Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees

Page numbers in parentheses. Italics are my own questions of the text.

Chapter 20 Notes            Chapter 21 Notes

Chapter 17 Notes             Chapter 18 Notes          Chapter 19 Notes

Chapter 14 Notes             Chapter 15 Notes         Chapter 16 Notes

Chapter 13 Notes             Chapter 12 Notes         Chapter 11 Notes

Chapter 10 Notes             Chapter 9 Notes           Chapter 8 Notes

Chapter 7 Notes               Chapter 6 Notes           Chapter 5 Notes

Chapters 3 & 4 Notes      Chapter 2 Notes      Foreword, Introductions, and Chapter 1 Notes

Chapter 22: Hibernation

summer (136)

•stressful season for trees

• make sugars all season

• trees do get full (137)

• wild cherries, bird cherries

• begin to turn red

• storage space under bark gets full

• most trees don’t shut down until after first frost

• wood that’s too wet when frozen can burst

• so trees start cutting back in july

• fetch energy reserves from branches

leaves

• yellow & brown (138)

• carotene

• may act as alarm

• more colorful means more potential toxins to intruders?

conifers

• protect needles with antifreeze

• wax coats the leaves

• holds in water

why grow millions of leaves every year just to discard? (139)

• deciduous

• 100 million years old

• conifers are 170 million years old

• by discarding leaves they avoid damage from winter storms

• losing leaves makes the trees aerodynamic

• trunks and branches shaped for flexibility (140)

• winds absorbed and distributed throughout tree

• snow and ice weigh down leaves (141)

• trees also excrete waste through release of leaves

• grow a layer of cells that close the connection between leaves and branches

• trees need rest

• oaks can’t grow in your living room because they can’t get any rest

young trees

• keep their leaves a little longer

• take advantage of the light

• leaf out about two weeks before older trees (143)

• spring begins 2 weeks earlier near the ground than in the canopy

• cold winds

• leaves on floor create warmth as they decompose

alders

• drop bright green leaves

• fungi and bacteria break the leaves down into substances alder can use to make chlorophyll

• ash and elders similiar (144)

oak

• pull in carotene and anthocyanins

• very careful, so they drop brown, depleted leaves

conifers

• 3 species do drop their leaves

• larch, bald cypress, and dawn redwood

• spruce, pine, fir, and douglas firs

• change out their needles

• shed oldest needles

• firs keep ten years of healthy needles

• spruce keep 6 years worth

• pines keep 3 years worth

• can look sparse in winter

Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees

Page numbers in parentheses. Italics are my own questions of the text.

Chapter 17 Notes            Chapter 18 Notes          Chapter 19 Notes

Chapter 14 Notes             Chapter 15 Notes         Chapter 16 Notes

Chapter 13 Notes             Chapter 12 Notes         Chapter 11 Notes

Chapter 10 Notes             Chapter 9 Notes           Chapter 8 Notes

Chapter 7 Notes               Chapter 6 Notes           Chapter 5 Notes

Chapters 3 & 4 Notes      Chapter 2 Notes      Foreword, Introductions, and Chapter 1 Notes

Chapter 20 – Community Housing Project

• birds, martins & bats (125)

• like thick trunks

• good insulation

• woodpeckers

• hack out 1 or two inch hole

• black woodpeckers

• work on multiple holes

• one for kids, one for sleeping

• take a month long break (126)

• fungi pitches in

• fungi keeps eating deeper

• woodpecker clears it out

• until hole too big for baby birds

• woodpecker moves out

• nuthatch (127)

• moves in

• closes up the too large entrance with mud

• wood conducts sound

• works as alarm for martins or squirrels

• if the bird has young can try to distract

• rarely works

• often have to try and raise a second brood

• bats

• some species need multiple homes to raise young (128)

• some species the females raise their young together

• spend only a few days in some quarters

• have to move before parasites move in

• owls

• need larger entrance

•trees try to heal wounds

• woodpeckers just hammer new wood away

•now rotting wood

• wood ants (129)

• fungi

• beetles

• animal excrement

• feeds bloodnecked click beetle

• hermit beetles

• can live in a tree for decades

• tree as community servant

• the more species diversity the less chance one will take over

Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees

Page numbers in parentheses. Italics are my own questions of the text.

Chapter 14 Notes

Chapter 13 Notes             Chapter 12 Notes         Chapter 11 Notes

Chapter 10 Notes             Chapter 9 Notes           Chapter 8 Notes

Chapter 7 Notes               Chapter 6 Notes           Chapter 5 Notes

Chapters 3 & 4 Notes      Chapter 2 Notes      Foreword, Introductions, and Chapter 1 Notes

Chapter 15 – In The Realm of Darkness

half of the biomass of forest is in the soil (85)

• most life can not be seen by naked eye

• more life forms in a handful of forest soil than people on the planet (86) is that true?

• teaspoonful contains miles of fungal filaments

when soil first created:

extraordinary to consider that soil is something that is formed over time – not something that just exists. i’m even more dismissive of it when I think of it as simply ‘dirt’. dirt feels dead – but soil feels alive and thriving

• geological processes in ice age

• sub zero temps

• glaciers ground down fragments

• created loosely packed substrate

• bacteria fungi and plants died to form humus

• trees moved in thousands of years later

• stabilized soil with root systems

• humus grows deeper

• early stages of bituminous coal

erosion

• forests left undisturbed

• lose only 1 to 14 tons of soil per square mile annually (87)

• soil becomes deeper and richer

• growing conditions constantly improve

animals

• beetle mites, springtails, pseudocentipedes

• first link in food chain

• terrestrial plankton

• countless species waiting to be discovered

beetles (88)

• oribatid mites

• live off leaves and bark fragments, and fungi

weevils

• ‘tiny elephants’

• most species-rich family of insects in the world (89)

• eat small holes in leaves

• plant eggs

• larvae eat their way out

• some species can no longer fly

• can only travel 30 ft per year at best

• only there if undisturbed forest

• forests cleared in middle ages won’t have them

• starve and die out in altered forests

will there ever be old growth forests again (90)

• bavarian forest (national park)

• microscopic organisms can cover long distances

• (by bird)

• if there are more undisturbed forests, they can make a comeback

Lüneberg Heath (91)

• planted oaks 100 years ago

• still gaps in microscopic species

• need preserves of ancient forests

• like Hümmel (92) with mixed use

• burial sites

• restore longleaf pines in southwest usa how so?

• ancient Caledonian Forests