I was given this book, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben, as a gift from my aunt who over the years has introduced me to many of my favorite books. This one was no exception.

This fascinating work turned out to be an unlikely world-wide best seller. For one thing, it was originally written in German, a language in which few people outside of Germany are fluent enough to be able to read an entire book.  Secondly, it was about trees. At first glance, trees don’t make the most charismatic main characters – they don’t move, communicate, feel, or do anything besides grow in place. Or do they? That’s precisely why this book captivated readers around the world, and has been translated into dozens of languages. It blows apart what we thought we knew about trees and caused me, at least, to change the way I look at and think about trees and forests.  Wohlleben presents trees and their behaviors in very anthropomorphic terms, bridging the emotional gap between plants and humans.

Despite the author’s familiarity and focus on German forests, due to similar environments between Europe and New England, many of the trees that Wohlleben highlights in his book (i.e. oaks, beeches, pines, etc.) are familiar and ubiquitous here in Massachusetts as well. So the book ends up feeling a lot more local than it should.

It would be impossible to describe all the the interesting discoveries and research Wohlleben covers in his book, but here are a few of my favorite facts and insights as a preview:

• Individual trees of the same species growing nearby are connected by their root systems, and it appears that nutrient exchange and helping neighbors in times of need is the rule rather than the exception. This would imply that forests are super organisms with an interconnectedness much like ant colonies. Trees actually grow better when packed together, where nutrients and water can be optimally divided among them.

• Trees communicate with each other, through a variety of means, including olfactory, visual and electrical signals.

• “Parent” trees help “raise” their offspring that grow under their canopy by providing an upbringing of light deprivation, forcing the new sapling to grow slowly. Slow growth when the tree is young is a necessary prerequisite for that tree to live to old age, since slow growth forces the inner woody cells to develop in such a way that they are tiny and contain almost no air.  Such cell growth actually allows the tree to be flexible rather than to break during high winds and storms.

• Trees can learn, and can use the information they’ve gained to better respond to harsh environmental conditions, such as droughts, in the future.

• It turns out that urban trees that extend their roots into pipes are not looking for moisture or extra nutrients.  Instead, in an otherwise compacted-soil world, their roots are seeking out the loose soil that had not been fully compacted after construction. It is here where the roots find room to breathe and grow.

• When a tree is struck by lightning, the smoothness of its bark will often determine whether the tree will be damaged.  In smooth-trunked trees, such as beeches, the wrinkle-free surface creates a continuous film of water as the rainwater flows down the trunk. When lightning strikes a beech, the electricity travels down this outer film because the water conducts electricity much better than the tree’s wood. Oaks, however, have rough bark, and this outer film of water is discontinuous.  The path of least resistance for the electricity therefore is often through the damp wood of the outer growth rings, which can cause the sapwood to explode. This is why oaks and other rough-barked trees are more often damaged by lightning.