One day, walking through the woods, a German
forester called Peter Wohlleben discovered a set of stones...
Except, it wasn't. It was an extremely old tree stump,
from a tree that, as it turned out, had been felled centuries earlier.
It had no leaves - which means no photosynthesis - which means no new
sugar - which means after all this time, it should have been long gone.
But it was alive! Wohlleben's explanation?
The trees around it were pumping sugar into the stump,
keeping it from death for hundreds of years.
Trees are social beings; they are more than we take them for...
And that's why I've partnered with Established Titles, who have created a novel way to preserve
the natural woodlands of Scotland, while helping restoration efforts worldwide!
You get a dedicated plot of land of at least one square foot, and a unique plot number on an estate
in Scotland, and Established Titles pledges to keep that land free from human use and...
in partnership with One Tree Planted and Trees For the Future,
to plant one tree somewhere on the globe with every order.
But that's not even the fun bit.
According to historic Scottish customs, landowners are referred to as "Lairds",
or "Lords" and "Ladies" in English - so yes, you can officially call yourself
a Lord and put that title on your credit card... your dating profile... whatever...
And it makes it a great last minute gift! See, my friend Rosie is a Lady now, how funny is that?
Right now, Established Titles is running a massive early Black
Friday sale... plus if you use the code KKLEIN you get an additional 10% off.
Go to establishedtitles.com/kklein to get your gifts now, and help support the channel.
The first 200 people purchasing a title pack using my link will
also effectively be next to my plot, within walking distance.
Depending on how many of you want to become a Lord or a Lady,
we can build our own little kingdom.... a K Klein K...
We'll think of a better name later.
Now, where were we? Oh, right, yeah, trees can talk.
No, seriously, trees communicate with each other.
Let me give you an example: when an acacia tree's leaf is bitten by a giraffe, it senses this,
and emits the gas ethylene, telling its neighbors to pump poisonous tannins into their leaves...
essentially warning them of the danger, and letting them respond to it.
They alert each other about diseases,
insect attacks... and trees in drier soil will alert others of a coming drought.
Urgent messages like a giraffe attack are often sent into the air,
but the majority of communication happens under the earth, facilitated by massive
networks of fungi which connect the tree roots and transport signals from one to the other.
And the trees change how they act based on these signals!
Trees and other plants even seem to have memories.
Trees that have once experienced a drought act differently to those who never have,
conserving more water in the spring in preparation for summer.
Professor Monica Gagliano of the University of Western Australia
conducted an experiment where pea plants were put in a tube with two openings.
In one condition, light and wind (from a fan) were both sent through one tube for several days,
but when the light was turned off and the fan was moved to the other tube...
the plants continued growing towards the fan.
In the other, the light and wind was sent down opposite tubes,
but when the light was turned off and the fan switched over...
the plants kept growing AWAY from the fan.
This is called classical conditioning:
the plants learned to associate the light with the direction of the wind.
But can you call these real memories?
When asked about Gagliano's experiment, fellow botanist Jim Whelan said:
"For plants, I would use words like 'primed' and 'desensitized'",
and proclaimed that she should stop trying to "sensationalise" common scientific knowledge.
Plants don't learn - they change their genetic expression because of environmental cues.
The same could be said of their so-called language: they don't talk to each other;
they're just genetically primed to aid in the survival of the forest as
a whole because of their own need for their sylvan home to remain.
But to this, one MIGHT say... isn't that what humans do too?
We don't learn: we just rewire our brains.
We don't talk: we're just genetically primed
to communicate with our fellow beings for evolutionary purposes.
See - the language employed when talking about plants and fungi (and
even non-human animals sometimes) is one of inanimacy and inactivity.
A dog learns, a tree is primed. A dog says hello to a friend,
a tree sends electrical signals to other trees in the forest.
Along with the usage of the pronoun "it" to describe non-humans,
some would call this objectification an example of "an everyday [practice] of
human exceptionalism and human supremacy that [is] created through language".
There has recently been a movement to understand plants and fungi as beings rather than as objects.
Are we, in our language, stripping these organisms of their agency
and relegating them to some second class of existence, which only reacts, never acting?
And if so, is that right?
Is that any different to how we humans interact with the world around us?
Let's look at it from a different angle.
If trees talk and have memories... then do our organs talk too?
They certainly communicate with each other. If we're talking about the language of trees,
then how about the language of the digestive system?
Cells receive and transmit messages all the time;
white blood cells "remember" how to fight diseases...
All the little parts of our body are constantly in conversation.
But this kind of communication... doesn't feel like language. There's something missing.
It's definitely transmitting information, and trees can vary what information they
send for complex messages about specific dangers and problems...
But language - real language - can account for hypotheticals.
Language can be arranged to express things that could never possibly happen.
I can say "the tree in my back garden is going to
turn into a magical unicorn in the next three days"...
And though that's not true (I... I think), that sentence still means something.
That's my definition: if it's a real language, you can use it to express meaningful nonsense.
We have no way of knowing, at the time of recording,
at least to my knowledge, whether trees can do this.
Probably not. But maybe that's just my anthrosupremacist bias.
Really, we need to know more to judge whether or not the trees have language, or languages...
In the words of Peter Wohlleben:
"What do trees say when there is no danger, and they feel content? This I would love to know."