# How do trees send messages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 5, 2000, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242 "2000-08-05T11:30:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2000, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/21 "2000-08-06T23:42:13Z")
> [@](#): > > How do trees send messages? They use… “treE-Mail”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/22 "2000-08-07T09:11:37Z")
Of course, when they do write, it’s typically pulp fiction… ---
**Author:** ![mrblue92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@mrblue92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrblue92)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/23 "2000-08-07T14:15:51Z")
> [@](#): > > They use… “treE-Mail”. That’s _exactly_ what I was thinking. They keep copies of each message in a branch directory of the root. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/24 "2000-08-07T15:04:00Z")
And I suppose they use the pine mail client. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/25 "2000-08-07T16:15:19Z")
Once somebody played me a recording of trees “talking” to each other. The idea was that the trees exchange some kind of electronic signals with each other and somebody had figured out a recording process to pick up these signals and convert them into audible sonic waves. I forgot who made that recording. Anybody heard of this? ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/26 "2000-08-08T18:29:04Z")
Thanks **Funeefarmer** for the valiant attempt to raise this thread to the level of education. And to all you punsters out there you all deserve the Birch!! ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/27 "2000-08-08T21:40:25Z")
Like I always say, Ash and Yew shall receive. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/28 "2000-08-09T05:50:19Z")
I have not yet been able to locate the electronic recording of trees talking to each other, but I’m getting warmer. Found this news story that perhaps answers the OP: TREES TALK IN W-WAVES ``` We quote below from as Associated Press dispatch: "Grants Pass, Ore. (AP) - Physicist Ed Wagner says he has found evidence that trees talk to each other in a language he calls W-waves. "If you chop into a tree, you can see that adjacent trees put out an electrical pulse," said Wagner. "This indicates that they communicated directly." "Explaining the phenomenon, Wagner pointed to a blip on a strip chart recording of the electrical pulse. "It put out a tremendous cry of alarm," he said. "The adjacent trees put out smaller ones." ..... "People have known there was communication between trees for several years, but they've explained it by the chemicals trees produce," Wagner said. "But I think the real communication is much quicker and more dramatic than that," he said. "These trees know within a few seconds what is happening. This is an automatic response." "Wagner has measured the speed of W-waves at about 3 feet per second through the air. "They travel much too slowly for electrical waves," he said. "They seem to be an altogether different entity. That's what makes them so intriguing. They don't seem to be electromagnetic waves at all." (Anonymous; "Physicist Says Blip Proves Trees Talk," Seattle Sun Times, February 12, 1989. Cr. R.L. Simmons) Comment. In addition to the above discovery, Wagner, who holds a PhD in physics from the University of Tennessee, has detected electrical standing waves in trees. The voltage measured by electrodes implanted in trees goes up and down as one goes higher and higher up the trees. Wagner's work has been published in Northwest Science, but we have not yet seen it. Incidentally, electricity does seem to affect plant growth, as described in our handbook: Incredible Life. For a description of this book, visit: here. From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989. © 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ``` [http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf063/sf063b11.htm](http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf063/sf063b11.htm) ---
**Author:** ![OliverTwistofLime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b487fb/32.png) [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/29 "2000-08-09T09:24:26Z")
I bough to Wagner’s work on tree communication. Hes no sap.I believe he branched into other forms of vegetable communication as well. ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/30 "2000-08-09T21:18:14Z")
A description of a book that might offer a followup to the 1989 AP story. From [here…](http://www.orgonelab.org/xelenerg.htm) "\* WAVES IN DARK MATTER by O. ED WAGNER. A sequel to the author’s prior work on “W-Waves”, the author reveals the relationship between w-waves, which govern tree-sap movement to the tops of tall trees, to gravitational functions. “Dark Matter”, as determined by the author, presents a striking descriptive similarity to Reich’s orgone energy. 188 pp. $19.95 Softcover " So W-Waves govern tree sap movement. Has anyone read this and what do W-Waves have to do with dark matter ? ---
**Author:** ![jally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90ced4/32.png) [@jally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jally)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/31 "2000-08-10T21:17:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ishmintingas \* > \*\*“They travel much too slowly for electrical waves,” he said. “They > seem to be an altogether different entity. That’s what makes them > so intriguing. They don’t seem to be electromagnetic waves at all.” > [http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf063/sf063b11.htm](http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf063/sf063b11.htm) \*\* I wonder if telepathic people possess similar waves as trees. ---
**Author:** ![Rodd\_Hill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3ab097/32.png) [@Rodd\_Hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodd_Hill)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/32 "2000-08-10T22:36:02Z")
One assumes that they use the bush telegraph. Of course, in England of the 1950s, they had to make trunk calls. (Please excuse my lumbering sense of humour.) ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242/33 "2000-08-10T22:41:44Z")
I could have sworn that CSICOP did something on the whole w-wave silliness (which apparently also is claimed to govern why acupuncture works – go figure), but I can’t find more than a passing reference to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-trees-send-messages/28242.md?page=1)