Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees

page numbers in parentheses. italics are my own questions of the text.

Chapter 7 Notes

Chapter 6 Notes

Chapter 5 Notes

Chapters 3 & 4 Notes

Chapter 2 Notes

Foreword, Introductions, and Chapter 1 Notes

thirst harder for trees to endure than hunger (43)

• trees can photosynthesize when hungry

• without moisture food production STOPS

mature beech

• consumes 130 gal of water a day

if ground dries up

• spruce can split painfully in trunk (44)

• fungal spores immediately invade

• splits in the bark (45)

• repair/reopen/repair/reopen

• cambrium

• life giving layer under the bark

• from then on tree WILL ration

spruces in climates with less water

• do not suffer this way

• slower growth

• ration water

how trees learn to support themselves after loss of neighbor

• micro-tears when bending in the wind (46)

• whatever points hurt that’s where the tree strengthens

• instead of growing

• leaves adapted to low-light

• have to now grow leaves that can handle more light

• takes 2 growing seasons

• conifers take even longer!

• needles stay on branch for up to 10 years

• trees learn, but WHERE do they store what they’ve learned? (47)

• HOW do they store what they’ve learned?

• don’t have brains

• Dr. Monica Gagliano

• studies mimosas

• tropical creeping herb

• experiment:

• drops of water fall on leaves at regular intervals

• first leaves close immediately

• then learn there is no change from drops

• so they remain open!

trees SCREAM when THIRSTY! (48)

• vibrations occur in trunk when flow of water interrupted

• similar to air passing through windpipe in humans (48)

• could be cries of thirst!