Træernes hemmelige liv

by Peter Wohlleben

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Available

Call number

582.16

Library's review

Indeholder "Forord", "Venskaber", "Træernes sprog", "Socialkontoret", "Kærlighed", "Trælotteri", "Langsom i optrækket", "Træernes takt og tone", "Træskole", "Sammen er vi stærkere", "Et gådefuldt transportsystem", "Træer står ved deres alder", "Er egetræet en vatnisse?", "Specialister",
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"Træ eller ikke træ", "I mørkets rige", "CO2-støvsugeren", "Et klimaanlæg af træ", "Skoven som vandpumpe", "Mit eller dit", "Socialt boligbyggeri", "Biodiversitetens moderskibe", "Vintersøvn", "Tidsfornemmelse", "Et spørgsmål om personlighed", "Det syge træ", "Der blive lys", "Gadebørn", "Udbrændthed", "På vej mod nord", "Temmelig resistent", "Stormfulde højder", "Indvandrere", "Den sunde skovluft", "Hvorfor er skoven grøn?", "Sat i frihed", "Biorobotter?", "Tak", "Noter".

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"Trælotteri" handler om ???
"Langsom i optrækket" handler om ???
"Træernes takt og tone" handler om ???
"Træskole" handler om ???
"Sammen er vi stærkere" handler om ???
"Et gådefuldt transportsystem" handler om ???
"Træer står ved deres alder" handler om ???
"Er egetræet en vatnisse?" handler om ???
"Specialister" handler om ???
"Træ eller ikke træ" handler om ???
"I mørkets rige" handler om ???
"CO2-støvsugeren" handler om ???
"Et klimaanlæg af træ" handler om ???
"Skoven som vandpumpe" handler om ???
"Mit eller dit" handler om ???
"Socialt boligbyggeri" handler om ???
"Biodiversitetens moderskibe" handler om ???
"Vintersøvn" handler om ???
"Tidsfornemmelse" handler om ???
"Et spørgsmål om personlighed" handler om ???
"Det syge træ" handler om ???
"Der blive lys" handler om ???
"Gadebørn" handler om ???
"Udbrændthed" handler om ???
"På vej mod nord" handler om ???
"Temmelig resistent" handler om ???
"Stormfulde højder" handler om ???
"Indvandrere" handler om ???
"Den sunde skovluft" handler om ???
"Hvorfor er skoven grøn?" handler om ???
"Sat i frihed" handler om ???
"Biorobotter?" handler om ???
"Tak" handler om ???
"Noter" handler om ???

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Tags

Publication

[Kbh.] : People's Press, 2016.

Description

Are trees social beings? Forester and author Peter Wohlleben makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers. Wohlleben also shares his deep love of woods and forests, explaining the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in his woodland.

Media reviews

New Scientist
Wohlleben's anecdotes are engaging, but sadly his book contains only a few.

User reviews

LibraryThing member southernbooklady
I had actually been avoiding this because I was leery of what looked like its blatant, unapologetic anthropomorphism. Its "woo woo" feel. The author describes forests as communities, trees as having friendships, personalities, parenting skills. He talks about the way they hear, feel, touch, talk.
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Even love. Really, it's enough to drive a person nuts.

But...as it turns out, Wohlleben takes this approach deliberately, in order to make his readers do one very specific thing -- let go of the instinctive hierarchy we all implicitly assume exists between the plant and animal kingdoms. And between humans, and all the rest of life on earth. So when he discusses the difference between a solitary tree planted in a park setting that rarely lives up to its potential girth or age and the tree in a forest setting surrounded by many others of the same species which lives longer and grows stronger, as the difference between being raised on the streets and being raised in a good stable family -- he's not exactly imposing human centric concepts on an oak tree. He's really trying to get the reader to view the plant world -- the tree world -- as something dynamic, sensitive and responsive to its own environment, participatory and engaged in that environment. And that is something that is surely true, even if the language of intention he often falls into makes me squirm.

