Tree buffs have known since 2015, when the English language edition of a German book, The Hidden Lives of Trees, was published, that the respect many feel for trees isn’t only explicable but should be universal. The book describes how trees can ‘talk’ to each other via chemical messages sent along underground networks of fungal threads, warning, for example, of insect attack or drought. Trees can then react in self-defence – for example by producing toxins to deter insects. Trees mind out for each other and for the environment, attracting rainfall and renewing the soil, and when dead, ...
There are approximately 649 more words in this article.
To read the rest of this article, please buy this issue, or join the Resurgence Trust. As a member you will receive access to the complete archive of magazines from May 1966.
If you are already a member, please Sign in
