Some say that trees have sentience and an inner life, perhaps one in which a moment of time is hours or days in length. Maybe
Trees have something like a nervous system, sending electric signals from leaves to the trunk and back.
Farmer's study doesn't mean that plants have neurons, or brains, or anything like the systems that animals use to communicate. We don't do justice to them when we try to put their fascinating, alien biology into human terms, he said. But we may have dramatically underestimated their capabilities. As researchers begin to learn the language of plants, they are starting to get a whole new view of the leafy green world we live in. -- Quanta Magazine
Trees talk to each other underground and exchange nutrients via fungal webs, sometimes with unrelated trees of an entirely different species. New Yorker article
Trees communicate with one other via pheromones in the air, tiny quantities of powerful signal molecules that can warn of disease or insect invasion. Youtube video
Whether or not they can return our love, many of us find it easy to be sentimental about trees. Trees can be majestic.
Trees are patient and persistent. Trees are courageous and long-suffering. Trees can be beautiful. Trees can be poignant and contorted.
Wind-swept Jeffrey Pine[/caption]Trees can entwine with one another in a life-long embrace.
In Melbourne, people write love letters to trees.
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