Cornerstones by Benedict Macdonald

Author:Benedict Macdonald [Macdonald, Benedict]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472971562
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2022-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Trees

It is said we must plant more trees. But which ones? And should we plant them at all – or let them plant themselves? Whilst it has become the go-to advice of those saving the planet that we need more trees, there are in fact many ways to misunderstand trees; to enforce them upon landscapes where they do not belong, to cluster them in formations that nature does not understand or put them where they do not want to be. We have grown to favour certain trees, to develop favourites, to develop a sense of purity of what grows where. So how do wild trees behave? How are trees supposed to grow, to thrive – and to shape our world?

Trees are wild beings that grow ever more unpredictable, haphazard and diverse with age. They attain more variety than any other group of flora or fauna in Britain. Some, like alder, ash, or oak, excel in death – bringing life to whole new orders from beyond the arboreal grave. Trees were not once orderly, planted affairs but chaotic giants – and if we are to rewild the world, then it is to this state that our trees must return.

The ecosystem function of trees themselves is well known, and too well expressed elsewhere (such as the wonderful Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben) to be the subject of this chapter. Instead, as we decide how to reforest our country, and look to a more wooded future for our island, it is worth remembering how wild woodland looks, how it shapes the landscape, and how our flora and fauna are intrinsically adapted to move between different native tree species, at different times of their lives, to shape trees, live in them and within their decaying limbs, across the generations.

Wild woodland plants itself – or is planted, in an apparently haphazard fashion, by a series of furry and feathered foresters. The jay, amongst the most important of all tree planters, becomes the first character in our wild tree planting story, as it is the prime architect of oak woodland – and of how oak woodland forms over time. And as oak is the most biodiverse of all British trees, the role of this one colourful bird is hard to overestimate. Jays collect healthy, ripe acorns that oak trees drop as their fruit come the autumn. Whilst some jays may cache a handful of these close to the oak in question, others, in carrying larger numbers in their crop, disperse acorns far further afield. Amplified, these actions begin the creation of a chaotic woodland landscape. A group of 65 jays within a woodland, for example, can, over the course of four weeks, disperse as many as half a million acorns across a landscape. Many of these will be ‘planted’ many miles from the source oak. Even 200m or so from the raided oak, up to 5,000 acorns can fall per hectare. And so begins a new generation of wild woodland.

It has been observed

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.