For Valentine’s Day give a tree
We have always been accustomed to perceive trees as solitary organisms, independent and somehow “indifferent” to each other: but trees are not elementary living beings, indeed, they are perhaps the most complex organisms on our planet. As the plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso teaches, “trees are intelligent creatures, capable of communicating with each other to exchange resources and information even at great distances, just like us humans, if not better.
They do it through an endless network of connections: a research carried out by a group of expert scientists has returned, for the first time, the mapping of these intricate “arboreal synapses” and highlighted how the peculiarities of fungi and microorganisms in symbiosis with the roots of trees determine the ability of those same trees to access the limited nutrients present in the atmosphere or soil, to sequester CO2 and to resist the effects of climate emergency.
So trees communicate, they are in solidarity with each other, they compete, they form hierarchies in which there are dominant and gregarious: trees are like the citizens of the forest, a real self-organized society and in connection and balance with ecosystems, with the whole and even with us humans, although perhaps we forget it too often. This year we wanted to imagine that even the trees of our beloved forests can fall in love and look for a soul mate, just like us. We imagined that within that intricate maze of underground arboreal synapses trees exchange messages, call each other on their cell phones, use the “Treender” app to find their soul mate.
