Lines of Communication

Dear Diary,

Many consider them a blight on the landscape and they certainly are not attractive but where would we be without these lines of communication?  Not posting this daily photo journal for one thing!  I usually just ignore them but I just read a wonderful piece in last month's Smithsonian magazine about the German forester, Peter Wohleben and it made me think about them.  His book, The Hidden Life of Trees, is about how trees communicate through what he calls the "wood-wide web".

Just inches below the surface is an underground fungal network that allows trees to signal other trees.  The most amazing story was how African trees being nibbled on by giraffes will alert nearby trees and those trees will send a bitter tasting chemical into their leaves so that the giraffes won't eat them!  It was a fascinating read.  He also has a new book, The Inner Life of Animals, that I must read being the critter crazy person that I am.  There is so much we don't know but I do know that I will never look at trees in the same way now.