The Hidden Life of Trees

The Hidden Life of Trees

The impression that plants don’t do anything, that they just sit there, may be the result of time-scale prejudice; we are simply blind to actions that unfold over very long, drawn out, slow time scales. But put the plant on fast forward, in a film, say, and it becomes harder to deny that plants seem to solve problems and act on the basis of what they learn. Trees seem to know how much soil is available to them and, as they stretch out their roots, they reliably differentiate soil from rocks from the roots of other trees or parts of their own bodies. To read more from ALVA NOË, click here.