But then, people tend to regard themselves as apart from the ecosystem. They are, one might say, unempathetic, blind and deaf to the pulse of other kinds of life. So they do not consider it a moral problem to, say, cut down a tree, because in a human's mind, they are not "hurting" anything. Wohlleben's book is basically an extended explanation and description of how someone hurts a tree-- and the forest -- by cutting it down. In the world of trees, the book would probably come with warning labels for graphic violence.

But it is all science -- all a detailed account of how a wounded tree attempts to heal itself, what happens if it can't, what happens when opportunistic species -- fungi, bugs, critters, (people!), exploit a weakness. And the science, it has to be said, is absolutely fascinating. Do you know, I never realized that the circulatory system of trees which brings water up and down the trunk -- explained to me in grade school as "osmosis and capillary action" -- is not understood? That neither osmosis nor capillary action can account for the amount of water that has to be pushed up sometimes hundreds of feet, gallons at a time. And in fact we just don't know how trees do it.

Wohlleben packs a lot of truly very cool scientific research into what is really a quick and very readable book, and if he is sometimes a little too speculative on what all that research is telling us, nevertheless he succeeds in what he set out to do: convince the reader that if we want to understand and be awake to the rhythms of life around us, then distinctions between plant and animal are arbitrary and not particularly useful.
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LibraryThing member elenchus
Wohlleben's collection is eminently readable: an essay typically runs six octavo pages; focuses on a central concept with multiple and specific (often personal) examples; and deploys a conversational style without (at least for me) patronising. While the result is a collection of interrelated
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pieces, they don't build into a linear argument so much as assemble a mosaic.

It's readable, then, but difficult to summarize efficiently. In effect, Wohlleben's already done that work, presenting a condensed version of recent research, and his spare footnotes demonstrate there's a lot more behind it.

The beauty of the book is its showcase of startling concepts, which after parading by suggest a new view of the world around us. This glimpse isn't entirely new, it evokes that old metaphor of a living world long relegated to fabulism or myth, or children's fable, and Wohlleben seems to gently shake the reader, "No, it really is that way, see for yourself".

//

● The "wood wide web", the forest network of tree roots & fungi linking individual trees into community
(analogous to the interstitium, connected to human lymphatic system, now considered a major organ)
● Individual trees exhibit behavior analogous to: communicating threats through scents & electrical impulses,
activating defenses keyed to attacking species,
sharing water & nutrients with neighbouring trees,
providing deferential treatment to related trees
● Trees in isolation (street kids) behave differently than those in community (forest)
● Forests generate & maintain their own microclimates
● Forests are terrestrial water pumps; coastal forests play an especially important role for all inland climates
● Trees hibernate in winter; individual trees (of the same species, in the same location) will choose idiosyncratic timing for
budding out,
leaf drop,
moving water from branches to roots in Autumn, from roots to branches in Spring
● When breaking into water pipes and cisterns, city tree roots more often seeking loose soil than moisture;
the compacted earth is a barrier to establishing a proper root system
● Science cannot account for the volume of water moved in adult tree trunks:
capillary action, transpiration, osmosis explain but a fraction of water moved
especially in Spring or Autumn
● Electrical impulses similar to that of human bioelectricity, but much slowe
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LibraryThing member steve02476
I enjoyed the book, and learned a lot — I think, anyway. I don’t entirely trust the science here. Scientists have been learning incredible things about trees lately, for sure. My guess is that everything in this book is backed by a science paper or two (there are some footnotes) but I’m not
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confident that it’s all settled science, or that we are given sufficient context for all the marvelous things described. (The author is a forester, not a scientist.) Also, the anthropomorphism has kind of run amok, I fear. Maybe it’s really pretty true that in some cases “mother” trees are “caring” for their young. Such a wonderful way to see it! But I think he’s gone out on a limb (!) saying that trees have emotions, as he does in the last chapter. Who knows, maybe depending on how you define emotion, maybe this could conceivably be true. But I think it’s a stretch, I doubt any rigorous science really indicates an emotional life for trees.

