13 Fantastic Forest Facts That Sound Almost Too Strange to Be True

Forests may appear peaceful, exciting and wonderful places to visit and walk through. There is an old saying that you cannot see the forest because of the trees (it is easier now with satillites), but a forestest can contain some of the strangest organisms and most remarkable natural relationships on Earth, that you do not know about.

Among the most surprising “fun facts about forests” is that what appears to be an entire aspen woodland in Utah is technically one enormous tree. Elsewhere, fungi stretch beneath thousands of acres, trees drink water from fog, and squirrels help forests grow by eating underground truffles.

Here are 13 interesting forest facts that reveal how complex, clever, and occasionally bizarre the natural world can be.

Pando aspen clone in fall colors, October 3, 2012. Forest Service photo by John Zapell.

1. An Entire Aspen Grove in Utah Is Actually One Tree

In Utah’s Fishlake National Forest stands an enormous grove of quaking aspens called “Pando.” Its name comes from a Latin word meaning “I spread.”

Pando may look like a forest containing thousands of separate trees. However, genetic testing will show that each trunk is connected to a single underground root system. Every visible stem is genetically part of the same organism.

The Pando aspen clone covers approximately “106 acres*” and contains more than *”40,000 individual-looking trunks”. Together, the stems and root system are estimated to weigh nearly 13 million pounds.

Each visible trunk eventually dies, but the underground root system can produce replacement shoots. This allows the organism to survive much longer than any individual stem.

Scientists are uncertain about Pando’s exact age. Some estimates suggest that the root system could be thousands of years old, possibly dating back to conditions near the end of the last ice age.

Pando is often described as one of the largest and heaviest living organisms known on Earth.

2. One of the World’s Largest Organisms Is an Underground Fungus

Pando is not the only giant organism hiding in a forest.

Beneath Oregon’s Malheur National Forest lives an enormous honey fungus belonging to the genus “Armillaria”. Its network of microscopic fungal threads spreads through the soil, tree roots, and decaying wood across approximately “2,385 acres”.

Armillaria Ostoyae mushrooms at the base of a grand fir in the Malheur National Forest- Location of the World’s Largest Living Organism (The Humongous Fungus)

Most of this organism is invisible from the surface. The mushrooms that sometimes appear above ground are only its reproductive structures. You can think of the underground fungus as an enormous apple tree and the mushrooms as its temporary apples.

This fungus is sometimes called the world’s largest living organism by area. Pando may be heavier, while the Oregon fungus covers a much greater amount of land. The winner depends on how “largest” is defined.

3. Forests Cover Almost One-Third of Earth’s Land

Forests cover approximately “31 percent of the world’s land surface”. These ecosystems contain much more than trees. A healthy forest includes shrubs, mosses, fungi, insects, birds, mammals, bacteria, soil organisms, and countless other forms of life.

Forests provide habitat for a large percentage of the world’s land-dwelling species. They also help:

• Store carbon
• Protect rivers and watersheds
• Reduce soil erosion
• Influence rainfall
• Filter air and water
• Provide food, medicine, fuel, and building material

A forest is not simply a group of trees. It is an interconnected biological community.

Redwoods in the Fog • Image by Sabrina Eickhoff from Pixabay

4. Coastal Redwood Trees Can Drink Fog

Fog may provide a substantial portion of the water used by redwoods during the dry season.

California’s coast redwoods are the tallest trees on Earth. Some rise more than 350 feet above the forest floor. Moving water from the soil to the top of such a tall tree is difficult, particularly during California’s dry summers.

Fortunately, redwoods do not rely entirely on water collected by their roots. Their needles and branches capture moisture from coastal fog. Some of this water is absorbed directly through the foliage. The rest gathers into droplets and falls onto the ground in a process known as fog drip.

Despite their enormous height, coast redwoods do not have deep taproots. Their roots are relatively shallow and spread outward. The roots may intermingle with those of neighboring redwoods, helping the trees remain stable during storms.

5. Some Pine Cones Need Fire Before They Open

Wildfire can destroy trees, but some forests have evolved to depend on periodic fire.

Certain lodgepole pines produce cones that are sealed shut with resin. These are known as “serotinous cones”. The cones can remain closed on a tree for years. When a wildfire passes through, the heat melts the resin and allows the cones to open. Their seeds then fall onto the newly cleared ground.

After a fire, young pine seedlings may benefit from:

• Increased sunlight
• Reduced competition
• Nutrient-rich ash
• Open soil for germination

In these forests, fire is not only destructive. It is also an important part of renewal.

6. Mangrove Trees Have Natural Snorkels

Mangrove forests grow along tropical and subtropical coastlines where the soil is salty, muddy, and frequently flooded. Most trees would struggle to survive in these conditions. Mangroves have developed several unusual adaptations.

Because waterlogged soil contains very little oxygen, some mangroves produce upright roots called “pneumatophores”. These roots stick out of the mud and allow the tree to take in oxygen. They function somewhat like natural snorkels, reaching above high waters

Mangroves must also cope with salt. Some species filter salt at their roots. Others move excess salt into older leaves or release it through special glands. Salt crystals may sometimes be visible on a mangrove leaf.

Their tangled roots also provide shelter for young fish, crabs, shellfish, and other coastal animals.

7. Some Living Trees Are More Than 5,000 Years Old

Great Basin bristlecone pines are among the oldest known non-clonal trees in the world. Some living specimens are more than “5,000 years old”. That means they were already growing before the Egyptian pyramids were built.

