In his wonderful book The Hidden Lives Of Trees, Peter Wohllenben writes that there are unwritten guidelines for tree etiquette. I read his book in bits and chunks at a time, and then I walk in the forest with Maria, it is a special joy to learn to see trees in a completely different way, this fascinating life form, filled with its own traditions, dangers, customs and social systems. You can look at something every day of you life and not see it, including life itself.

A mature, well-behaved deciduous tree has a ramrod-straight trunk with a regular, orderly arrangement of wood fibers.

The roots stretch out evenly in all directions and reach down into the earth under the tree. In its youth, the tree had narrow branches extending sideways from its trunk. They died a long while ago, and the tree sealed them off with fresh bark and new wood. Only at the top does one see a symmetrical crown formed of strong b ranches angling upward like arms raised to heaven.  An ideally formed tree like this can have a very long and healthy life, hundreds of years.

Do trees care about their looks? The biologists don’t know.

But there are good reasons for trees to have an ideal appearance.

The large crowns of trees, says Wohllenben, are exposed to turbulent winds, torrential rains and heavy loads of snow.

The tree must cushion the impact of these forces, which travel down the trunk to the roots.  The roots must hold out under the onslaught so that the tree doesn’t topple over. To avoid this, the roots cling to the earth and to rocks. The redirected power of a windstorm can tear at the base of the trunk with a force equivalent to a weight of 220 tons.

If there is a weak spot anywhere in the tree, it will crack. In the worst-case scenario, the trunk breaks off completely and the whole crown tumbles down. Well formed trees absorb the shock of buffeting forces, using their shape to divide these forces evenly throughout their structure.

Trees that don’t follow along the manual for the good etiquette of trees find themselves in trouble. Now, every time I walk in the woods, I look upwards, and see the crowns of the beautiful trees, reaching to heaven.