Book Review: "The Hidden Company That Trees Keep"

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

For all you lovers of poetic, deeply felt, evocatively written nature books that treat the non-human world like it's a glimpse of heaven on Earth before the fall....this book is not for you. If, however, you have a curious mind with a desire or, ummm, compulsion to see the universe as it actually is, in all its infinitely complex detail, then you should definitely check this text out.

Wait! That's my book!

I got my copy from Crow Books in Burlington, VT (yes, that's an unsolicited plug) but it's available from the Northern Woodlands bookstore. (Addendum: if you haven't subscribed to Northern Woodlands magazine yet, then do so now. You're welcome.) Author James B. Nardi, a research scientist at the University of Illinois, divides the exogenous life of trees into three realms: the "leafscape," the "barkscape", and the "rootscape" (or, crown, trunk, and litter/soil/roots), then documents in (sometimes excruciating) detail the microscopic to macroscopic species that live in, on, and near a tree. While Nardi does occasionally mention species as being tropical or not temperate, most of the book seems to be descriptive of or applicable to northeastern North American forests.

Short take: a lot - and I mean a lot - of insects and insect larvae. A lot of beetles (well, there are a lot of beetles in the world, yes?). Other than the introductory passages that give an overview of plant and tree biology, arboreal ecosystems such as mycorrhizae, and each of Nardi's 'scapes (passages which are very good and reward rereading), the book is essentially a descriptive list of the many, many, many arthropods (and some other very small critters, like nematodes) that live in, on, and near a tree from root to crown. While few who read this book will remember in any detail more than a fraction of the species listed, anyone who has any interest in trees, ecosystems, and the complexity of the non-human world should have this book on the shelf. First, it's an excellent reference for the subject of biodiversity and ecosystem complexity. Second, it provides in profound detail a look into a world that only dedicated specialists would normally have any idea of, creatures smaller than the period on the end of this sentence that live in huge numbers and in hugely complex systems, unseen and unnoticed, in, on, and around a tree. Third, and probably most important, is how Nardi's approachable and comprehensive cataloguing of so many species - obligate, facultative, parasitic - that are in so many ways reliant on or connected to any given tree, without pedantry or overt intent transports the reader out of our own species' baseline self absorption and into a larger awareness of a far more universal kind. The pieces make the whole, not the other way around, something that in my opinion very few if any of the fawning nature tomes out there understand or achieve. A text I will be referring to for many years to come, and learning something new with every visit.