The Hidden Life of Trees

Some fascinating stuff about trees that we've never been taught

Hi readers,

If you’re new here, we’re all about dissecting big ideas, concepts, and events in a way that even your dog can make sense of it. In the last few weeks, we’ve explored a bunch of topics- from Vipassana meditation to the distilled wisdom of legendary entrepreneur Naval Ravikant (here’s the 5-minute version for your reading pleasure).

In the spirit of covering an ever-expanding array of ideas, we shall today dive into the study of these things that surround us, greet us every day, help us survive every moment, and yet, all we do is ignore the shit out of them. Yes, I’m talking about trees and no, you don’t get bonus points for guessing that one. It’s literally in the title of the post.

By default, we’re used to thinking of trees as these gigantic objects that just sit there and….just sit there, basically. That’s our entire spectrum of understanding when it comes to trees. This is quite a shame because these ‘things’ are much more than just poles sitting on their asses doing nothing. They’re lovely, vibrant, living beings with a dynamic life of their own.

There’s so much happening in there. We have no idea.

Just like us busybodies, they engage in a whole host of activities that we’d find strikingly similar- cracking business deals with friends, waging war on foes, talking to each other, screaming out in pain, and doing the odd things that old people do when they get old.

Trees are just like us in many ways. They’re also very different in interesting ways. Here’s a tiny list of really cool facts you should know so your next water cooler conversation can progress from Big Boss 18 onto the wonders of ecology.

🌳 Some cool things about trees

(Source: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben)

⌛ Time scale: One of the most fascinating things about trees is that they operate at a completely different time scale than us. Basically, shit works slower than a government office. It’s like watching a movie at 0.00001x. Get this: The electrical impulses in the roots of trees travel at 1/3 of an inch per second. That’s wickedly slow, and that’s why we can’t relate to them. It’s also because our genes diverged millions of years ago- that’s why the chimps feel more familiar than those giant woody things. Things get even more interesting when you start thinking about their age. You know how old the oldest tree on the planet is? A hundred years? A thousand? Screw that, it’s 9550 years old! Think about it- that tree has seen us monkeys grow farms, fight wars, invent religion, build machines and wreck the planet! Plants seem to be quite close to animals- it's just that they're much slower and probably that's why we've not paid much attention to the wonders of their workings. Time to move past this time-ism.

🤝 Friendship (and the C-word): We’re not the only ones fist-bumping our way to heaven. Trees are known to have mutually beneficial friendships and and active give-and-take relationships. Here’s the thing: life in the jungle is kinda rough and trees need the right climate, food and many other things a certain way to get by comfortably. They do so by huddling close together to create the right microclimate (now you know why things are cool and shady in the forest) and even share resources with the strong ones watching out for the weak- call it “communism” if you’re Chinese or “reciprocal altruism” if you’re a biologist. Surprisingly, even the stronger ones suffer when the weaker trees are cut off- they really do depend on each other to thrive and prosper. Real friendship is also observed in the fact that they don’t grow branches against each other but in different conditions so they don’t have to duke it out with a bro to get better access to sunlight and air. That’s at least 10x more noble than us humans.

🌐 Internet: One of the *the* most fascinating facts about trees is that they have their own version of the Internet which connects them all and helps in sharing information and resources! This happens via the underground mycelium network (nerdspeak for fungi) that happens to be spread across the entire forest. Someone coined the term ‘Wood Wide Web’ to define these underground networks. Smart. This is the kind of work that should win advertising awards. Coming back, these fungi aren’t the Nelson Mandelas of the jungle though- or to translate it, this shit ain’t for free. They extract up to one-third of the tree's food production as commission for their internet services, while offering complimentary benefits like filtering out heavy metals that are harmful to roots and warding off infectious bacteria of the package. Apple’s 30% app store commission doesn’t sound so disgusting now, right? What’s even more novel, though, is that both the trees and the fungi hedge their bets and invest in multiple partners for this business!

🗣️ Communication: Smell, taste, sound, visuals- trees seem to be communicating in all the ways familiar to us. If a giraffe starts eating an African acacia, the tree releases a chemical into the air that signals a threat and as it reaches the other trees, they smell it and are warned of the danger so they start producing toxic chemicals even before the giraffe reaches them. The saliva of leaf-eating insects, on the other hand, is tasted by the leaf being eaten. In response, the tree sends out a chemical signal (pheromones) that attracts predators that feed on that particular insect! The coloured blossoms that we see in forests act as billboards that stand out from the green, and the pleasant smells in the forest are olfactory signals to attract bees. They can probably even communicate via sound waves. The sound of crackling roots broadcasted in a lab results in the roots orienting themselves towards the direction of the sound! While the research is much more detailed, it’s just so intriguing to note that these beings demonstrate behaviours that feel familiar to us.

🆔 Identity: So what makes up a tree's identity? The roots seem to be the key determinant and are likened to the brain of the tree. They produce chemical signals, can detect stimuli, and alter behavior accordingly. They're the place where experiences are stored. Trees can even distinguish their own roots from those of others, which might indicate the central role they play in the regulatory mechanisms and smooth functioning of the trees.

👴🏾 Old Age: Just like us, trees have a layer of skin (the bark) that protects the inner components and wrinkles over time. The crown of the trees starts thinning over time, bearing a striking resemblance to the increasing baldness+sadness that engulfs our later years. They also stop growing taller after a point because water can't be pumped up to bigger heights anymore and just grow wide instead: the depressing similarities are just endless. Trees continue to lose leaves from the top and this process gradually moves downward. Someday, they succumb to attacking fungi that eventually penetrate the core and cause their eventual demise. But the trees continues to be valuable in the forest even after death, leaving their imprint and legacy much like we end up doing.

These ideas don’t even scratch the surface. New research is constantly revealing ever more interesting facts about how tress live. Even the 6 little ideas listed here may come as a bit of a mindblow for us because we could never see or imagine them engaging in these actions. But that’d be quite myopic, because there’s always more to things than meets the eye. Trees aren’t static poles. They are as alive as we are, just at a slower time scale.

A deeper glimpse into the silent and seemingly secretive lives of these fascinating beings leads me to one clear conclusion: that we ought to develop humility regarding our understanding of all forms of life and infuse much more respect into the way we treat them.

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