We have known for many years that trees communicate with each other, that their responses to insect and/or animal attack can be picked up by other trees. We know that the attacked tree can send out warning signals to other trees and these signals can be very specific; e.g. they can differentiate between leaf eating ...
The Redwoods of Rotorua in New Zealand are arguably the most substantial and therefore the most important stand of Redwood trees outside of those on the Pacific coast of North America. Visit them you must, look but don’t touch. Over three and a half million people visit Rotorua every year. Not all of them pop ...
Star Wars has microscopic, intelligent lifeforms called midi-chlorians that live within the cells of all living beings. That’s science-fiction. Apparently, midi-chlorians influence the ‘force’, which is all important to the Star Wars story. Plants, on the other hand have micro-organisms that live between plant cells called endophytes. That’s science-fact. Endophytes can be all important to ...
A quick Google search will tell you that an ’act of God’ is an event outside human control, an event where no one can be held responsible. It’s an old-school term with legal status. I agree that people should not be held responsible for unforeseeable natural phenomenon, or even foreseeable natural phenomenon that people have ...
Recently I gave a presentation at the New Zealand Arboricultural Association conference, I pointed out that stress is an external force or an emotional condition, and that it is incorrect to say a tree is ‘stressed’ when not talking about external forces. Trees don’t get emotional. I wanted to point out that response growth can’t ...
There is a quote that goes something like, ‘You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed’. It comes from Antoine de Saint-Exupery children’s book Le Petit Prince. I’ve not read the book but the quote conjures up a someone wanting a creature and through ways or means they get it, then shortly thereafter they become ...
I have a theory that trees can’t read. My theory is based in part because I’ve never seen a tree purchase a book and in part because trees don’t always do what they are supposed to do – according to the many books about trees at least. I can think of several examples where trees ...
I accept that strange things happen – because they do, I accept that trees don’t always do what they are supposed to do – because they don’t and I am comfortable with this – because I am. What I am not comfortable with and what I can’t accept is the traditional twaddle that is done ...
Visualise if you will, a Lion’s tail; a smooth tapering tail with a tuft of fur at the end. When seen on a lion or a feather duster the silhouette is correct, it looks natural and is acceptable to the eye. But when seen on a tree, it looks un-natural, wrong even – and that’s because ...
When they say that a ‘leopard can’t change its spots’ they are not talking about the evolutionary process that lead to spots or the genetic make-up and pigmentation that created the spots that we see; they are just saying ‘it is what it is’. Trees are what they are too. Yes, you can twist and ...
