Mother Tree
The trees learned to be silent. They learned that they were not exempt from man’s wrath the day that the first axe hit the first tree. In a last-ditch effort, they sewed up their mouths and hid beneath the ground. Beneath the ground, the trees could speak freely. Uninhibited by corporate greed and the adoration for lumber yards, paper mills and palm seed oil.
Silently, they learned to call each other by name and to send pulses of information in a chain spanning the length of every continent. The concept of the mother tree arose; women being tasked as the caretaker even in a kingdom entirely unknown. While the concept seems like it could be written into fairytales, studies are coming forward one after the next after the next.
The plants know each other very well. So well, in fact, that they recognize plants of the same species as them and will send extra nutrients to ailing plants and even cause their own death to prevent an infection of their entire population.
I mean, are we really surprised? Plants evolved 500 million years ago. That gave plants approximately 499, 700,000 years to devise a plan on how they would escape the conquests of an industrial world. And somehow, we have still managed to place ourselves at the center of discovering a new form of communication.
A Rhizosphere
One step, two steps, stumble across the branch in the trail. One step, two steps, feel the soil pulse beneath your boots. The rumble of hundreds of fibrous roots pulsing just inches under your feet. Perhaps the oak tree, whose root you’ve just tripped over, is appalled. And perhaps this same oak tree has started a silent game of telephone deep within what they call the rhizosphere.
Not unlike our own, the rhizosphere is another realm for the beings that twist, creep, break and blossom throughout the dark soils of a rich forest. Each plant has its own rhizosphere, a space surrounding its vast root system that is under the control of the biochemical commands the plants yell out. Each of these rhizospheres, when combined, create a larger network of entangled connections. I’m sure if they taught how to speak the language of plants on Duolingo, any passerby would be taken aback by the cacophony coming from the ground on any given day.
Smoke Signals
Four broad rectangles arranged like Lincoln logs in a brick-framed hole outside. Pale smoke rises higher into the air, drifting just past my eyes before dissipating into particles lodged somewhere in the atmosphere. Each of these rectangles started as a seed the size of my pinky nail, living the grand life of a pine, an oak or perhaps a maple before being diced into perfectly square cut logs neatly wrapped in plastic and labelled “bundle of warmth.” And while they are more than sufficient at keeping my toes warm on a chilly evening in April, I would like to think that a tree that went through all the trouble to grow and contribute to a rich forest somewhere should be valued more than a “bundle of warmth.”
I don’t mean to come off as cynical, of course all of humanity was built on the bark of hardwoods like these. From the first fire, to the first ships capable of traveling across entire oceans, to my own front door, wood is a necessity to say the least. But as I sit around this fire, watching the last breath of whatever tree these logs came from send smoke signals back into the universe, a last hurrah of sorts, I can’t help but think of what conversations are stored between each of the dozens of concentric rings melting beneath the flames.
Each ring has its own story. Besides telling us how old that specific tree is, which is pretty incredible on its own, each ring also shares a weather record and the natural disasters the tree lived through. As if slicing through the skull of the tree, a full view of the tree rings is like getting a look at the very core of all the trees memories.
It is truly mind boggling that we can observe the memories that maybe even the tree itself has blocked out at this point. 56 years ago the summer was too cold? The dark ring that is thinner than all the others will tell the story of an August that didn’t quite get enough sun. The fire that scorched the forest 30 years ago? The scars of a close-call are recorded in the blackened ring several inches from the bark. The winter 22 years ago didn’t have much snow? The broad light ring will tell the tale of a year without winter. Almost intentionally, the trees memories, life and legacy are preserved in stone: a tombstone for a life well lived.
An Unsung Hero
As a kid, I always found joy laying in the grass behind my house. I could lay there for hours, taking in the sun or watching the stars pass by. The sky of my childhood home is tattooed on the back of my eyelids. Even into adulthood, I’ve found myself laying in the grass on a cool summer evening, enjoying the soft pillow of grass, the earthy smell of soil, and the support of the ground beneath my body.
