BY JEB SMITH

“Listen to the murmuring and whispering of the leafy creatures. I know not what they say, but I know they are talking. They have their secrets—tales of old, old world, of the joyous prime of Eden… I tell you they are people…put a pine tree in a yard, and what does it look like—how does he feel? He looks out of place and feels embarrassed and mad…you think trees have got no soul, no mind, no heart. That’s because you have got no soul yourself, plague on you…can’t you see how happy the trees are, how they clap their hands and jump up and down and get bright in the face, and actually laugh in the sunshine? If you can’t, it’s because the panes in the windows of your soul need washing. You think because trees can’t walk they are an inferior being. Well, now, if you think a bit, ain’t you, too, stuck to this earth? Why don’t you step over to the next star and find out something that trees don’t know? Men have a small opinion of trees because their hearts are set on money, stocks, fame, glory, and such trash.”

—George Bagby, The Old Virginia Gentleman and Other Sketches (1910)

I have always been fascinated by trees. They start as tiny seeds and utilize natural resources like odorless, invisible rays from the sun and transform them into a massive, beautiful physical reality that can weigh many thousands of pounds, with a root system, bark, branches, and leaves. They clean the air, capture carbon dioxide to make carbohydrates and crack water for its hydrogen, releasing oxygen. Trees reduce noise, prevent erosion, provide shade and cooling, and are used extensively for building and fuel. Forests provide housing for a diverse animal and human population, and we extract medicines and food from them.

Spending time in forest areas reduces stress and anxiety, lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, and increases memory and focus. But, of course, it is not that trees reduce stress; it’s that our artificial environments cause these negatives, and we start to return to wholeness when we go back to the garden as God intended.

In Lothlórien, Haldir takes Frodo high up a tree to a platform to observe nearby Mirkwood, where there is a struggle among the trees for resources. This portrays a forest outside of Galadriel’s realm, a fallen world where trees fight for survival. However Lórien is a window into Tolkien’s view of a pre fallen world. We shall see from recent discoveries that a vestige of the pre-fallen state of trees still exists in the trees of today. They appear to take on the personality of the tree of Lórien and the Ents of Fangorn, helping each other more than previously known or believed. Tolkien was very accurate in his portrayal of a pre-fallen forest.

The Sentience of Trees

Recent studies of trees show them to be far more “Entish” and more remarkable than previously imagined. Trees plan ahead in reaction to weather conditions.

“The flow [of sap] stays constant once the taps are in and the weather holds, unless the wind blows. If the wind blows, the sap stops running out of the tree…sap is a cleanser for the trees… When the farmer bores the tap the tree sends sap to heal the wound… When the wind blows, the tree senses that a branch might break. A bro-ken branch is a much more serious wound than a little clean tap hole in the trunk. Therefore the tree withholds the sap from the tap hole in case it needs to rush a bunch of sap to a broken limb somewhere. Once the wind subsides, the sap starts flowing again through the little tap hole. Sentient beings anyone? You bet. Fearfully and wonderfully made.”

(Joel Salatin, The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs[New York, Nashville: FaithWords, 2016])

Plants react to their surroundings in a way only a thinking being could. Trees seem to think and react to and warn other plants of danger. For example, when insects attack a tree, the tree can call for help from the insect’s predators, which respond by coming and eating the attacking insects. John Lieff reports on an experiment with chili plants that react differently when they compete with other plants. He writes, “Plants…interact and gather information from the environment above and below ground and pass it on to other plants… Plants can warn others about insects using a wide variety of different chemical signals.”They don’t even need to be the same type of plant; tobacco plants have received signals from sagebrush plants. A paper in The Journal of Ecology shows cotton plants warning nearby clover and alfalfa of an attack by a worm.

Plants communicate in many ways. According to Peter Wohlleben, trees “communicate by means of olfactory, visual, and electrical signals.” In another genuinely astounding report, researchers find trees can think, communicate, perceive, learn, and memorize.

“These tree behaviors have cognitive qualities, including capabilities in perception, learning, and memory… I provide examples of neigh boring tree behavioral, learning, and memory responses facilitated by communication through mycorrhizal networks, including, respectively, enhanced understory seedling…collective memory-based interactions among trees.

(Suzanne W. Simard, “Mycorrhizal Networks Facilitate Tree Communication, Learning, and Memory” (Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature, 2018)

Symbiotic microorganisms communicate with trees, and trees even soften a section of their root to allow the microorganisms to enter in response to their request. Other researchers have said they have detected a heartbeat and have observed trees breathing; it is just so slow that it has gone unnoticed before. Geneticist Jefferey Tompkins writes, “Plant to-plant communication takes place through…information superhighways connecting each of the plants in a community. The plants have built-in code and-decode programming information to decipher what the different chemical combinations or concentrations mean.”