I’d like to read a book, covering the same basic subject matter, by a well recognized biologist who specializes in trees and is also a good writer. Maybe Hope Jahren?
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LibraryThing member LynnB
I learned a lot from this book, so on balance, I'm glad I read it. My criticism is that the author seemed to be unable to decide whether he was writing for a well-informed audience or for people like me with little knowledge of botany. This lead to a mix of scientific facts (with little supporting
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evidence) and chatty personification, which I found irritating. If you were to make a movie from this book, you could choose to make a documentary or an animated story. I would have preferred a more straightforward approach to the science -- leaving the personification to a concluding chapter. Yes, leave the personification in; it prods us to discard the hierarchy of people above animals above plants that we tend to fall into.
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LibraryThing member Othemts
Peter Wohlleben, a forester from Germany, writes a series of essays about trees - how they communicate, how they feel, how they handle the stress. If you've never thought that trees can do these things, you're in for a treat. Fungal networks in the roots allow individual trees to communicate with
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other trees in the forests. In fact, trees can even scream. They have to deal with the strains of storms breaking their limbs, animals chipping away their bark, and fungi invading their interior. If you like trees, or even just enjoy a nice walk in the wood, this book is a great guide to the hidden world of what is going on around you.

Favorite Passages:
"most individual trees of the same species growing in the same stand are connected to each other through their root systems. It appears that nutrient exchange and helping neighbors in times of need is the rule, and this leads to the conclusion that forests are superorganisms with interconnections much like ant colonies."

"They love nutrient-rich, loose, crumbly soil that is well aerated to a depth of many feet. The ground should be nice and moist, especially in summer. But it shouldn’t get too hot, and in winter, it shouldn’t freeze too much. Snowfall should be moderate but sufficient that when the snow melts, it gives the soil a good soaking. Fall storms should be moderated by sheltering hills or mountain ridges, and the forest shouldn’t harbor too many fungi or insects that attack bark or wood. If trees could dream of an earthly paradise, this is what it would look like. But apart from a few small pockets, these ideal conditions are nowhere to be found. And that is a good thing for species diversity."

"Today’s deposits of these fossil fuels come from trees that died about 300 million years ago. They looked a bit different—more like 100-foot-tall ferns or horsetail—but with trunk diameters of about 6 feet, they rivaled today’s species in size. Most trees grew in swamps, and when they died of old age, their trunks splashed down into stagnant water, where they hardly rotted at all. Over the course of thousands of years, they turned into thick layers of peat that were then overlain with rocky debris, and pressure gradually turned the peat to coal. Thus, large conventional power plants today are burning fossil forests. Wouldn’t it be beautiful and meaningful if we allowed our trees to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors by giving them the opportunity to recapture at least some of the carbon dioxide released by power plants and store it in the ground once again?"

"Wood fibers conduct sound particularly well, which is why they are used to make musical instruments such as violins and guitars. You can do a simple experiment to test for yourself how well these acoustics work. Put your ear up against the narrow end of a long trunk lying on the forest floor and ask another person at the thicker end to carefully make a small knocking or scratching sound with a pebble. On a still day, you can hear the sound through the trunk incredibly clearly, even if you lift your head. Birds use this property of wood as an alarm system for their nesting cavities."

"Every trunk is different. Each has its own pattern of woody fibers, a testament to its unique history. This means that, after the first gust—which bends all the trees in the same direction at the same time—each tree springs back at a different speed. And usually it is the subsequent gusts that do a tree in, because they catch the tree while it’s still severely bowed and bend it over again, even farther this time. But in an intact forest, every tree gets help. As the crowns swing back up, they hit each other, because each of them is straightening up at its own pace. While some are still moving backwards, others are already swinging forward again. The result is a gentle impact, which slows both trees down. By the time the next gust of wind comes along, the trees have almost stopped moving altogether and the struggle begins all over again."

