Sublime

Usually, they grow very quickly and their growth rings are huge; therefore, their wood contains a great deal of air. Air and moisture—these are ideal conditions for fungi.

If the tree is obviously wider than it is tall, then the young tree is in waiting mode. The

After the reserve supplies have been reabsorbed from the leaves back into trunk, the tree grows a layer of cells that closes off the connection between the leaves and the branches.

Therefore, the tree stockpiles water in winter. In winter, there’s more than enough rain, and the tree is not consuming water, because almost all plants take a break from growing at that time of year.

Splits in its wood, in its bark, in its extremely sensitive cambium (the life-giving layer under the bark):

An easy way to estimate the age of a young beech tree is to count the small nodes on its branches.

In undisturbed ancient forests, youngsters have to spend their first two hundred years waiting patiently in their mothers’ shade. As they struggle to put on a few feet, they develop wood that is incredibly dense. In modern managed forests today, seedlings grow without any parental shade to slow them down. They shoot up and form large growth rings e

it extends the reach of the tree’s own roots as the web grows out toward other trees.

Thanks to slow growth, their inner woody cells are tiny and contain almost no air. That makes the trees flexible and resistant to breaking in storms. Even more important is their heightened resistance to fungi, which