If you close your eyes you can feel it. The pulsing beneath the layers of grass. The sound of a language foreign to us. In the roots of each plant, electrical pulses, phytohormones, and chemical signals are flowing like waves through densely packed mud. Not in a rapid flash of electricity, but in a slow pulse, beating like a weathered heart. These pulses relay stories of hope and of despair. Stories of an oak tree that is sick and dying and of a jewelweed sending nutrients to its less fortunate neighbor.
While each signal makes an impact in the rhizosphere surrounding the root, they’re too weak to travel very far on their own. Over time, a mycorrhizal system developed that consists of an intricate relationship between fungi and plant roots. The fungi make life possible. Trees, especially those that found a way to become enormous statues of the forest, rely deeply on these mycorrhizal networks. The fungi attach to tree roots and allow the roots to absorb water and nutrients at a rate that allows the tree to outcompete her siblings. Sometimes, the fungi even offer complimentary pathogen resistance to protect the root system and ultimately the tree itself.
Of course, the fungus is well compensated for her time. In return, the tree provides a safe substrate for the fungi to latch on to and a fair share of the excess glucose produced by photosynthesis. With a belly full of glucose, the fungus happily continues to serve the tree roots for years. I like to think of their relationship as a work for room and board kind of situation.
Tree School
- Acacia trees that fall prey to a hungry giraffe send electrical pulses to tell their Acacia friends to produce a higher concentration of tannins to make the giraffe sick and protect the greater population.
- Programmed cell death: a scary term used to describe how trees will quite literally kill portions of themselves, or their entire self, to prevent pathogens from infecting their neighbors. Charming if you think about it.
- A Bristlecone Pine tree, named Prometheus, was found to be the oldest tree in existence, around 4800 years old. This was only determined in 1964 when an all too eager grad student cut it down to determine its age.
- The water columns in trees will burst in extreme drought, creating an ultrasonic squeal at a frequency too high for humans to hear.
- Elms and pines are in constant warfare, always at risk for an attack from leaf-eating caterpillars. When attacked, they release pheromones that sound an alarm for their allies, the parasitic wasp, to lay eggs that eat these caterpillars from the inside out.
- Everyone loves a well-cooked salmon. Studies show that when bears leave their salmon carcasses at the base of trees, the distinct salmon nitrogen is found in tree tissues and ultimately in the deep mycorrhizal fungi beneath the tree. Furthering my idea of a work for room and board relationship.
Root-Based Brain
Is it arrogant for the human mind to assume that the only source of intellect and knowledge comes from the human brain, any animal’s brain if we are being generous? Honestly, after four years of treacherous scientific papers and lectures that have threatened to explode my skull, I have a reasonable doubt for any theory, hypothesis or explanation that comes from science. Science is only correct until its proven wrong, which in that case I have a hard time deeming it correct in the first place.
The trees have been talking all along, we just haven’t been listening. Honestly, I can’t wrap my head around it either. I can read every scientific paper, every peer reviewed journal, talk to the tree scientists myself. I can whisper to the trees and wait for hours listening for a response that I can only assume happens deep within the soil. Conceptually, it makes sense. Realistically, impossible. Truly, I’m upset that my brain has been taught, conditioned, hardwired to view language and intellect as a human concept. In the back of my mind, I can’t help but think that buried deep in the center of our planet, perhaps there is a brain so far beyond human comprehension that it’s made of tree roots.
Circle of life
At the end of days, the mycelial threads commit the ultimate betrayal. Once the tree has lived its life and passes on, the fungus takes over. Taking full advantage of a newfound corpse, the fungus rapidly takes over, decomposing its supposed friend. But before the tree left, she left an acorn, a pinecone, or maybe a samara. Her dying wish for a new tree’s life. Once the seedling emerges, I can only hope the mycelium will tell her the legacy of her mother: the incredible talking tree.
Meghan Morral is a recent graduate of Conservation Biology, Class of 2022.
