A Forest Language

This beautifully illustrated essay collection offers a curious and creative invitation into the world of trees and the words we use to understand them.



What is crown shyness, and how could a tree be shy? What is heartwood, and what does it have to do with the heart? So often even our scientific terms are rife with surprising etymologies and images that may reveal as much about us humans and our relationship to nature as they do about the things they describe. Words related to trees and forests are no exception. With a poet's sensibility, Hannah Fries peels back the layers of these ecological terms, reflecting on their meaning both literally and figuratively, intertwining science and metaphor. Hannah Fries is the author of Being with Trees (Storey) and the poetry collection Little Terrarium (Hedgerow Books). Her poetry and prose have appeared in such places as The Marginalian, Terrain.org, Orion, and American Poetry Review. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and she was awarded a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. From 2005 to 2014 she was an editor at Orion magazine. She grew up in the woods of New Hampshire and now lives in western Massachusetts with a forester and two tree-climbing kids.

  Foreword by Maria Popova

Introduction: The Astonishing Strangeness of Trees



Part 1: Seed & Root

Preforest: Begin Again

Seed Bank: A Forest Lies Waiting

Sessile: How a Tree Wanders

Samara: A Seed with Wings

Catkin: Flowers Without Petals

Mast: The Feast

Stump Sprouts: From the Hidden Roots of Things

Clonal: Self-Replicating to the End

Rhizosphere: A Universe Among Roots

Taproot: The Myth of Digging Deeper

Mycorrhiza: Everything Tangled Together

Windthrow: Ripped from the Earth

Sap: From the Vein of the Tree



Part 2: Growth & Repair

Lignin: Form and Freedom

Growth Ring: Of Ages and Empires

Whorl: Around, Again

Volatile Organic Compounds: Attraction and Repulsion

Heartwood: What the Center Holds

Lenticel: Breathing Through Bark

Exfoliate: Growing and Shedding

Gallery: A Beetle Rewrites the World

Pitch: The Gift of Self-Healing

Woundwood: A Memory Enclosed

Gemel: Joined at the Wound

Burl: Gnarled into Grace

Witch's Broom: A Hospitable Mess

Gall: A Wasp's Spell

Krummholz: The Crooked Wood at Treeline

Flagging: Taking the Shape of the Wind

Frost Crack: Split Open by the Cold

Thaw Circle: Ring of Warmth



Part 3: Leaf & Blossom

Leaf Bud: Kept in Reserve

Terminal Bud: A Twig's Life Story

Budbreak: Bursting into Tenderness

Crown Shyness: A Complicated Truce

Browse Line: A Forest Shaped by Deer

Stomata: The Tiny Mouths of Leaves

Petiole: How a Leaf Moves

Apoptosis: The Letting Go

Marcescence: Still Holding Fast

Broadleaf Evergreen: First in Line for Spring

Perfect Flowers: And All the Possibilities

Inflorescence: A Gathering of Flowers

Tropism: Growing Toward Life

Photosynthesis: The Elemental Miracle

Chlorophyll: Deep Green

Chloroplasts: Harnessers of Life



Part 4: Kinship & Resilience

Duff: Decay and Renewal

Throughfall: Finding a Way Earthward

Understory: Thriving in Shadow

Disturbance: The Next Beginning

Wolf Tree: The Lone Sentinel

Pyriscence: Built by Fire

Serotinous: Waiting for Heat

Succession: The Forest Unfolding

Nurse Log: Life Embracing Death

Pillows and Cradles: A Topography of the Fallen

Old Growth: The Layered Process of Aging

Decadence: Elegant Decline

Snag: A Long Ending

Refugium: A Promise of the World to Come