decide among themselves when they will bloom.
Some years their branches have no seeds, and many
wild boars don't survive the winter. But every three
to five years, all the beech trees bloom like crazy at
the
same
time.
There are lots of
beech nuts—so
many
that the wild boars can't eat them all.
We don't know how trees communicate with each
other over hundreds of miles to coordinate when they
will and will not bloom. (You're going to be seeing
more of these we-just-don't-knows in the course of
this book, because we still have so much to learn
about what goes on in the forest.)
*
With beeches and
oaks,
the seeds fall straight down
from the mother
tree.
That way the tree family stays
together nicely. But some tree species are loners.
Willows, poplars, and birches like to stand on their
own,
To make
sure
their
children
can grow up faraway,
they produce seeds that are very tiny and covered
with small hairs or
fluff,
so they can be easily caught
up in a gust of wind and carried several miles away.
Other seeds, such as those of maples or many
conifers, are too big and heavy to simply blow away.
So these trees have come up with another strategy:
each seed is equipped with wings. That way the seed
can spin like a helicopter propeller in the air. Even
without a motor, the seed can slowly float to the
ground,
and if it's caught up in
a
strong
wind,
it can
fly
a
few hundred yards.
Tree Seeds
LARGE SEEDS WITHOUT WINGS OR FUZZ prefer to
fall beneath their mother tree. Beechnuts, for
example, like to stay close to home. Smaller
seeds with propellers, like the maple seeds
pictured
here,
or tiny, fluffy seeds like those of
the willow, fly far awory from the mother tree.
The children of these trees don't mind growing
up without family close by.
If you come from a big family, you probably have lots of other relatives besides
your parents.
You
might have siblings, cousins, aunts and
uncles,
and grand-
parents, too. But how do the trees in the forest know who is related to whom?
WHEN
IT
COMES
TO
TREES,
THAT'S much harder to figure
out
than
it
is
for
humans.
After
all,
we
can ask
questions
and get
answers.
And sometimes family members look
so much alike that we know even without asking that
people are related.
Trees recognize each other differently. They
communicate with each other through their roots
below the ground. Trees can feel more through the
tips of their roots than we can with our
fingers.
They
can even make decisions with them! A root tip Is
almost like
a
small brain.
If
a
tree's roots meet those of
a
neighboring tree,
they can check whether they belong to the same
species, If so, then those trees are probably part of
the same family. Now their roots will grow together.
The
trees
can
send messages and exchange the sugar
they have
made
through this connection. It's
as
if they
had invited each other to dinner.
It's nice to have family and friends, but not all trees
like each other. Some prefer not to share.
You
can look at old tree stumps to see which trees
belong to
a
community and which stand alone. If the
bark is falling off and the stump is rotten, the tree is
out of touch with its neighbors. If the edge of
an
old
stump is very hard and still has solid bark, the stump
is still alive. That's only possible when the stump is
getting food from its family through its roots.
This is what true tree friends look like. They
stand