The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben

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

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast, describes Hidden Life as "A paradigm-smashing chronicle of joyous entanglement that will make you acknowledge your own entanglement in the ancient and ever-new web of being" Hope Jahren, author of Lab Girl asserts that "Soon after we begin to recognize trees for what they are--gigantic beings thriving against incredible odds for hundreds of years--we naturally come to ask, 'How do they do it?" This charming book tells how" (back cover).

Paradigm-smashing? "Gigantic beings thriving against incredible odds"? In this "charming book," Wohlleben, forester and author "convincingly makes the case that yes, the forest is a social network." Trees, he argues, "like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow," and "share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers" (front jacket). And that's just for starters. I would suggest this could change your view of trees and just they are.

As I read Hidden Life, I found not only thinking of trees in a different way, I found myself remembering a science fiction story idea I had some years ago. Here goes:

The Human Community has colonized several extrasolar planets, including one colonists named Wertynger, an Earthlike planet, hospitable to human life. No sapient species present that would prevent colonization. Some years after the first Community starships arrived with settlers, exploration of the island continent of New Atlantis begins. The explorers find a vast forest, with the dominant trees the same size or bigger, as redwoods and sequoias on Earth. It is when they venture into the forest, named El Bosque, that things get strange complicated. These trees are sentient. El Bosque is an association of "groves" of smaller social networks. This is First Contact in a way none of the explorers expected. El Bosque sends to the explorers a messenger--later to be called a "dryad"--a species who can speak for the slow ones to the quick ones ...

Complications ensue.

I found Hidden to be quite a good read, very accessible, and the scientific data is well explained.

Recommended.



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