The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World (The Mysteries of Nature Book 1)

Have you ever seen a redwood tree? They're majestic and towering - scraping the sky while standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow redwoods in what feels like impossibly close quarters.

They can become so tall that their circulatory system can't pump water to the whole tree, so their upper needles have adapted to drink fog right out of the sky.

Yo... See more

Young trees are so keen on growing quickly that it would be no problem at all for them to grow about 18 inches taller per season. Unfortunately for them, their own mothers do not approve of rapid growth. They shade their offspring with their enormous crowns, and the crowns of all the mature trees close up to form a thick canopy over the forest floo

... See more

In undisturbed ancient forests, youngsters have to spend their first two hundred years waiting patiently in their mothers’ shade. As they struggle to put on a few feet, they develop wood that is incredibly dense. In modern managed forests today, seedlings grow without any parental shade to slow them down. They shoot up and form large growth rings e

... See more

In contrast, the individual beeches growing in a stand near where I live are as far apart genetically as different species of animals. This means each tree has different characteristics. Some deal better with drought than cold. Others have powerful defenses against insects. And yet others are perhaps particularly impervious to wet feet. If climatic

... See more