Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future by Daniel Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book provides insights on many topics. The chapter on the Ebony tree describes the intricacies of the wood used to make the best guitars and violins in the world. We also learn the intricacies of olive oil, as the olive tree has nourished part of humanity for thousands of years.

The overall theme is listening to the ecological wisdom of trees which have been accumulating knowledge for thousands of years. “Homo Sapiens has a puny track record as a species: a measly 300,000 years. Most species of trees, including those we consider highly invasive, have been around very much longer than that, evolving and surviving. We are the newcomers not they.”

Longleaf pines covered more than 90 million acres in southern North America when the Europeans arrived. “The now-vanished green blanket of longleaf pine forest that ran from Virginia south to Florida and west to Texas may have been the largest ecosystem that ever existed in the United States. The tree … has receded by 97%, among the most severe retreats of any ecosystem on the planet.”

As a grad student, I lived in a grove of coastal California redwoods for a few years. I did not fully appreciate that they nourished an entire ecosystem of plants, animals, and fungi until reading this book. “Redwood groves are quiet places; there is a distinct sense of the sacred. As writer Annie Lamont notes, “the trees are so huge that they shut you up”. Their mass dampens sound, and people in and around them tend to speak in quiet, reverent tones, as often happens when walking among giants.”

My choice for a concluding quote:
“all trees are good. Every last one of them, every species and every individual tree on this planet…. Trees are active entities, with their own lives, their own rights, their own histories, each an ecosystem onto itself, providing a bulwark against changing climate, offering nourishment, rest, and sustenance for other species, and space and quiet in their midst. They are the heartbeat of the world.”




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