There is, for example, the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), one of the mightiest trees in the world. It can grow more than 300 feet tall and live for many thousands of years. Its bark is soft, thick, and slow to burn. If you find one of these in a city park (and you can find them in many city parks all over the world), step right up to it and

Fungi can be every bit as long lived as trees. Ancient honey fungus networks have been found underground in North America. The record holder is a fungus belonging to the species Armillaria ostoyae. It is 2,400 years old and has spread to cover 3.5 square miles.

There are two forces at work here. Sick or weak animals separate themselves from others of their kind to hide in the undergrowth, or on hot summer days they wander near or into small streams to cool any wounds they might have. Here, they wait for death. That makes sense, because this way they don’t endanger their kin—weak animals attract the attent

NATURE IS LIKE the mechanism in an enormous clock. Everything is neatly arranged and interconnected. Every entity has its place and its function.

Lightning plays its part by using its energy to combine atmospheric nitrogen with oxygen to create compounds plants can break down and absorb, and some trees and other plants have developed the ability to transform atmospheric nitrogen into plant-available compounds with the help of bacteria that live in special nodules on their roots. Alders, for

It’s important for us to realize that even small interventions can have huge consequences, and we’d do better to keep our hands off everything in nature that we do not absolutely have to touch.

One simple standard definition is that nature is the opposite of culture—that is to say, everything that people have not created or changed.

Deciduous trees, after all, show that there are other ways of doing things. As long as they’re alive, they’re absolutely immune to fire. This is something you can easily test for yourself (but please with just a single green twig). No matter how long you hold a flame underneath it, the twig will not burn. Spruce, Pines & Co., in contrast, ignit

It is more important to me to state the facts so that people can understand them emotionally. And then I can lead them on a full sensory tour of nature, because that way I can communicate one thing above all: the joy our fellow creatures and their secrets can bring us.