A post about humans, trees, anthropomorphism, mycorrhizal mycelium and quorum sensing.
As a young Prince, King Charles III famously hugged a tree. It is not recorded what was said by either Prince or tree, or whether his act was met with arboreal approval or dismissal. However, according to his aides, he continues the practice publicly every time he plants a commemorative sapling.
We now know that trees enjoy two-way communication (if not with Kings) certainly with the symbiotic mycorrhizal mycelium (fungus threads) that envelop and enrich their roots. Here they exchange water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals, with each other and with the tree’s progeny. Additionally, chemical messages pass via the fungus to communicate information of threats or abundance, suggesting that the process is heuristically reactive rather than mechanical.
Within the human body, indigenous bacteria (of which we have trillions outnumbering human cells 10-1) do very similar things. Cell to cell communication is facilitated by both prokaryotes and eukaryotes (single cell and multi-cell organisms), the former clubbing together using quorum-sensing circuits to enable them simultaneously to secrete signaling chemical molecules that communicate precise information – just as do murmurations of birds in the air, warrior ants on the march or bioluminescent plankton in the sea.
Go to any football, rugby or tennis match and you will see the same phenomenon acted out by a human audience, resulting in synchronized signals that convey pleasure or dismay. If at that very moment you were to take a microscope to the human body you would see why – the same bacterial microorganisms are busy synthesising autoinducing proteins that communicate their collective feelings and intention.
All I can say is that tonight when I took dousing rods to my eighty year old thirty three leafed Aspidistra, there was an immediate energetic resonance between the two. I did not enquire further of the plant, but I do recall, according to Feng Shui experts, that placing an Aspidistra in the main entryway of one’s home can collect an abundance of positive energy.
Maybe, rather than seeking to anthropomorphise trees by talking to them, or worse by felling them in their prime for profit, we should observe and revere them for the energy that they clearly share both with us and the world on which we depend?
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Ageing Effortlessly 