How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Bark to Leaves, Tristan Gooley (The Experiment, 2023). Okay, I admit it: I read this book because I wanted to know more about the trees in my yard. I’m afraid that’s not how Tristan Gooley means it to be used. He’s an expert in what he terms “
Yes, the passage I was also most struck by was the one on kissing branches teaching each other to be unprepared to bear weight. What kinds of help undermine the sense of weight/fragility that prompt us to build?
I was also very taken by the idea of a tree as a trace of history. We're used to thinking of it this way if you cut it down and count the rings, but I loved the ways of reading the weather and the landscape over the years from close observation of one tree.
Also, the tree in front of my house is sending up little bush-like sprouts (possibly it was trimmed for powerlines recently) and Alexi and I disagree about whether to prune them. I want to see what happens next!
> This makes perfect sense, after all, because leaves take energy to grow; there’s no point in having them anywhere they won’t capture enough light to pay back the tree’s investment.
A somewhat extreme case of this can be found in the Atlantic white-cedar, which grows so densely that often only the upper fourth or fifth of its trunk has any leaves at all. (Indeed, it absorbs so much light that its own seedlings cannot grow under it for lack of light, & so to persist in the ecosystem it depends on occasional fires or other natural disasters to clear out the existing trees & leave open space for it to sprout in.)
Good piece! I also want to second the recommendation of “Entangled Life”, probably my favorite book on fungi.
Yes, the passage I was also most struck by was the one on kissing branches teaching each other to be unprepared to bear weight. What kinds of help undermine the sense of weight/fragility that prompt us to build?
I was also very taken by the idea of a tree as a trace of history. We're used to thinking of it this way if you cut it down and count the rings, but I loved the ways of reading the weather and the landscape over the years from close observation of one tree.
Also, the tree in front of my house is sending up little bush-like sprouts (possibly it was trimmed for powerlines recently) and Alexi and I disagree about whether to prune them. I want to see what happens next!
> This makes perfect sense, after all, because leaves take energy to grow; there’s no point in having them anywhere they won’t capture enough light to pay back the tree’s investment.
A somewhat extreme case of this can be found in the Atlantic white-cedar, which grows so densely that often only the upper fourth or fifth of its trunk has any leaves at all. (Indeed, it absorbs so much light that its own seedlings cannot grow under it for lack of light, & so to persist in the ecosystem it depends on occasional fires or other natural disasters to clear out the existing trees & leave open space for it to sprout in.)
I imagine Tolkien would have liked this piece - certainly Sam G would have!