This is the title of a book I’m reading at the moment. It is by Peter Wohlleben – what a perfect name for a man who loves nature and the world around him – Peter Liveswell!!!
I don’t think I will ever look at a tree in the same way again.
Iv’e just been reading about the bark of beech trees. We have an abundance of beech here – particularly on the Goodwood Estate. Many years ago so many were planted on the sides of the valley leading up from the House towards the Racecourse that the whole area is still today referred to as Birdless Grove. The beeches grow so close together that it is said that the area is always eerily silent. Well, I’ve walked up there many many times and have heard lots of birds twittering away to their heart’s content.
Like us, as trees get older, their barks begin to wrinkle starting from the bottom up. With beeches this tends to happen after about two hundred years! Their bark generally remains smooth and silver-grey – constantly being replenished from beneath and shed from the exterior. This means that beeches do not suffer in the same way as other species with cracks and fissures in the trunk which can make a tree really vulnerable to bacteria, fungus and rough weather. But when beeches are in middle age, wrinkles start to creep up the trunk and these can become quite noticeable because the moisture that sits in the wrinkle encourages the growth of moss. So apparently it is easy to see just how old a beech wood is, by looking at how high the green growth is…
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