Woodlands are more than just collections of trees
by Angus, 1 December, 2011, 0 comments
A leaf usually has a lifetime of only a single year but is often seen as the basic building-block of a forest which lasts for much, much longer. A tree has a lifetime of about 100 times as long as a leaf, with a lifespan of about 100 years. Looking on a larger scale, the forest may have a life of 10,000 years or about 100 times that of the individual tree. So these three elements – leaves, trees and forests – are each a couple of orders of magnitude apart in their length of life, yet they are vitally reliant on each other, and we instinctively think of a causal chain, with leaves leading to trees and trees leading to forests. Read more...