"Chlorophyll helps leaves process light. If trees processed light super-efficiently, there would be hardly any left over—and the forest would then look as dark during the day as it does at night. Chlorophyll, however, has one disadvantage. It has a so-called green gap, and because it cannot use this part of the color spectrum, it has to reflect it back unused. This weak spot means that we can see this photosynthetic leftover, and that’s why almost all plants look deep green to us. What we are really seeing is waste light, the rejected part that trees cannot use. Beautiful for us; useless for the trees. Nature that we find pleasing because it reflects trash?"

"I, for one, welcome breaking down the moral barriers between animals and plants. When the capabilities of vegetative beings become known, and their emotional lives and needs are recognized, then the way we treat plants will gradually change, as well. Forests are not first and foremost lumber factories and warehouses for raw material, and only secondarily complex habitats for thousands of species, which is the way modern forestry currently treats them. Completely the opposite, in fact."
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LibraryThing member Stbalbach
The Hidden Life of Trees is a fantastic little big book. It's little in length but big on new perspective and ideas. Originally published in German, Peter Wohlleben is an ex-forestry manager who decided to look beyond the typical knowledge of trees. He is a lifetime close observer who sees trees as
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a form of animal with memory, sensory input, paternal instincts. His basis is recent science.The other great thing is Wohlleben projects a sense of mystery about trees, he's like a Gandalf character speaking about the Ents, but always remaining grounded in the facts. Great stuff and great book.
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LibraryThing member starbox
I read this at a chapter a day for 36 days and learnt so much! This is written for the total layman, though the sheer quantity of info means it needs digersting slowly.
Having largely regarded trees as big, stationary objects ("can they FEEL?") ...I now see them as much more. They can HELP each
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other, providing transfusions of nutrients from the robust to the sickly. They can COMMUNICATE - one tree being preyed on can alert others, so by the time the creature has moved on, they have added some nasty-tasting chemical to their leaves. Having always assured the granddaughter that they slurp up water through roots like a straw- Wohlleben asks the very valid question "aqnd what propels it up to the top of a gisant sequoia?" ...and admits we dont fully know.
The author- a forestry manager- considers all kinds of questions- the dangers (and benefits) of bugs, fungus; the difference between ancient woodlands and recent plantations; how species adapt to changes in climate...
Very very interesting and I've bought his other works to further inform myself...we sure do live in an amazing world!
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LibraryThing member tonysomerset
A well structured and easy read through a series of revelations after revelations of how trees interact with the space they occupy and with each other. Just managing to mostly side-stepping overt anthropomorphism. Once read you will never ever look at trees in the same light again. They will no
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longer be just a tree. The underlying theme that comes out so strongly is 'interconnectedness' of not just Nature in a broad brush sense but at every level down to the smallest cell, co-operating reacting or defending against other cells and back up to the big organism, plants, animals, man, trees, weather systems and the climate we all depend. All is connected. It is just that with trees the timescale is beyond our ready comprehension. their timescale is measured in our generations.

It is an easy read inviting you to glide along effortlessly as you are led deep and deeper into the marvels that are trees. This is then perhaps its weakness, to keep it easy reading it is light on the scientific support for claims that some might find startling,erring on the absurd. Do trees really talk to each other? The scientific justification is hinted at but with insufficient detail to be able to critic the soundness of the studies referred to. So a highly speculative romanticised look at trees or a well researched look combing all the latest evolving knowledge. Your choice, but I challenge you to walk past another tree and just dismiss it as a tree.
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LibraryThing member auntmarge64
One thing's for sure: I'll never look at trees and forests in the same way again. The variety of means trees use to communicate with one another and the lengths they go to nourish each other is stunning, and while there will be doubts about whether this is done in any deliberate sense, the same
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thing might be said by alien species watching us from afar. Individual trees can learn, plan, and cooperate with others of their own kind . Do they have memory, emotions, intelligence? How would that affect the divisions we have laid on the natural world: plant, animal, and the in-betweens? Trees live on such a different time scale than us that our species, with our short lives and even shorter attention spans, can barely comprehend the patterns of behavior they share among themselves and with fungi, animals, and other inhabitants of the forest and ground.

