Читать книгу Can You Hear the Trees Talking? - Peter Wohlleben - Страница 22

Most trees like to live

in

families, and in each family there are–of course–children!

That's why trees work to grow strong–so they can have babies. You can see this

for yourself when they're

in

bloom.

Pine trees release so much pollen,

it can look like a cloud of dust.

share the same "house," so

to speak. With some trees,

such as the willow, trees are

either male or female—the

male trees produce pollen and

don't grow blossoms, and the

female trees grow blossoms

and don't produce pollen—

but this is the exception.

After the female blossoms are

successfully pollinated, seeds

develop, By fall the seeds

of beech and oak trees are

mature, and they drop to the

ground,

where many hungry

animals are waiting for these

delicious treats. Wild boars

IN

THE

SPRING

IT

CAN

BE

dusty under trees, and you

may find your shoes covered with a layer of tiny,

yellowy-green particles. That's male pollen—

tiny grains that want to land on female blossoms.

Pollen grains are carried by the

wind,

so they can't

really seek out blossoms

themselves.

When

they meet

a female blossom, it's by accident. That's why

a

tree

must produce

a

huge amount of

pollen,

so

that

a

few

grains will reach their

goal.

With most trees, the female blossoms are on

the same tree that produces the male pollen, They

in particular adore beechnuts and acorns because

they're full of fat

and oil

that help

them

build up

a

thick

layer of fat of their own. This way the animals carry

their winter food supply under their

skin,

and they

can go for

a

few days without finding anything to eat.

*

Tree parents aren't too happy about

all

this because,

after all, their children are supposed to grow from

these

seeds,

That's why

some

trees,

such

as

beeches,

decide among themselves when they will bloom.

Some years their branches have no seeds, and many

wild boars don't survive the winter. But every three

to five years, all the beech trees bloom like crazy at

the

same

time.

There are lots of

beech nuts—so

many

that the wild boars can't eat them all.

We don't know how trees communicate with each

other over hundreds of miles to coordinate when they

will and will not bloom. (You're going to be seeing

more of these we-just-don't-knows in the course of

this book, because we still have so much to learn

about what goes on in the forest.)

*

With beeches and

oaks,

the seeds fall straight down

from the mother

tree.

That way the tree family stays

together nicely. But some tree species are loners.

Willows, poplars, and birches like to stand on their

own,

To make

sure

their

children

can grow up faraway,

they produce seeds that are very tiny and covered

with small hairs or

fluff,

so they can be easily caught

up in a gust of wind and carried several miles away.

Other seeds, such as those of maples or many

conifers, are too big and heavy to simply blow away.

So these trees have come up with another strategy:

each seed is equipped with wings. That way the seed

can spin like a helicopter propeller in the air. Even

without a motor, the seed can slowly float to the

ground,

and if it's caught up in

a

strong

wind,

it can

fly

a

few hundred yards.

Tree Seeds

LARGE SEEDS WITHOUT WINGS OR FUZZ prefer to

fall beneath their mother tree. Beechnuts, for

example, like to stay close to home. Smaller

seeds with propellers, like the maple seeds

pictured

here,

or tiny, fluffy seeds like those of

the willow, fly far awory from the mother tree.

The children of these trees don't mind growing

up without family close by.