580-589: Botany. The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben

Early this year, I read The Overstory, by Richard Powers, a work of such stunning beauty that I had to keep putting it down to absorb its images. It was a novel about trees, really, although human characters slipped in and out of the lyrical descriptions of growth, life and decay on a grand scale. I read it with my phone handy so I could look up some of the unfamiliar species mentioned, and felt my heart rate slow as it aligned with the pace of life in the forest. I also learned some very interesting facts-- or at least I hoped they were facts. Powers alluded to a number of books in the novel and endnotes. On further research, The Hidden Life of Trees seemed like the one that might have inspired him most directly.

For one thing, The Hidden Life of Trees is itself almost a fictionalized account of forest biology. The tone is breezy in the extreme, and Wohlleben makes free with anthropomorphic references to trees' thoughts, emotions and plans. Trees are pictured as having etiquette, going to school and screaming. There are mother trees, street kids, and, most importantly, tree communities. The tone of the book has caused a lot of controversy and frustration, especially in Germany and France, and certainly made me question whether the author really was doing science.

But, as it turns out, the "controversy" around The Hidden Life of Trees could really just be better described as "irritation." No botanist is accusing Wohlleben of getting his facts wrong, just of presenting the information in a more informal way than is usual for science writing.

And there is a lot of information! Just about every tree behavior and aspect of the life of the forest that The Overstory depicts can be found in this book. All the astounding tales of tree symbiosis, cooperation, adaptation and interaction with other species are factually accurate. Trees do make sounds and emit electrical impulses. They do sense the passage of time and, of course, the vital changes in available light that will affect their ability to photosynthesize. They do form complex ecosystems with other beings, from mammals to microorganisms, and exhibit coordinated behaviors. And, most impressively, they really do live for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. 

On a walk the other day, I saw this interesting example of a tree that Wohlleben would call a "street kid," a tree that has been planted in the narrow space between sidewalk and street and is having trouble finding any place to send its roots.  Roots need oxygen just like branches do, which is why most houseplants don't like to sit in water-- they need to breathe! Apparently the ground under streets and sidewalks is compacted by machinery before paving. Of course that makes it difficult to grow through and also eliminates air pockets. That's why roots end up in water and sewer line-- they are just trying to get some air!
This same tree also may be a good example of one that can reproduce from its root system. The root is covered with bright green sprouts with tiny leaves. Are they hoping to become trees, or do they think they are branches coming from the trunk? Maybe that is a distinction without a difference. It will be interesting to keep an eye on these little sprouts over the summer and see how big they get.

This delightful and easy read explained many other things I have observed in the garden and neighborhood. For example, some trees- oaks notoriously-- produce tannin in their leaves. That's the same thing that is in tea, that makes it bitter if you let it steep too long. It's also the reason that wine is often aged in oak-- the tannins are considered a flavor enhancer. It turns out that the tannin is a defense mechanism against fungus and enables oaks to survive wounds such as lightning strikes that would weaken and expose other kinds of trees. Unfortunately, it also is disagreeable to grasses and other herbaceous plants, which is why gardening under an oak tree is a constant argument with nature. Wohlleben is all about not arguing with nature, and would, I'm sure, advocate for cooperating instead, by choosing plants that love shade and don't mind tannin, like ferns and hostas.

Gardening also helped me relate to this book because trees are like smaller plants in many ways. Some of them can reproduce vegetatively, from their roots, as do dandelions or mint. All of them can reproduce from seed and have all kinds of different schemes for getting their seeds fertilized and distributed. Seeds might have wings to fly out from under the source tree's shadow (as dandelion seeds do), or they might come encased in delicious fruit (as berries are) so that some helpful animal will come along and carry them off to a new location-- perhaps digesting them first! Some trees just drop their seeds right under their own shade and let a battle for sunlight ensue, as do many flowers.

But one thing is true of every tree (and every flower): trees produce seeds in reckless excess. The quantity of maple keys or sharp little acorns or pinecones that one tree can drop on a lawn is truly astonishing and seems completely unnecessary for the survival of the species! Personally, I sweep maple keys off the porch, pull out maple tree sprouts from the flower beds, fill bags with pinecones for mulching, and hurt my feet on acorns that blanket the ground, wondering why trees have to be so messy. But the consistent observer of nature can learn that squirrels and other little animals appreciate this abundance, even if we don't. They are busy all year, snatching up the free lunch that falls at their feet.