How do we define a tree? By the area of it above the ground or below, where up to half of its biomass is hidden? There is a case to be made for considering at least some aspen groves as one individual, as with Pando, a clonal colony of a single male quaking aspen determined to be a single living organism by identical genetic markers and assumed to have one massive underground root system. The plant occupies 106 acres, and its root system, at an estimated 80,000 years old, is among the oldest known living organisms (adapted from Wikipedia). How are we to put this into our own context?

Before blooming, deciduous agree among themselves. Should they go for it next spring, or would it be better to wait a year or two? "Trees in a forest prefer to bloom at the same time so that the genes of many individual trees can be well mixed...When a pollen grain lands on a stigma, its genes are activated and it grows a delicate tube down to the ovary in search of an egg. As it is doing this, the tree tests the genetic makeup of the pollen and, if it matches its own, blocks the tube."

Despite all the planning done for storing up energy, producing young, etc., if the normal order of things are disturbed by weather, insects, overgrowth by other species, logging, or a plethora of other events, action can be taken by either the tree or an interdependent organism. For instance, lack of nutrients might cause a fungi to release a toxin into the soil to kill off a different type of organism and therefore release nitrogen to fertilize both tree and fungi.

"There are more life forms in a handful of forest soil than there are people on the plant." A tree without a forest is unable to take advantage of the life that would make it its healthiest, and it is doomed to a short existence (by tree standards, if not our own).

And here's something I didn't know, even surrounded by deciduous trees: leaf colors in autumn indicate what nutrients are being withdrawn back into the tree to help it winter over and plan for the following spring. Oaks (which surround my house) make use of every little scrap, which is why the leaves are just a dull brown by the time they fall.

Wohlleben's writing is geared to the non-specialist, and he has a sense of humor, too. Includes a note section and an extensive index.
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LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Trees talk. Their conversations may not amount to much more than, “Yikes, pests!” or “Sure is cold!” but this amounts to loquaciousness in life-forms we used to treat as insensate. Moreover, at least in a forest, trees act communally. They sometimes share resources. They nurture their
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young. They work together to fend off infestations. All within the broader context of the competition of all against all. There’s a lot going on in the forest, if you can see it amongst all those trees.

Peter Wohlleben is a forest custodian in Germany. He draws on years of experience tending both planted and old-growth forests. He also makes reference to the latest scientific research in extensive notes. His observations of arboreal behaviour, though they may at first sound remarkable, have very solid foundations. If his language in describing these behaviours strays into pathetic fallacy — attributing human intentions and emotions to non-human objects, animals, or, in this case, flora — that may be both understandable and deliberate. For he does have an agenda, though not a particularly hidden one. He is making a case for the unimpeded development of large swaths of old-growth forest. Unimpeded by harvesters and the incessant tidiers who mistakenly wish to remove dead trees rather than let them decay naturally, providing homes to thousands of species as they transition back into humus to feed future generations of trees.

One of the things that comes across most strikingly here is the contrast in scale between humans and trees. Most of the trees that Wohlleben considers have natural life-spans of well over 400 years (some stretch to 1000 years or more). That makes almost anything that looks like a disaster in a human timeframe a mere inconvenience. Droughts, floods, global climate change, plagues of insects — trees have to simply weather them. And in most cases they do. Even evolutionary adaptation works differently when it may be as much as 700 years between generations. Trees need a different approach to adaptation than fruit flies, and apparently they have one.

The writing here is fresh and accessible. It is never burdened by the science (references are relegated to endnotes for the curious). And since Wohlleben is often referring to his direct experience in the forests that he manages, his observations come across as heartfelt and genuine. He is someone who actually cares about the trees in his care.

You will walk through your local forest with a renewed appreciation after reading this book.

