Understanding the mysterious world of trees

THE tree world is also one of fierce competition, like ours, but their timespan, if trees are allowed to grow at their own space, as in natural undisturbed forests, go onto hundreds of years.

- By Surya VisHWwA

A ‘youthful’ tree with amorous flirty branches will be giving leafy ‘winks’ at the sky at the youthful age of 100 years. Trees also develop ‘wrinkles’ with the advancement of time and get ‘bald’ around the crown and ‘wide’ around the midriff —just like our grandpas and grandmas. They can also get prone to ‘acne’ like conditions formed through bacteria and diverse fungi just like humans. Although there is endless competition for resources such as water and sunlight, the philanthropy of forest beings seem more gracious than humans.

Trees like humans need ‘sugar,’ as their ‘energy food,’ and water as their thirst quencher. Trees are more equipped with patience and tolerance us. And yes, they can be said to have an equivalent of a ‘brain’ as humans but it is in their roots and ‘wired’ into the underground where the ‘earth-wide-intelligence’ resides lorded over by the fungi. They too get romantic and ‘fall in love’ — which is why blossoms spread across the world and regeneration of forest life goes on. The trees also ‘plan’ their ‘families’ and hold on ‘birth’ for a year or two, after ‘assessing’ local ‘conditions’ — which take into account the population growth within the said time frame of animals and insects. The tree matrons seem much more ‘strict’ than our human mothers.

‘The fungi can be described as the masters of the forests as they decree life and death much of the time and their manoeuvres can bring down even a mighty tree. Trees have the capacity to maintain inner balance — possibly better than humans, where energy/strength is carefully distributed for daily tasks.

Girdling

Next time your child asks you where he or she came from, try saying that the arms of the wind plucked the teeny weeny baby from a forest tree and deposited in your house; it may seem more plausible than the stork story.