44 Quotes by Peter Wohlleben

There are more life forms in a handful of forest soil than there are people on the planet.

If a tree falls in the forest there are other trees listening.

We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured trees pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community.

Every species want to survive, and each takes from the others what it needs. All are basically ruthless, and the only reason everything doesn’t collapse is because there are safeguards against those who demand more than their due.

When they are choosing their trees, deer go for whatever is unusual. Whether they choose spruce, beech, pine, or oak, they will always choose whatever is uncommon locally. Who knows? Perhaps the smell of the shredded bark acts like an exotic perfume. It’s the same with people: it’s the rare things that are most highly prized.

Every walk in the forest is like taking a shower in oxygen.

It seems the trees can count! They wait until a certain number of warm days have passed, and only then do they trust that all is well and classify the warm phase as spring. But warm days alone do not mean spring has arrived.

But isn’t that how evolution works? you ask. The survival of the fittest? Trees would just shake their heads – or rather their crowns. Their well-being depends on their community, and when the supposedly feeble trees disappear, the others lose as well.

Nevertheless, I have learned from this just how powerful a community of trees can be. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Trees could have come up with this old craftsperson’s saying. And because they know this intuitively, they do not hesitate to help each other out.