Trees in Dusk SkyMany science fiction stories deal with aliens, either aggressive sentient beings set to grab all Earth’s resources for their own, or beings we encounter in our own space exploration with whom we establish friendly communications and accord. Personally, from our experiences on Earth, I think we tend to fall into the first category, but hope we might eventually reach the second. We do try.

As self-appointed most intelligent species, our learning curve has been dismally flat in inter-species communications. Of the thousands of species living with us on this planet, we have only managed to instill communications on a few, a process called training. However, though we may understand our pets’ behaviors, we have never established true communications with them. How do we expect to communicate with completely alien species if we cannot do so with Earth species, say, like trees?

For the most part, we love trees. They grow into majestically beautify forms that inspire our imaginations. We treasure their shade, they increase the value of our property. We appreciate their lumber for its structural strength, the beauty of its grain in products we make from it, and for the fuel it provides to warm us.

We don’t believe trees intelligent because we’ve never discovered brain or nerve tissue in their physiology. However, even that is changing. Consider the paper Aspects of Plant Intelligence and another paper on the consideration of that topic. Then consider some commonly known facts. Trees clean the environment. They remove carbon dioxide from the air, and poisons from the soil. They control erosion and clean water. They can protect their own domain (soil), often changing it to their own specifications. They react to changes in their environment to preserve their existence. They make their own food. And they leave a long lasting, un-technical record of their existence (tree rings). So just how intelligent are we?

Plus trees outlive us by many years. The short-lived trees often reach between 100 and 150 years. Not so much greater an age than us, but definitely longer. The longest-lived trees often outlast us by hundreds or even thousands of years. If you check out the link just given, note Prometheus, the Bristlecone Pine. Prometheus lived for 5,000 years, faithfully recording the Earth’s history annually. What did we do? We cut it down.

Now granted, after Prometheus was cut down, other Bristlecone Pines were saved for the sake of the seniority they hold. Yet you can, hopefully, understand why I doubt our ability to deal with anything alien. Before we deal with outer space, we need to sharpen our learning curve here at home.

INTELLIGENCE IN TREES 5
References
Goldenburg, E. “n.d.” Last modified 2011, October 08, 5:12:44 PM) Eldan Goldenburg’s lab notebook, notes about my work and other peoples’.
Blog@Case. “n.d” Retrievd May 2 , 2009 from http://blog.case.edu/exg39/2006/06/01/plant_intelligence
Hightshoe, G. (1988). Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Urban and Rural America, A Planting Design Manual for Environmental Designers (pp. 88). Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY: New York.
Prometheus (tree), (last modified 2012, October 09, at 23:18) Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_%28tree%29
Trewavas, A. (2003). Aspects of Plant Intelligence. Annals of Botany 92. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4243628/?report=classic

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