Bristlecone pines survive in cold, dry, rocky mountain environments where few other trees can grow. These harsh conditions cause them to grow extremely slowly. And this slow growth produces dense, resinous wood that resists insects, fungi, and decay.

Bristlecone pines can also survive after large portions of the tree have died. A narrow strip of living bark may continue carrying water and nutrients between one root and a small group of branches. As a result, a bristlecone pine may appear mostly dead while still producing green needles and cones.

8. Salmon Carry Ocean Nutrients Into Forests

Pacific salmon begin their lives in freshwater streams, migrate to the ocean, and later return to their birthplace to reproduce.

During their time at sea, salmon absorb nutrients from the marine food web. When they return to rivers and die after spawning, those nutrients enter the surrounding ecosystem. Bears, eagles, wolves, and other animals may carry salmon away from the water. The remains decompose in the soil and release nutrients that can be absorbed by plants and trees.

Scientists have detected marine-derived nutrients from salmon in vegetation growing near spawning streams. In this way, salmon act as living delivery systems, transporting nutrients from the ocean into inland forests.

9. Boreal Forests Store Large Amounts of Carbon Underground

The boreal forest stretches across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. It is one of the largest ecosystems on Earth.

When people imagine forest carbon storage, they often picture carbon held inside tree trunks. However, boreal forests store much of their carbon below ground.

Carbon accumulates in:

• Cold soils
• Peat
• Moss
• Dead roots
• Partially decomposed vegetation
• Permafrost

Cold temperatures and waterlogged conditions slow decomposition. Plant material can therefore remain in the soil for extremely long periods. This underground storage makes boreal forests important to Earth’s climate. It also makes them vulnerable to warming temperatures, thawing permafrost, and severe fires that can release stored carbon into the atmosphere.

10. Trees Form Partnerships With Underground Fungi

Many forest trees depend on partnerships with fungi known as “mycorrhizal fungi”.

The fungi grow around or inside a tree’s fine roots. Their microscopic threads extend through the surrounding soil and collect water and nutrients. The fungal network can reach into spaces that tree roots cannot easily access. In return, the tree provides the fungi with sugars created through photosynthesis.

This is a biological exchange:

• The fungi provide water and minerals.
• The tree provides energy-rich sugars.

Mycorrhizal relationships are extremely common. Many trees would grow poorly without their fungal partners.

Although popular descriptions sometimes refer to these fungal systems as a “wood wide web,” scientists continue to study exactly how nutrients and chemical signals move among trees. The underground relationships are real, but they are often more complicated than the popular nickname suggests.

11. Flying Squirrels Help Fungi – and Trees – Reproduce

Some fungi produce underground fruiting bodies commonly called truffles. Because these truffles are buried beneath the soil, they cannot release their spores into the wind as easily as above-ground mushrooms can.

Flying squirrels help solve this problem.

The squirrels locate and eat the underground fungi. Many fungal spores pass through the animals’ digestive systems without being destroyed. The squirrels later deposit the spores in their droppings elsewhere in the forest. These spores can then produce new fungi.

This matters because many of those fungi form beneficial mycorrhizal partnerships with trees. By eating truffles, flying squirrels indirectly help maintain the fungi that support forest growth. The squirrels are not intentionally planting fungi, of course. They are simply eating lunch. The forest benefits from the results.

12. One Woodpecker Tree Can Store 50,000 Acorns

Acorn woodpeckers create communal food-storage sites known as “granaries”.

The birds drill thousands of small holes into dead trees, thick-barked living trees, utility poles, wooden buildings, and other structures. They place one acorn into each hole. As the acorns dry, they shrink. The woodpeckers inspect their stored food and may move loose acorns into smaller holes where they fit more securely.

A large granary tree can hold tens of thousands of acorns. Some have been reported to contain approximately “50,000” acorns.

The birds may defend and maintain the same granary for generations.

Woodpeckers also excavate nesting cavities. After the woodpeckers leave, those holes may provide homes for owls, songbirds, squirrels, bats, and other animals that cannot create their own cavities.

A woodpecker can therefore function as both a forest carpenter and a community food-storage manager. And they make great tapping sounds, too!

13. Some Forest Mushrooms Glow in the Dark

Some fungi produce their own light through a process called “bioluminescence”. The glow is created by a chemical reaction inside the fungus. It is often greenish and may be visible only in very dark conditions.

In some species, the mushroom glows. In others, the light comes from fungal threads growing through decaying wood.

Glowing fungal growth in wood has traditionally been called “foxfire”. Scientists are still investigating why different fungi glow. In some cases, the light may attract insects that help spread fungal spores. In other species, the glow may be a byproduct of the fungus’s chemistry.

Whatever its purpose, bioluminescence can make a dark forest floor appear as though it belongs in a fantasy story.

Why Forests Are More Complicated Than They Look

These fun facts about forests demonstrate that a woodland is never just a collection of trees.

A forest can contain one tree disguised as thousands, a gigantic fungus hidden beneath the soil, pine cones waiting for fire, mushrooms glowing in the darkness, and fish carrying nutrients from the ocean.

Even the animals are part of the forest’s growth system. Squirrels spread fungal spores, woodpeckers create homes for other species, and bears carry salmon nutrients away from rivers.

Much of the most important activity occurs underground or high above our heads, where it is easy to miss.

The next time you walk through a forest, stop and look closely. The trees you see are only the most visible parts of an enormous and constantly changing community.

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