Dead Wood: The Afterlife of Trees – Ellen Wohl

Thoughts: I really enjoyed reading Dead Wood. Though the title suggests a book about driftwood, the book is more about the interactions between trees and rivers, as well as with the other organisms that make up trees’ and rivers’ communities. The book follows the life stories of three trees from germination near streams, through their lives, and ultimately through their wood’s journey down the rivers toward the sea after the trees’ death. I came across Dead Wood on a new arrivals shelf at the Grande Bibliothèque in Montreal, began reading it with some skepticism, but am glad in the end to have stumbled across it.

(The notes below are not a summary of the book, but rather raw notes - whatever I thought, at the time, might be worth remembering.)

Wohl, Ellen. 2022. Dead Wood: The Afterlife of Trees. Oregon State UP.

Of Trees and Rivers

The First Tree: Headwaters

• 40-41: perhaps the initial source of the “little bugs have littler bugs” rhyme: Jonathan Swift, excerpt from “On Poetry, A Rhapsody”: “So, naturalists observe, a flea / Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; / And these have smaller still to bite ’em; / And so proceed, ad infinitum”.
• 43: Snags support populations of insects as well as nesting places for birds that prey on these insects. When these birds have healthy populations, they also feed on insects that would otherwise feed on living trees. Thus, standing deadwood contributes to the health of living trees in a forest.

The Second Tree: Lowlands

The Third Tree: Traveler

Conclusion: In Praise of Dead Wood