In the wild, tree seeds face just as many obstacles to growth as they do when humans such as myself are actively trying to fight back the forest. Most are eaten by those little animals. Those that survive to sprout will usually be eaten by rabbits and other medium-sized animals. The deer will probably take care of the rest; they can eat a new tree up to three feet high. Even if a baby tree manages to survive long enough to come off the lunch menu for the animals of the forest, it will probably be getting very little light on the forest floor and will therefore be weak and susceptible to insects and fungus. It may very well die and return to the earth in the form of humus. Given all these obstacles, although a tree will produce more than a million seeds in its lifetime, often only ONE of them will live to maturity!

The abundance of seeds should not be a source of dismay to me, even when it's inconvenient. After all, like the squirrels, I owe my dinner to the fact that plants of all kinds are designed to produce far over and above the number of seeds needed to perpetuate their species. I eat corn, rice, wheat and oats-- those are all seeds. I eat meat and dairy products from animals that ate those seeds, too. I eat peaches and strawberries and grapes that contain seeds. Really, the whole animal kingdom is dependent on the fact that one plant can make many seeds, many more than it needs for its own purposes!

A wild forest supports a tremendous amount of life, both visible and invisible, and it also supports our souls. A deciduous forest is full of birdsong and the rustle of creatures great (deer) and small (chipmunks, frogs) moving through the brush and leaf litter on the forest floor. We enter and feel that we have found a place outside time and all that's merely human. Life of a completely foreign kind is busy all around us, as our breathing slows to match the scale of business that is conducted 100 feet in the air and unfolds over centuries. In a healthy, natural forest, the trees are at peace, because they are well-watered and their balanced ecology protects them from insect, fungus and animal attack. Leaves are eating sunlight, and mosses are eating dust, and the tree is breathing in my unwanted carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen. The light in a forest is actually green under the canopy, since the leaves have absorbed every other color.

A pine forest has a deeper hush to it. The needles underfoot absorb footfalls and make the soil too acidic to support wild undergrowth. There is less food for birds and small mammals, and so, less rustling and less birdsong. The forest seems to soak up sound as it presides over a silence that has existed for longer than any human life. Furthermore, pine needles dispense phytoncides that disinfect the atmosphere and discourage mosquitos, while the breath of the trees and the shelter of their branches creates a microclimate that provides welcome respite from extreme weather. In any kind of well-balanced forest, our hearts find shalom.

All these processes are revealed in The Hidden Life of Trees. The knowledge and wisdom of this book will enrich your next walk in the woods and your relationship to our largest and oldest neighbors on this planet. Highly recommended!

570-579: Biology. River out of Eden, by Richard Dawkins, and The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Muherjee

When I had to pick a book on biology in the midst of the 2020 Covid-19 nationwide shutdown, without access to a public library, I was hard-pressed to even know where to begin. E-book libraries are not organized by Dewey Decimal number, sadly, and the entire topic of "Science" yielded only about 150 titles-- less than I would expect my local library to carry on biology alone!

Fortunately, my husband is a science buff, and as he perused the limited offerings, he got very excited about The Gene. After all, it's just been released as a Ken Burns documentary. All the usual suspects are raving about it. Just two problems: it was waitlisted at the library (yes, e-books have waitlists; licensing issues, don't ask), AND it's a jillion pages long.

Both problems were easily solved by a certain mega-retailer's policy of providing samples of e-books free of charge. In this case, the entire first section, focused on history, was available. I think that was a solid 150 e-book pages and got me all the way from Aristotle to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and the Feeble-Minded. That was plenty to be going on with.

My husband's other suggestion was that I read a book by Richard Dawkins. "Why in the world would I want to do that?" I asked, mindful of Dawkins' reputation as a militant evangelist for atheism. My husband answered that the book in question had been given to him by a medical doctor we went to church with, following a conversation about creation and evolution. "Oh, if Dr. Palmer recommended it, that's all right," I thought, observing also the book's blessed brevity, and took the plunge.

Muherjee and Dawkins make surprisingly good companions. Both have highly readable styles and clear agendas. Muherjee wants you to understand what DNA is, how genes were discovered, and no doubt many other fascinating facts about the mechanics of heredity... featured in the five sections that I was too cheap to pay for and too impatient to read (I'm still in the 500's, people, and I'm not getting any younger!).

Dawkins, who I'm going to focus on from here on out, just wants to prove one thing: that God is unnecessary. Why does he use a Bible word in the title of his book and pepper the whole thing with references to Eve and perfection and "God's utility function"? Maybe to get the attention of people like Dr. Palmer and then me... or maybe because the world just intuitively appears to be... designed. Just saying.

He writes, "Evolution is very possibly not, in actual fact, always gradual. But it must be gradual when it is being used to explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects, like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation." This quote makes it very clear what Dawkins wants to do: not prove that gradual evolution was and is, in fact, the only mechanism of speciation, but to prove that it is a sufficient explanation for all the complexity of the life we see around us.