Gently recommended.
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LibraryThing member Lisa2013
I want/wanted to read about trees. I started another tree book, [book:Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest|54976983], and it was by someone from a logging family and I didn’t feel like reading a biography of a human/humans even if only a small part of the book and even
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this book starts off by a person who participated/participates in using trees. I got really tired of reading the sentences that start with or include “The forest I manage…” I’d love to read a tree book by an expert who is a pure nature lover and not someone whose current or past perspective includes trees for humans to use or to manage. Maybe [author:Bill McKibben|43861] was right though. Ever since I read his book [book:The End of Nature|1318899] in the 80s I’ve never been able to look at “nature” in the same way and maybe we’ve altered everything so much that we’re interconnected with trees to the point where we can’t be separated. I do wonder about the anthropomorphizing though. Maybe I will have to read that other book and hopefully more tree books to cross reference the information. I’m fascinated. Maybe I need to read a very recent and up to date botany book about trees.

Overall though this is a beautifully written book. The most interesting facts for me were the ones about the trees’/forests’ elaborate ecosystems.

Reading about natural forests makes me want to go see the redwoods or the sequoias and I’m afraid I’ll enjoy my local trees less than I have. Heavily managed and relatively recently planted, they could very well be hindered in being the “natural trees” we all like to assume they are.

The trees information is fascinating and I learned a lot. He seems to know his subject matter though I do also want to read other books about trees to hopefully cover some of the same material and maybe learn even more than I did from this book, which I have to say is a lot. He does care about various forest/trees ecosystems and describes them in detail. It really is amazing. There is sort of some nature left, even if not untainted by humans on the planet.

The (too few) black pen/ink illustrations of trees are lovely. There aren’t very many of them though. I read a Kindle e-edition borrowed from my public library so I don’t know if it has all the pictures that are in the paper edition(s).

To sum up: I wanted to love this book but it just did not work for me. I do have quibbles with some of what is presented and how it’s presented, but mostly it’s probably not the book’s fault. I was hoping to even better appreciate the trees in the parklands I see on a regular basis but what I’m left with is some curiosity still unsatisfied and some sadness. I think maybe what would work for me is an on-site class, perhaps a walking through the trees class with an expert good at teaching.

2-1/2 stars for this book, rounded down because my reading experience was disappointing. Not a good start to my 2022 reading year. I hope that things improve.

ETA: (in addition to correcting typos): Because of the way information is presented I’m not sure I can trust all of the facts. I need to read that other book and more books and information from legitimate sites on the web too.
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LibraryThing member PDCRead
Copses and wood seem static places, only changing as the seasons ebb and flow. The forests of Europe and the UK have inspired writers, built towns and fleets and provide food warmth and shelter for millennia. But all is not as it seems in this wooded world, as Wohlleben details in his book with the
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latest research and understanding of just how a tree is created, grows and dies. The science behind these ground-breaking new discoveries is revealing a secret world of communication, nurture and microclimates. The environment that they create from the roots to the tips of the crown is carefully controlled, they shelter young trees from fierce summer sun, pass nutrients through the fungal webs in the ground and protect each other from the battering in winter storms. There is details on how they manage to pump gallons of water high into the air; something that is not fully understood yet and how they react to when you hack a branch off. No wonder they can live five times longer than us.

He is deeply passionate about woods and forests, something that is evident from the very first chapter. The science that he reveals is almost unbelievable really, but it is backed up with solid evidence and examples; but there is still so much that we do not know or understand. As he has come to understand the deep complexity of these individual trees, and the forest as a whole, he has changed from being a logger to a forest ambassador and arguing that maintaining and enjoying the forests in a sustainable way is the best for us and the forests. Forests add so much to our health and our lives, and more importantly the well-being of our planet and this philosophy is as beneficial to us as it is to the management of the forests. This is a well written call to learn to love our wooded areas once again.
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LibraryThing member JaredOrlando
CONCLUSION: WE KNOW BASICALLY NOTHING ABOUT ANYTHING.

