees such as birch and poplar. The only species that have a chance to turn into old growth are conifers.
I've always felt a resonance with them. There was a small coniferous tree planted by the side of the apartment building I grew up in, and I felt like it called to me. I named it Spikey, and would sit and talk to it.
That being said, the tree I matched myself with was the birch. They send their seeds far away so they grow in remote locations. Because they don't have the benefit of sharing a canopy, they expend a lot of energy developing sun-reflective bark. Their expansion outside the borders of the forest gives opportunity for ecosystems to develop around them.
Because of the Herculean effort it takes the birch to establish itself without a canopy, it expends so much energy that it cuts heavily into its lifespan. Unlike most species that live hundreds of years, birch only last about 60.
Like the birch, my family is scattered and we don't have the benefit of easily being able to support each other. Through immense effort that was detrimental to my health, similar to the process of developing sun-reflective bark, I have managed create a life for myself. Despite my lonely endeavours, community has formed around me, like a birch ushering in a new forest, providing shade so that more long-lived species may flourish.
The Hidden Life of Trees is definitely my favourite book of the ones I read in 2024.
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