Factology – Issue 30: Trees (Current Issue)

FACTOLOGY – Open up a world of Information!

It’s time to explore…

There is nothing more important than trees. Every day, we use them in thousands of ways and by producing keeping us and every other animal on the planet alive.

There are an estimated 3.04 trillion individual trees (that’s 3,040,000,000,000!). They include the world’s oldest, tallest and heaviest living things. These are impressive stats but we should not take them for granted. According to the 2024 Global Tree Assessment, 38% of the 47,282 species surveyed are at risk of extinction.

We humans can be proud of our achievements – electricity, the internet, chocolate – but trees have existed for millions of years and have plenty to teach us. Scientists are fascinated by the mycorrhizal fungal network in which fungi and roots join together to pass on food and water. It’s thought that this network, known as the ‘wood wide web’, supports all life on Earth.

As you’re about to find out, that’s just one of the many things that puts trees among the natural world’s most impressive inhabitants.