Biologist David George Haskell uses observations in a one-square-meter patch of forest to deeply explore the forest and expand our understanding of the interrelatedness of all life. There are many surprising delights scattered throughout The Forest Unseen. The most intense anecdote is when he decides to strip naked during winter to compare his body’s response to the frigid temperatures to that of birds (Ouch!). |
FUN FACTS from the book:
Snow: “Seen closely, the snow is a tangle of mirrored stars, each one flashing as its surface aligns with the sun and my eyes.”
Photosynthesis: “Inside plant cells, light-harvesting molecules respond to changing light minute by minute, assembling and disassembling as needed.”
Caterpillars: “In most forests they consume more leaves than all other herbivores combined.”
Tree “vision”: "The whole plant is permeated with phytochromes, so trees act like large eyes, sensing color over their entire bodies.”
The author’s language is often poetic:
“The leaf litter seems to have no upper surface; the rotting leaves simply bleed upward and turn into dark wet air.”
The forest “is not a banquet waiting for guests to arrive but a devil’s buffet of poisoned plates from which herbivores [plant eaters] snatch the least deadly morsels.”
“No one knows how [ticks climb our skin without us feeling them], but I suspect they charm our nerve endings, taming cobralike neurons with the hypnotic music of their feet.”
“Unlike the dawn chorus of birds in the springtime, the fall-breeding crickets are loudest in midafternoon, when their bodies have sponged the day’s heat.”
“As rain patter turns to squall, the [forest] canopy heaves under the pressure of the wind. The trunks sway to and fro, flexing beyond what looks possible, then slashing back.”
“Yearly the ground heaves like a belly, swelling in a rapid inhalation in October, then sinking as the life force [of fallen leaves] is suffused into the forest’s body.”
“The leaf litter seems to have no upper surface; the rotting leaves simply bleed upward and turn into dark wet air.”
The forest “is not a banquet waiting for guests to arrive but a devil’s buffet of poisoned plates from which herbivores [plant eaters] snatch the least deadly morsels.”
“No one knows how [ticks climb our skin without us feeling them], but I suspect they charm our nerve endings, taming cobralike neurons with the hypnotic music of their feet.”
“Unlike the dawn chorus of birds in the springtime, the fall-breeding crickets are loudest in midafternoon, when their bodies have sponged the day’s heat.”
“As rain patter turns to squall, the [forest] canopy heaves under the pressure of the wind. The trunks sway to and fro, flexing beyond what looks possible, then slashing back.”
“Yearly the ground heaves like a belly, swelling in a rapid inhalation in October, then sinking as the life force [of fallen leaves] is suffused into the forest’s body.”
On our human relationship with our natural world:
“Our biggest failing is, after all, a lack of compassion for the world. Including ourselves.”
“Bacteria, protists, mites, and nematodes make their homes on the mountains of our bodies, hidden from us by the dislocation of [their smaller] scale.”
Available at your local library or for purchase online.
“Our biggest failing is, after all, a lack of compassion for the world. Including ourselves.”
“Bacteria, protists, mites, and nematodes make their homes on the mountains of our bodies, hidden from us by the dislocation of [their smaller] scale.”
Available at your local library or for purchase online.