The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, Discoveries from a Secret World

Trees feel pain. They scream, even if we cannot hear them. Trees can learn. They have a sense of taste and a sense of hearing. They are social beings and can communicate messages to other trees. They sleep at night. Like human couples planning the best time to have a baby, trees plan their own procreation. Then they nurse their young.

So says German forester Peter Wohlleben in his remarkable book “The Hidden Life of Trees,” published in Germany in 2015 and translated into English in 2016. True, he may be guilty of a bit of anthropomorphism, but his essential points are supported by the work of researchers and by his own observations over decades spent in European forests.

Observing trees is difficult because everything they do they do show more slowly. They can live hundreds, even thousands of years, especially in dense forests where they are protected from the wind and have the company of others of the same species. So time moves slowly for trees, and they react slowly to change. When assaulted by insects, for example, they can sense the attack and send out toxins to their bark and leaves that taste so bad the insects will depart. In the case of oaks, their toxins can even kill the marauders. But this sending of messages and toxins through limbs and branches can take a long time moving at a rate of a third of an inch per minute.

Much of what people have long thought about trees is wrong, Wohlleben writes. We think they will do better alone, out in the sunshine and some distance away from other trees. Not so. We think healthy young trees grow quickly. Again, not so. Those trees that live the longest are those that grow very slowly during their earliest decades, mostly in the shade of older trees.

Wohlleben's book, relatively short, brims not just with amazing facts about trees but also with advice for humans with regard to growing trees, harvesting trees and enjoying trees. The blood pressure of forest visitors, he writes, "rises when they are under conifers, whereas it calms down and falls in stands of oaks. Why don't you take the test for yourself and see in what type of forest you feel most comfortable?"

And while there don't do anything to make a tree scream. This book convinces us that their comfort is important, too. show less

Forests are more than scattered bunches of trees growing up all over the place, with a plethora of other surrounding plants and animals to complete the mix. Forests, as the author brilliantly reminds us here, are in fact whole symbiotic communities those complex working and interconnections we barely have started to acknowledge. The thing is, to understand how trees reproduce, grow, and survive, we must first understand how they act as… social beings! If this sounds like a radical new approach to nature that’s because, of course, it is. How so?

As Peter Wohlleben shows, trees can ‘smell’. They can ‘taste’. They can ‘feel’ ‘pain’, for instance in their various ways of reacting to various pests and predators. Trees can show more also ‘parent’. They can cooperate, including by ‘taking care’ of ‘their dead’. More, trees are far from acting alone in their survival. They, in fact, rely on what’s been dubbed the ‘wood wide web’ that is, a complex network of fungi and multiple other micro-organisms those interplay (as fascinating as it can be breath-taking in its complexity and effectiveness) came to prominence only during the past few decades. But: so what?

This book challenges many of our misconceptions and prejudices, including when it comes to what we accept as supposedly being *obvious* (e.g. the author doubts that capillary action and transpiration alone can explain how water travel along from roots to tips). This, of course, is a welcoming approach, yet it can also backfire. I, for one, personally struggled a bit with what I felt was a close walk on the anthropomorphic razor-line, something which was particularly unsettling when it came to topics such as sensory perceptions. For example, was his comparing of the vibrations registered in thirsty trees to vibrating vocal chords (and his use of the term ‘screams’ to describe them) a way to say that trees can ‘talk’? Or was it just a mere metaphor, reflecting how our language (shaped by our own experience of the world around us) fails miserably when it comes to assess how other species/ organisms can ‘feel’, let alone their level of consciousness if any? Taken literally, it can be difficult to discern between the proper science, and the enthusiasm of an author who, sharing his passion, seems to absolutely wants to portray trees as being very close to ours in far too many ways...

Regardless of such criticism, though, this truly is a brilliant read. My back cover states: ‘A walk in the wood will never be the same again’. And indeed: it won’t. If you care, even one bit only, about the woodlands, then this is a must read. show less

If you are lucky, a handful of times in your life you will encounter a book that changes the way you look at the world. The Hidden Life of Trees is just such a book (which is why I'm giving it five stars without a re-read). Wohlleben drew me in with a great combination of science and artistic description. I just want to give every book-reader I know a copy.
Now, it must be said: There's lots of solid science here, but Wohlleben employs language that most scientists and science writers would not feel comfortable using. He intentionally chooses to describe trees as volitional beings that make choices, instead of merely reacting to stimuli. He openly admits (although somewhat belatedly and not frequently enough, IMO) that this point of view show more and narrative choice are controversial. But at least he is open about this and is not letting people think that his is a widely shared opinion. Because of Wohlleben's honesty on this point, I can enjoy (and even entertain) his ideas in a way that I could not if he were less forthcoming. show less

Wohlleben's collection is eminently readable: an essay typically runs six octavo pages; focuses on a central concept with multiple and specific (often personal) examples; and deploys a conversational style without (at least for me) patronising. While the result is a collection of interrelated pieces, they don't build into a linear argument so much as assemble a mosaic.

It's readable, then, but difficult to summarize efficiently. In effect, Wohlleben's already done that work, presenting a condensed version of recent research, and his spare footnotes demonstrate there's a lot more behind it.

