Trees have something like a nervous system, sending electric signals from leaves to the trunk and back. Trees talk to each other underground and exchange nutrients via fungal webs, sometimes with unrelated trees of an entirely different species. Trees communicate with one other via pheromones in the air, tiny quantities of powerful signal molecules that can warn of disease or insect invasion.

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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.

Happy Arbor Day.

Authors Bio:

Josh Mitteldorf, de-platformed senior editor at OpEdNews, blogs on aging at http://JoshMitteldorf.ScienceBlog.com. Read how to stay young at http://AgingAdvice.org.

Educated to be an astrophysicist, he has branched out from there to mathematical modeling in a variety of areas, including evolutionary ecology and economics. He has taught mathematics, statistics, and physics at several universities. He is an avid amateur pianist, and father of two adopted Chinese girls, now grown. He travels to Beijing each year to work with a lab studying the biology of aging. His book on the subject is "Cracking the Aging Code", http://tinyurl.com/y7yovp87.