Peter Wohlleben has been working close to trees for most of his life, and is an excellent source for how trees speak. The Hidden Life is a treasure trove of anthropomorphic leanings, ones that make us look deeper at our world, and how we respond
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and live in it.
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LibraryThing member Bookish59
Wow! A stunner of a book revealing secrets of how trees live long lives, and what causes them to die prematurely. I didn't know about and was amazed to learn of the 'social' network of support in a forest to assist each other with help from fungus and other organisms.

This gem of a book is rich in
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information that can be overwhelming to most readers. For me this means purchasing this book is a must because I've always adored trees, and this beautiful book already has and will continue to teach me more about how trees communicate, suffer, heal, and effect the environment and people.
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LibraryThing member MeisterPfriem
You will never look at trees and woods with the same eyes again after reading this book: it literary opens your eyes and you become sensitive to features you had simply not been aware of. When first opening the book its popular language made me skeptical: it is however well researched, its sources
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are listed and an Index provided. It is a young research area and much more information about the lives of trees is to be expected in the future. Two small points: The drawing supposedly of a „Birch“ is never a birch tree; it looks like a tree of the genus ‚prunus‘. And, considering European readers of this American-English translation, temperatures should also be given in degrees centigrade and heights in meters. (VI-17)
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LibraryThing member 2wonderY
Fascinating! Some of what he writes is hard to believe. Can't quite tell if wishful thinking stretches the science. But his ecology of coastlands makes all kinds of sense. I hope people who can adopt these practices are listening.
LibraryThing member LaPhenix
What an incredible read! Wohlleben's book is absolutely brimming with enlightening details about the next of trees and forests. His experience raises so many questions about what we think we know about plants and nature in general. I'm eager to read what further research will reveal.
LibraryThing member SonoranDreamer
Trees are people, forests are community. This book is for anyone who loves green beings. Trees aren't so different than us.
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Peter Wohlleben manages commercial forests in his native Germany, which has given him the opportunity to amass a lifetime of observations of trees at all stages of their life cycles. His sole has also given him access to a huge body of research papers from all around the world.

The premise of the
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book is extremely simple, yet remarkable in its impact. Naturally occurring forests (as opposed to those generated principally for commercial yield) are highly connected, delicate networks, in which individual trees actively collaborate with each other. He cites examples such as African acacia. These are particularly vulnerable to giraffes, which will eat the higher placed leaves. The tree can sense this happening and responds by releasing a hormone which is borne by the wind to neighbouring acacia trees. These neighbouring acacia plants will then release a bitter tasting toxin into their leaves, which will deter the giraffes. Of course, evolution being the wonder that it is, giraffes have developed ways of countering this, starting with one acacia and then moving upwind, so that the warning hormone will be of no avail.

Wohlleben produces a vast array of equally amazing examples of trees’ proactive engagement with their surroundings, and the manner in which individual trees will interact with fellows, both within and beyond their own species, for the greater good of the wider forest.it is down to such constructive collaboration that some of the great ancient forests have survived.

Knowing precious little about the biology of trees I found this book fascinating, although it was not without its petty annoyances. Wohlleben is clearly very knowledgeable on his subject, but seemed unsure whether he was writing for an equally well-informed audience or for people like myself who are largely ignorant of the technicalities of botany. This led to an irritating mix of the scientific with the patronisingly chatty, which I found simply irritating. I would have preferred a straightforward, technical account, without attempts at happyish humour with talk of tree love happening every year, or other syrupy attempts to make the book humorous. I was certainly left wondering whether all the critics whose encomia were splattered all over the cover had read the same book as me: this was an enjoyable and informative volume, but fell rather short of being ‘a paradigm-smashing chronicle of joyous entanglement’, as Charles Foster asserts!
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LibraryThing member jefware
can trees feel? Can they think? A German naturalist will get you questioning everything you thought you knew about trees.
LibraryThing member AlisonY
I had a love/hate relationship with this book.

On the positive, undoubtedly there was a lot of interesting information in this book about the 'laws of the forest', from the critical role that fungi play to how trees help to sustain each other. However, there were a number of things that didn't work
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for me.

Firstly, it seemed at times that Peter Wohlleben seemed to see no division between scientific facts and things he believes to be true. He may well be right, but I'd rather know that something is a fact rather than an opinion.

