Into the woods
The Guardian Weekly|May 03, 2024
In the past 10 years the idea that trees communicate with and look after each other-dubbed the 'wood-wide web' - has gained widespread currency. But have these claims outstripped the evidence?
Daniel Immerwahr
Into the woods

THERE ARE A LOT OF HUMANS. Teeming is perhaps an unkind word, but when 8 billion people cram themselves onto a planet that, three centuries before, held less than a tenth of that number, it seems apt. Eight billion hot-breathed individuals, downloading apps and piling into buses and shoving their plasticky waste into bins - it is a stupefying and occasionally sickening thought.

And yet, humans are not Earth's chief occupants. Trees are. There are 3tn of them, with a collective biomass thousands of times that of humanity. But although they are the preponderant beings on Earth - outnumbering us by nearly 400 to one - they're easy to miss. Show someone a photograph of a forest with a doe peeking out from behind a maple and ask what they see. "A deer," they'll exclaim, as if the green matter occupying most of the frame were mere scenery. "Plant blindness" is the name for this. It describes the many who can distinguish hybrid dog breeds yet cannot identify an apple tree.

Admittedly, trees do not draw our attention. Apart from plopping the occasional fruit upon the head of a pondering physicist, they achieve little that is of narrative interest. They are "sessile" - the botanist's term meaning incapable of locomotion. Books about trees often have a sessile quality, too; they are informative yet aimless affairs, heavy on serenity, light on plot.

Or, at least, they were until recently. The German forester Peter Wohlleben's surprise bestseller, The Hidden Life of Trees (published in English in 2016), has inaugurated a new tree discourse, which sees them not as inert objects but intelligent subjects. Trees have thoughts and desires, Wohlleben writes, and they converse via fungi that connect their roots "like fibre-optic internet cables". The same idea pervades The Overstory, Richard Powers' celebrated 2018 novel, in which a forest scientist upends her field by demonstrating that fungal connections "link trees into gigantic, smart communities".

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 03, 2024 من The Guardian Weekly.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 03, 2024 من The Guardian Weekly.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY مشاهدة الكل
What Can America Expect From Trump 2.0
The Guardian Weekly

What Can America Expect From Trump 2.0

THE 45TH AND 47TH commander-in-chief will face fewer limits on his ambition when he is sworn in again in January.

time-read
5 mins  |
November 15, 2024
New World Order How Will Trump Reshape US Foreign Policy?
The Guardian Weekly

New World Order How Will Trump Reshape US Foreign Policy?

DURING THE FIRST TRUMP TERM, Richard Moore, then the political director of the UK Foreign Offi ce and now the head of MI6, has admitted that half of Britain’s diplomats woke up each morning dreading what they might read on the president’s Twitter feed.

time-read
5 mins  |
November 15, 2024
Seed drill: what can I make with tahini beyond just hummus?
The Guardian Weekly

Seed drill: what can I make with tahini beyond just hummus?

'Tahini has a beautiful versatility,\" says Fadi Kattan, chef/co-founder of Akub in London and author of Bethlehem, \"from a drizzle over your morning toast or granola, to an earthy background flavour in a sauce, to all sorts of cakes and cookies.\"

time-read
2 mins  |
November 15, 2024
Trump unleashed will be even worse than last time's dress rehearsal Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian Weekly

Trump unleashed will be even worse than last time's dress rehearsal Jonathan Freedland

Are you ready for Trump unbound? You may have thought the former and future president was already pretty unrestrained, not least because Donald Trump has never shown anything but brazen disrespect for boundaries or limits of any kind. And you would be right. But, as an earlier entertainer turned president – and Trump combines the two roles – liked to say: You ain’t seen nothing yet.

time-read
4 mins  |
November 15, 2024
Trump's return is bleak for America and the world
The Guardian Weekly

Trump's return is bleak for America and the world

This is an exceptionally bleak and frightening moment for the United States and the world. Donald Trump swept the electoral college and the popular vote -giving him not merely a victory, but a mandate. If many voters gambled on him in 2016, they doubled down this time.

time-read
2 mins  |
November 15, 2024
Flower Power
The Guardian Weekly

Flower Power

Once a modest sign of remembrance for the war dead, the poppy has increasingly been used as a prop for performative patriotism, and a tool that helps to gauge others' loyalty to an ideal of national sacrifice

time-read
10+ mins  |
November 15, 2024
When adult children cut the cord
The Guardian Weekly

When adult children cut the cord

Grownups who cut off contact with their family are often trying to break away after a traumatic childhood. But sometimes the estrangement can be totally unexpected for parents who really believe they've done their best

time-read
10+ mins  |
November 15, 2024
Battle lines Pyongyang's Russia entente is a dilemma for Xi Jinping
The Guardian Weekly

Battle lines Pyongyang's Russia entente is a dilemma for Xi Jinping

In October 1950, barely a year after the Chinese civil war ended, Mao Zedong sent the first Chinese soldiers to fight in the Korean war. Between 180,000 and 400,000 of Chairman Mao's troops would die in that conflict, including his own son. But it was important to defend North Korea then, Mao reportedly said, because \"without the lips, the teeth are cold\".

time-read
2 mins  |
November 15, 2024
The hospital on the frontline of unstoppable gang warfare
The Guardian Weekly

The hospital on the frontline of unstoppable gang warfare

It was mid-morning in central Port-au-Prince and already two shooting victims had been rushed into the hospital past a mural instructing visitors to leave machetes and rifles outside.

time-read
2 mins  |
November 15, 2024
Small wonders Unravelling the paradoxes of plankton
The Guardian Weekly

Small wonders Unravelling the paradoxes of plankton

Scientists are using technology to sequence the DNA of microscopic marine life for the first time-to help us learn more about ourselves

time-read
4 mins  |
November 15, 2024