Story and photos by Simone Delochan, sdelochan.camsel@rcpos.org
It can be something of a joke when you tell others that you love/have a passion for trees. Animals, they can understand; trees bring pause, largely because they are taken for granted. So abstract is the presence of a tree that at times it barely registers that it is a living organism, seen and perhaps diminished to mere ornament.
Without anthropomorphising trees—because any reader of Lord of the Rings, would love to imagine that Ents are real—scientists have made some interesting discoveries on how trees communicate and support saplings as well as, believe it or not, tree stumps.