However. I didn't read the book to argue with it. I don't have the background. I read it because I had to read something, and it seemed like a book of general knowledge that general people ought to have. Looked at as an introduction to the concept of the origin of species via evolution, I would say it was pretty helpful. It cleared up some misunderstandings for me, even as it raised other questions.

One thing it didn't do was challenge my faith. In fact, I enjoyed knowing more details about how evolution could produce such detailed organisms as the eye. I loved the analogy of DNA as digital  information that works like a computer program, because it enabled me to see God not only as a great artist and a great engineer, but also as a great information technologist.

I even appreciated learning about the difference between analog and digital information. Turns out analog is like waves or spectrum colors or anything else that seems clear until it's not. So we all know what blue is and what green is. But what happens in between? Shades of grey indeed! Well, even though life is analog, it seems the DNA that programs cells is digital! I guess it's just like this photo, which uses binary code to depict an analog gradient. Maybe I'm just easily amused, but I think that's cool!

As I'm writing this, I sit in my yard listening to birds and watching bees visit flowers. Thinking of evolution as an ongoing process, I consider whether the wildflowers that I allow to grow in my lawn may evolve in response to the pressure not only of pollinator and animal activity, but also to my actions with the lawnmower. Will only the showiest flowers, the ones in sheltered places, or those that grow lower than the mower blade survive to reproduce? If the same lawn is tended in the same way for generations, will the violets be shorter and the buttercups even taller and brighter?

I also consider the evolution of viruses and of insects that are making headlines today-- "superbugs" in two senses. I remember the mass extinction events I read about when I was in the Dinosaurium-- sort of the opposite side of the same coin. And I wonder: what makes us think that we are living at the end point of the processes God put in place "in the beginning"? Both the direct actions of humans and the pressures that all species put on each other... couldn't they result in further changes in species that we think of as having "arrived" at their final form?

I have a few questions that remain unanswered. I particularly don't understand the course of human evolution so far. Presumably other books address this question: if evolution is driven by survival of the fittest, why are humans so ill-fitted for survival in the wild? Why wasn't astigmatism eliminated from our gene pool millenia ago? What in the world made the absence of fur a survival trait for our ancestors? Why are we so poorly armed, with nails instead of claws and weak teeth instead of nice pointy fangs? What's so great about being bipedal? I'm not saying a theory of special creation particularly answers this question, I'm just saying it's a question!

Dawkins does not address this question, but he does speak to the issue of how the handicaps of aging have survived the pressures of survival. "Everybody is descended from an unbroken line of ancestors all of whom were at some time in their lives young but many of whom were never old. So we inherit whatever it takes to be young, but not necessarily whatever it takes to be old." I have sometimes thought that survival of the fittest was not all it is cracked up to be, leaving intact arthritis, heart disease, and all kinds of other useless and maladaptive conditions. But now I understand that since these things don't typically impact survival until AFTER we have passed on our DNA, they wouldn't be selected against even in the most hostile environments. That still doesn't explain why four-year-olds need glasses, though!

Taken together, both these books taught me more about the mechanics of the origins of species without turning me into a mechanist. They really exemplify the whole reason I undertook this project in the first place: I wanted to learn a little bit about a lot of things, things I might not expect to be interested in. After all, it's the Bible that tells us that "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter." (Proverbs 25:2, NASB)

560-569: Fossils and Dinosaurs. Dinosaurium, by Chris Wormell and Lily Murray

I have been longing to own the whole Welcome to the Museum series ever since I saw Botanicum in a museum gift shop. So closed libraries plus 560 in the Dewey system equals actually buying Dinosaurium with actual dollars, to have and to hold. It's a beautiful book and deserves to be owned and savored.

The first thing I learned upon opening the book  is that it's currently believed that the continents were in a totally different configuration in the whole Mesozoic Era, which includes the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. So, that's weird. I mean, it's one thing to see a news item that says that tropical fossils were found in Antarctica; it's another to look at maps that are allegedly Earth but are pretty much unrecognizable.

The main thing I learned was that it is now believed that many famous dinos, notably Tyrannosaurs, had some kind of covering on their skin more or less like feathers. It's interesting to speculate how something as complex as a feather could be a product of time and natural selection and to learn that feather-like structures could have other benefits even if they don't provide flight. After all, flightless birds do still exist and seem to find their lovely skin coverings useful!

I will also throw in a fun fact that I did not learn from this book but from one of my adult sons: Coelacanths, once associated only with the late Cretaceous period, are still around. They are not dinosaurs but ugly, inedible, rare fish.

Nothing could be finer on a quarantine afternoon than sitting on your porch with an enormous book full of dinosaur pictures on your lap. Well worth the investment!