
Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees
Page numbers in parentheses. Italics are my own questions of the text.
Foreword, Introductions, and Chapter 1 Notes
Chapter 10 The Mysteries of Moving Water
how does water make its way up from the soil into the tree’s leaves? (56)
• WE DON’T KNOW (58)
If we don’t know how trees do this one simple task, drink, then what else don’t we know about trees? We don’t even know what we don’t know, and someone places a ‘value’ on the tree? How can we possibly hope for that value to be accurate? If there’s a value in removal, what’s the value in leaving that tree alone? Has anyone calculated that? And if we can’t put a value on it, does that mean we shouldn’t remove it, or at least think long and hard before we do?
• theories
• capillary action
• can only move the water up about three feet
• transpiration
• doesn’t work all the time
• tree has water even when transpiration can’t be the reason
• osmosis (57)
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