Scene of Construction

It began by shedding branches in every storm, this multi-stemmed beech tree. Being a beech, whose toxic leaf-litter successfully manages to put off any tree or shrub (even its own offspring) from growing under its canopy, there is plenty of space for the branches to lie. For a few years, it was my go-to place to harvest the beech-specific, edible, incredibly slippery Porcelain Mushroom in late autumn. This year, the fungus appears to have exploited all the suitable fallen branches and moved elsewhere.

No shortage, though, or other fungi. They peer from behind the remnants of bark, congregate on dead wood, splash colour over the domain of the doomed beech tree. Now, whole trunks are falling, large brackets appear near the snaggy top of the one remaining trunk, piles of branches and fallen debris cover the ground. Meanwhile, leafy twigs still emerge from parts of the tree – it’s not dead yet!

Is a tree ever dead? Though branches crash down, timber decomposes, bark is shed, these are all the signs of a massive construction programme. The mushrooms and bacteria are building soil. The mosses, lichens, ferns and flowering plants are taking hold and creating gardens. Invertebrates in their thousands are moving in, chip-chipping away, getting in, getting under, uprooting, making a tree metropolis. Birds and small mammals home in on the seething busy-ness as if to an urban food-market, finding homes in the piled deadwood and tree-openings. Human foragers like me, and other large animals such as roe deer, visit for breakfast mushrooms. In spring, chickweed wintergreen and wood sorrel will cautiously return to woodland lighter and less toxic.

As the tree slowly, and apparently, dies, it shouts louder and louder with life,