Colin Tudge - Secret Life of Trees

PENGUIN BOOKS

The best nature writing The Times

Page after page of astonishing tree-facts makes us look anew at the familiar, to understand a little more of the hidden and constantly enacted miracles taking place in the woods all around us Sunday Times

Tudges delight in the world of trees is infectious Herald

Set to become a classic reference in the mould of Oliver Rackhams History of the Countryside BBC Wildlife

Tudges gift as an author lies in being able to explain complex scientific mechanisms in language that the rest of us can understand Anna Pavord, Independent, Books of the Year

Magnificent, a minor classic even the most knowledgeable connoisseur of nature will feel themselves in the hands of a witty and erudite guide probably the best general purpose book on the subject published in the last decade Oldie

Inspiring, a reawakening Scotsman

Reminds us just what we spend our lives not knowing, and all of it is not only wondrous and important but entirely free Guardian

A love-letter to trees, written with passion and scientific rigour a pleasure to read. Tudge writes with warmth and wit Financial Times

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colin Tudge started his first tree nursery in his garden aged eleven, becoming an accomplished Cacti grower by the age of eighteen and marking his life-long interest in trees. Always interested in plants and animals, he studied zoology at Cambridge and then began writing about science, first as features editor at the New Scientist and then as a documentary maker for the BBC. Now a full-time writer, he appears regularly as a public speaker, particularly for the British Council and is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and visiting Research Fellow at the Centre of Philosophy at the London School of Economics. His books include The Variety of Life: A Survey and Celebration of Allthe Creatures that have Ever Lived and So Shall we Reap. The Secret Life of Trees brings together Colin Tudges knowledge of trees and his fascination with them, built up from trips to the rainforest in Costa Rica, Panama and Brazil, to his time in India, Australia, New Zealand, China, the United States and his own back garden. He is unable to choose a favourite tree, believing that varietys the thing.

COLIN TUDGE

How They Live and Why They Matter

PENGUIN BOOKS

To my grandchildren

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First published by Allen Lane 2005

Published in Penguin Books 2006

Copyright Colin Tudge, 2005

Illustrations copyright Dawn Burford

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN:978-0-14-192729-9

Original drawings by Dawn Burford

Over the past half century I have had many illuminating conversations with a lot of people who know a great deal about trees, in at least a score of countries in every habitable continent, and it would be too exhausting to mention everyone who has helped me with this book. Over the years, however, I have been particularly informed by Professor E. R. (Bob) Orskov, now at the Macauley Research Station in Aberdeen, on Third World agriculture in general and agroforestry in particular. From China, I have particular cause to thank Professor Hao Xiaojiang, director of the Kunming Institute of Botany in Yunnan, China, who introduced me to the extraordinary collection (including 100 species of magnolia) in the Botanic Garden of Kunming; and Dr Ian Hunter, director of the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, Beijing. In Australia, I spent several excellent days with scientists from CSIRO both in the bush of Western Australia and in the tropical and subtropical forests of Queensland and New South Wales. In New Zealand, Keith Stewart, novelist and columnist, took me to see the kauri forests in the North Island, and introduced me to Tane Mahuta.

For the particular writing of this particular book, I am especially aware of my debt to Professor Jeff Burley, formerly head of forestry at Oxford University, who indeed inspired this whole enterprise (just as he inspired generations of foresters worldwide). Also at Oxford, Dr Stephen Harris read several of the chapters for me; Dr Nick Brown helped me on my way with comments about mahogany; Professor Martin Speight provided fine fresh insights into pests; Professor Andrew Smith instructed me in tree physiology; and Dr Yadvinder Malhi had excellent, original things to say about tropical forests and the British Council in general and to Dr Gavin Alexander in particular, who arranged some of my most illuminating trips.

Overall, I am aware of my debt to my agent, Felicity Bryan; to my editor at Penguin, Helen Conford; and to Jane Birdsell, an outstanding tidier of prose and picker-up of solecisms who has made this book much better than it would otherwise have been. Finally, the book has been much enhanced by Dawn Burfords excellent drawings, almost all taken directly from life. Many thanks to her and to the Birmingham Society of Botanical Artists for introducing me to her. Most of all, I thank my wife Ruth, who introduced me to Oxford and organized and managed most of our travels. Without her heroic efforts I would almost certainly have petered out at Heathrow.

The following abbreviations have been used throughout the text:

Judd refers to Walter S. Judd, Christopher S. Campbell, Elizabeth A. Kellogg, Peter F. Stevens and Michael J. Donoghue (eds), PlantSystematics (Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland, Massachusetts; 2nd edn, 2002.).

Heywood refers to V. H. Heywood (ed.), Flowering Plants of the World (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978).

Trees inspire: the Buddha received enlightenment under a peepul tree

At Boscobel in Shropshire in the English Midlands stands the Royal Oak, where the provisional King Charles II is alleged to have hidden from Cromwells men after the Battle of Worcester, which ended his premature attempt to restore the monarchy. Why not? All this happened only about three and a half centuries ago (1651) and oaks may live for two or three times as long as that. Robin Hood and his Merry Men are said to have feasted beneath the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire and so they might have, for if they existed at all it was in the time of Richard I, in the late twelfth century, and the Major Oak was alive and well at that time. A yew I met in a churchyard in Scotland has a label suggesting that the young Pontius Pilate may once have sat in its shade and wondered what the future held. Its an audacious claim. But the tree was there, even if Pilate wasnt already some centuries old at the time of Christ.