Teaching the Trees

Beech

25 I have fallen in love with beech trees (Fagus grandifolia). I was always fond of them, but over the years my affection has ripened into something deeper—something I’m not afraid to use the “L word” to describe. The light inside a beech forest changes with each season , but always there is a radiance that makes your heart beat faster. The leaves are more translucent than the leaves of other types of trees, so more light passes through them; and the light takes on the hue of the leaves: pale green in the spring, lime green in the summer, and clear yellow in the fall. Even in the winter the trees are decorated for the season, with a few parchment-colored leaves hanging on, and perhaps some pine needle tinsel caught on the horizontal branches. The lower branches tend to droop down, sometimes forming a magical sanctuary full of that unreal light. Tell me, how can you not be in love with beech trees? Beech 27 i used to work for the state of Maryland looking for rare and endangered plants. My botanist friend and I tramped through every kind of forest and habitat on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The days we got to spend time in a beech forest were special. People here take them for granted, but the reality is that only 2 percent of the forests in our area are beech forests, and all of them are on private land. That means that not one of them is protected from logging, and the rest of us have no say at all about what happens to them. If the landowners cut down every single beech forest in the state, it would be perfectly legal and acceptable in the eyes of the government. It makes me wonder about the wisdom of depending on the government to protect the environment. One of my favorite beech forests, full of big, old trees, was in an area called Nutter’s Neck. We visited the forest early one spring and had fun finding red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus cinereus) hiding under branches on the damp forest floor. I had never seen so many salamanders in my life! Although a herpetologist will tell you that redbacks are the most common salamanders in the northeastern United States, it is still a thrill to find them. These little amphibians have no lungs, so they have to get their oxygen by absorbing it through their skin. The absorption mechanism works only if the skin is damp, so dry equals death to the salamanders. As you might imagine, a good rain brings them out in droves. They scamper around on the ground licking up ants, beetles, spiders, snails, and grubs. At night they climb trees looking for food. The salamanders literally stuff themselves when conditions are favorable, and live off their stored fat when conditions are too dry to forage.1 The salamanders typically live in forests that contain older deciduous trees, such as the one we were working in. They don’t do well in pure pine forests because the nee- 28 dles that drop to the ground under the pines are very acidic and the acidity interferes with the salamander’s “skin breathing.” odors are a vital part of the red-backed salamander’s world. An individual can smell another salamander and tell if it is a relative or not, and can tell by an area’s odor whether it is in some other salamander’s territory. Scent is also important for mating. The male will rub his scent on a female to stimulate her to breed.When both partners are ready, the male will deposit onto the forest floor a small, egg-shaped object that contains sperm. The female follows behind him and picks up the “sperm egg” with her cloaca (the amphibian equivalent of a vagina).2 Those ignorant of salamander lifestyles might imagine that the salamander mothers just deposit their eggs in a suitable spot and then forget about them. Nothing could be further from the truth. After she lays her fertilized eggs down in a dark crevice of the earth, the female salamander will literally protect them with her life. She stays curled around the eggs—not even venturing out to feed—until they hatch. Salamander eggs that are not in contact with the female become infested with fungus and die. Scientists recently discovered that the female salamander...