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'Fragrant smoke is sacred unto the gods'
GUESTBOOK
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The Secret Life of Trees - Why they matter Some living trees have seen the rise and fall of entire civilisations. At Boscobel in Shropshire in the English Midlands stands the Royal Oak, where the provisional King Charles II is alleged to have hidden from Cromwell’s men after the Battle of Worcester. And why not? All this happened only about three and a half centuries ago (1651) and oaks may live for two or three times as long as that. A yew in a churchyard in Scotland has a label suggesting that the young Pontius Pilate may once have sat in its shade – 'and wondered what the future held'. Conceivably at about the time that Jesus was born Pilate’s father was a soldier in those parts - and by then that yew was already mature. Some living trees have seen the rise and fall of entire civilisations. There are probably about 60,000 species of tree in the world, plus thousands of hybrids. Some species have been in existence since long before the dinosaurs appeared. Many trees are host to so many other creatures that each is a city: as cosmopolitan as Delhi or New York and more populous than either. The human debt to trees is absolute. Our ancestors, somewhere in Africa, came to the ground when the climate dried up and the trees retreated. Archaeologists speak of the stone ages, and the bronze age, the iron age and the steam age, and now we have the age of technology. But every age has been a wood age - ours at least as much as any in the past; and perhaps, in the decades to come, even more so. In The Secret Life of Trees, (Allen Lane, Ł20.00) Tudge takes us on a journey through the science of trees, the uses we make of them, and what they do for us, and why for reasons that are purely material they must be conserved: our survival depends on them. But most of this book is about what they are: how they came into being; what kinds there are and where they live and why; how they live, competing and co-operating. The more we know about them, the more trees seem like the key to the world's survival. From the oldest and tallest species (the conifers) to the flowering trees like the magnolias, oaks, palms and fruit trees, Colin Tudge’s vast knowledge of trees has built up from trips all around the world, from the rainforest in Costa Rica to his own back garden.
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Colin
Tudge