 Like the Ents of Fangorn forest, trees even talk to one another through sound.

“Plants emit sounds that can be recorded from a distance… We successfully classified the plant’s condition—dry, cut, or intact—based on its emitted sounds. Our results suggest that animals, and possibly even other plants, could use sounds emitted by plants to gain information about the plant’s condition.”

(I. Khait, R. Sharon, R. Perelman, A. Boonman, Y. Yovel, L. Hadany, “The Sounds of Plants—Plants Emit Remotely-Detectable Ultrasounds That Can Reveal Plant Stress”)

“Researchers have found evidence that plants are communicating by sound… In experiments, roots direct other roots to grow toward this low frequency. Trees communicate…and these signals may be broadcasting news about drought conditions, predator attack, and heavy metal contamination…roots may connect directly with the roots of other trees. Trees can distinguish members of their own kind and establish connections with them.”

(Tom Hennigan, “Talking Trees—Secrets of Plant Communication,” Answers Magazine, 2018)

Shepherds of the Forest

Researchers found that trees have taken on the role of Ents by helping and protecting each other. They communicate their needs so other trees know how to help. They can even talk with other creatures in their habitats, asking for assistance.

Current research suggests that more often, trees may be cooperating and assisting each other. When one tree is sick, nearby trees may share nutrients through their roots to help it get well again. If a lodgepole pine sapling springs up in the shade of a thick forest, older trees somehow sense that it doesn’t get enough sunlight to make food for itself, so they may share their bounty. They even change their root structure to open space for saplings.

(Tom Hennigan, “Talking Trees—Secrets of Plant Communication,” Answers Magazine, 2018)

For example, in response to giraffes eating leaves, some trees in Africa were observed giving off a gas called ethylene. This gas gives a warning to the others, and they begin to produce defensive chemicals that make their leaves taste foul before the giraffe gets near them.

In “The Web Below” by Carl Zimmer in Discover Magazine, he reports on Suzanne Simard’s findings. Simard is a forest ecologist with the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Canada, who found that rather than competing for resources, trees were helping one another survive. Trees that received more sunlight and produced carbon gave it to those trees with less sunlight, even when they were of another species.

“Simard had been taught to view trees as rugged, competitive individuals, each trying to struggle above its neighbors to get as much light as possible. But she couldn’t help being struck by the subterranean partnerships trees form with fungi… She discovered that the isotopes absorbed by one tree often ended up in another and that shaded trees took far more carbon from their sun-drenched neighbors than they gave. This happened even if it meant that carbon absorbed by a paper birch traveled not to another birch but to a Douglas fir.”

(Carl Zimmer, “The Web Below,” Discover Magazine

Another finding published in PLOS One showed that certain plants, when attacked by insects, send out signals to other plants, warning them of invaders. The plants receiving the message respond by strengthening their defenses and root systems to withstand the Attacks.

“Plants can defend themselves…responding to chemical signals that are emitted by attacked plants…function as a plant-plant underground communication conduit whereby disease resistance and induced defense signals can be transferred between the healthy and pathogen-infected neighboring plants, suggesting that  plants can ‘eavesdrop’ on defense signals from  the pathogen-challenged neighbors through CMNs to activate defenses before being attackedthemselves.”

 (Yuan Yuan Song, et al., “Interplant Communication of Tomato Plants through Underground Common Mycorrhizal Networks,”PLOS ONE)

“Plants secrete signals…induces a response in the neighboring plant communities…by alerting nearby plants of an impending threat and prompting them to alter their physiology for defensive purposes… Plant-derived signals released by the wounded plant resulted in more elaborate root development in the neighboring, unwounded plants.”

(Connor Sweeney, Venkatachalam Lakshmanan, and Harsh P. Bais, “Interplant Aboveground Signaling Prompts Upregulation of Auxin Promoter and Malate Transporter as Part of Defensive Response in the Neighboring Plants”)

Some have suggested trees can even see. Wohlleben reported on work done by František Baluška. According to Wohlleben and Baluška:

There’s a vine that grows in South America that adapts to the form of the tree or bush it is climbing on. Its leaves look just like the leaves on the host plant…a researcher came up with the idea of creating an artificial plant with plastic leaves and relocating our botanical chameleon to its new home. What happened next was amazing. The vine imitated the artificial leaves, just as it had imitated the leaves in nature. For Baluška this is clear proof that the vine can see. How else could it get information about a shape it had never encountered before? In this case, the usual suspects—chemical messages released by the host plant or electric signals between both plants—were absent. He went further. In his opinion, it is conceivable that all plants might be able to see.

(Peter Wohlleben, “Plants Feel Pain and Might Even See,” Nautilus, July 21, 2021)