The beauty of the book is its showcase of startling concepts, which --having paraded by in all their wonder-- suggest a new view of the world around show more us. This glimpse isn't entirely new, it evokes that old metaphor of a living world long relegated to fabulism or myth, or children's fable, and Wohlleben seems to gently shake the reader, "No, it really is that way, see for yourself".

//

● The "wood wide web", the forest network of tree roots & fungi linking individual trees into community
(analogous to the interstitium, connected to human lymphatic system, now considered a major organ)
● Individual trees exhibit behavior analogous to:
- communicating threats through scents & electrical impulses;
- activating defenses keyed to attacking species;
- sharing water & nutrients with neighbouring trees;
- providing deferential treatment to related trees
● Trees in isolation (street kids) behave differently than those in community (forest)
● Forests generate & maintain their own microclimates
● Forests are terrestrial water pumps; coastal forests play an especially important role for all inland climates
● Trees hibernate in winter; individual trees (of the same species, in the same location) will choose idiosyncratic timing for
- budding out,
- leaf drop,
- moving water from branches to roots in Autumn / roots to branches in Spring
● When breaking into water pipes and cisterns, city tree roots more often seeking loose soil than moisture; compacted earth is a barrier to establishing a proper root system
● Science currently cannot account for the volume of water moved in adult tree trunks: capillary action, transpiration, osmosis explain but a fraction of water moved especially in Spring or Autumn
● Electrical impulses similar to that of human bioelectricity, but much slower show less

Trees talk. Their conversations may not amount to much more than, “Yikes, pests!” or “Sure is cold!” but this amounts to loquaciousness in life-forms we used to treat as insensate. Moreover, at least in a forest, trees act communally. They sometimes share resources. They nurture their young. They work together to fend off infestations. All within the broader context of the competition of all against all. There’s a lot going on in the forest, if you can see it amongst all those trees.

Peter Wohlleben is a forest custodian in Germany. He draws on years of experience tending both planted and old-growth forests. He also makes reference to the latest scientific research in extensive notes. His observations of arboreal behaviour, show more though they may at first sound remarkable, have very solid foundations. If his language in describing these behaviours strays into pathetic fallacy — attributing human intentions and emotions to non-human objects, animals, or, in this case, flora — that may be both understandable and deliberate. For he does have an agenda, though not a particularly hidden one. He is making a case for the unimpeded development of large swaths of old-growth forest. Unimpeded by harvesters and the incessant tidiers who mistakenly wish to remove dead trees rather than let them decay naturally, providing homes to thousands of species as they transition back into humus to feed future generations of trees.

One of the things that comes across most strikingly here is the contrast in scale between humans and trees. Most of the trees that Wohlleben considers have natural life-spans of well over 400 years (some stretch to 1000 years or more). That makes almost anything that looks like a disaster in a human timeframe a mere inconvenience. Droughts, floods, global climate change, plagues of insects — trees have to simply weather them. And in most cases they do. Even evolutionary adaptation works differently when it may be as much as 700 years between generations. Trees need a different approach to adaptation than fruit flies, and apparently they have one.

The writing here is fresh and accessible. It is never burdened by the science (references are relegated to endnotes for the curious). And since Wohlleben is often referring to his direct experience in the forests that he manages, his observations come across as heartfelt and genuine. He is someone who actually cares about the trees in his care.

You will walk through your local forest with a renewed appreciation after reading this book.

Gently recommended. show less

Mind blowing science, and yet an easy and enjoyable read. This is a fascinating look at the current research of what we understand about how mature forests work, how trees are interconnected and how they communicate and support each other. Wohlleben's combination of thoughtful observations based on his work as a forester in an established German forest preserve and skillful interweaving of information gathered from around the world creates a moving and inspiring argument for forest preservation. I particularly like that he comes from a logging background, so is able to relate the ongoing need for wood harvesting into this greater picture. It's an inspiring book for our time of rapid climate change -- the trees work slowly, but they can show more make a huge impact on our continued survival as a species. I hope this book finds a wide audience. show less

I had a love/hate relationship with this book.

On the positive, undoubtedly there was a lot of interesting information in this book about the 'laws of the forest', from the critical role that fungi play to how trees help to sustain each other. However, there were a number of things that didn't work for me.

Firstly, it seemed at times that Peter Wohlleben seemed to see no division between scientific facts and things he believes to be true. He may well be right, but I'd rather know that something is a fact rather than an opinion.

Secondly, I can see what he was trying to do in weaving fantasy and storytelling into this book to bring alive the magic of the forests, but it started to grate on me after a while that nothing could be described show more simply in the context of botany or entomology or forestry. I don't think we need to humanise trees or plants or insects to make them interesting. It's interesting enough to understand the science of how trees protect each other in adverse weather by virtue of their positioning in relation to each other, for example - I don't need to think of them as a family protecting each other. Finally, there seemed to be a lot of repetition to fill the book. What was interesting the first time around became dull and a slog the third or fourth time I read about it.

3 stars - my enjoyment level was probably more on a 2 star level, but I'm awarding an extra star for the base facts which I did enjoy learning about. show less