The Hidden Life of Trees

It was a bit of a journey for this book to get to our shelves from when I first read about it a few years ago; waiting for it to be translated from German, not forgetting about it in the interim. I’m glad we persevered because it unveils the world around us with the same awe, intimacy, and reverence as Annie Dillard’s Pilgram at Tinker Creek, Bernd Heinrich’s Winter World, and the cogent observations of Wendell Berry. It is a call, once again, to be humbled as a species as our colleagues on the planet are revealed to us as equally glorious.

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben surprises us with how much is known about the daily, seasonal, and lifetime commerce of being a tree, of being a forest. That the author shades his observations with allusions to the sensory and intellectual capacity of trees, does not diminish the sway of his data, the revelation of his syntheses, or the amazingness of our usually “back-drop” neighbors; trees.

It is difficult not to interrupt the other person in the room with new-found facts of the forest:

Forest trees support each other, the damaged and stricken, to maintain the sustaining biome of the forest – mutual care. Young trees, waiting 70 years under the sun-stricken canopy of a mature forest aren’t deprived – they are in  a “nursery,” often supplemented by decaying grandparents; slow growth and patience being the plan for when opportunity eventually knocks. Miles of fungal conduit in teaspoons of forest soil, onslaughts of silent infestations parried with chemical counterattacks (and prior notification to neighbors). Indeed, Wohlleben reminds us it much less a “delicate balance” in nature than one continuous siege between occupying forces.

Having read it now, I look at the trees in my yard, the clammer of saplings along the roadside, and my stand of hickory trees with renewed respect. The intricacies of this slow world of trees, with so much of the drama and dynamism happening in the opaque world beneath our feet, will not be easily dismissed as silent, unchanging, passive, or dull.