Secondly, I can see what he was trying to do in weaving fantasy and storytelling into this book to bring alive the magic of the forests, but it started to grate on me after a while that nothing could be described simply in the context of botany or entomology or forestry. I don't think we need to humanise trees or plants or insects to make them interesting. It's interesting enough to understand the science of how trees protect each other in adverse weather by virtue of their positioning in relation to each other, for example - I don't need to think of them as a family protecting each other. Finally, there seemed to be a lot of repetition to fill the book. What was interesting the first time around became dull and a slog the third or fourth time I read about it.

3 stars - my enjoyment level was probably more on a 2 star level, but I'm awarding an extra star for the base facts which I did enjoy learning about.
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LibraryThing member james.d.gifford
This is a very pleasurable read, easily fit into night-time reading with its usually short chapters and clear prose. The content will be a surprise, and the "hidden life" is fascinating. There are some moments of fairly heavy anthropomorphism or suggestions that evolution is intentional, but for a
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mainstream title this isn't really a problem. I'll certainly recommend it as great pleasure read.
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LibraryThing member hardlyhardy
Trees feel pain. They scream, even if we cannot hear them. Trees can learn. They have a sense of taste and a sense of hearing. They are social beings and can communicate messages to other trees. They sleep at night. Like human couples planning the best time to have a baby, trees plan their own
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procreation. Then they nurse their young.

So says German forester Peter Wohlleben in his remarkable book “The Hidden Life of Trees,” published in Germany in 2015 and translated into English in 2016. True, he may be guilty of a bit of anthropomorphism, but his essential points are supported by the work of researchers and by his own observations over decades spent in European forests.

Observing trees is difficult because everything they do they do slowly. They can live hundreds, even thousands of years, especially in dense forests where they are protected from the wind and have the company of others of the same species. So time moves slowly for trees, and they react slowly to change. When assaulted by insects, for example, they can sense the attack and send out toxins to their bark and leaves that taste so bad the insects will depart. In the case of oaks, their toxins can even kill the marauders. But this sending of messages and toxins through limbs and branches can take a long time moving at a rate of a third of an inch per minute.

Much of what people have long thought about trees is wrong, Wohlleben writes. We think they will do better alone, out in the sunshine and some distance away from other trees. Not so. We think healthy young trees grow quickly. Again, not so. Those trees that live the longest are those that grow very slowly during their earliest decades, mostly in the shade of older trees.

Wohlleben's book, relatively short, brims not just with amazing facts about trees but also with advice for humans with regard to growing trees, harvesting trees and enjoying trees. The blood pressure of forest visitors, he writes, "rises when they are under conifers, whereas it calms down and falls in stands of oaks. Why don't you take the test for yourself and see in what type of forest you feel most comfortable?"

And while there don't do anything to make a tree scream. This book convinces us that their comfort is important, too.
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LibraryThing member MikeDI
Fascinating book by someone who has lived his life among trees. I gained a much greater understanding of tree life from Mr. Wohlleben's observations. I've always believed that plants and animals have a greater awareness than'science' gives them credit for. Recent writings seem to bare this out.
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Highly recommended to anyone who has an open mind.
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LibraryThing member ajlewis2
I read 12% of the book and it seemed disjointed to me. There was some interesting information in what I read, but I had trouble seeing how it actually fit together and felt lost swimming in unrelated facts. I had not expected that sort of presentation and was disappointed and stopped reading.

Language

Original language

German

Original publication date

2015
2016 (english)

Physical description

215 p.; 22.5 cm

ISBN

9788771598766

Local notes

Omslag: Rasmus Funder
Omslagsfotografi: Miriam Dalsgaard
Omslaget viser forfatteren der ligger under et træ og kigger op
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra tysk "Das geheime Leben der Bäume" af Anette Broberg Knudsen

Pages

215

Library's rating

Rating

½ (605 ratings; 4)

DDC/MDS

582.16
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