Book Review: Being an Oak – Life as a Tree

Being an Oak
Life as a Tree

Laurent Tillon, translated by Jessica Moore
Ithaca Press, 2025
ISBN 9781804183403

This is an English Translation of Être un chêne: sous l’écorce de Quercus, published in 2021. Laurent Tillon is Head of Biodiversity at France’s National Forestry Office, with responsibility for drawing up inventories of woodland animals, particularly mammals and amphibians. He lives to the west of Paris in Rambouillet Forest, where the book is set.

This is the reconstructed life story of a single sessile oak (Quercus petraea), familiar to the author, in the heart of Rambouillet. All of the actors in this drama are given names and sexes, and the subject is called, unsurprisingly, Quercus and is “he”. M. Tillon knows that the acorn that gave rise to the tree germinated in 1780, but the details of its early life are of necessity a matter of informed and dramatic speculation.

We are introduced to a cast of characters who will shape the tree’s life history, including three mammals, a fungus, four insects, an amphibian, a reptile, two species of woodpecker, two other tree species, two named storms, and some people. The latter inclusion allows for a discussion of the formulation of French forestry policy in the years leading up to and after the French Revolution, which I found very interesting.

 A particular strength of the narrative is that it emphasizes the complex interrelationships between all of the players. It avoids the traditional casting of predators, parasites, and symbionts and shows that at any particular point in a life cycle roles may change, subtly or suddenly. For example, when a woodpecker attacks a branch wound to create a nesting hole, it is undoubtedly damaging the tree, but in removing fungus-infected wood it may also be protecting it. 

So we are guided along a path that connects acorn production and predation, masting, caching by rodents, and the role of thorny plants in protecting young saplings. Then we arrive at the first part of the narrative that I found problematic. In his discussion of mycorrhizae, it becomes clear that, although he doesn’t name it, the author subscribes to the Mother Tree hypothesis as formulated by Suzanne Simard. Thus, it’s presented as established fact that trees preferentially share resources and information with each other through common mycorrhizal networks and can assist a member of the community that needs help. This is disputed by several workers in the field (see, for example, this March 2024 article in the journal Nature or this one published in Damage in October 2024), but this important fact is not acknowledged. 

A chapter relating to defoliation by the oak leafroller moth, Tortrix viridana, also known as the green oak tortrix, and another about the wood cricket, Nemobius sylvestris, work particularly well together because they demonstrate how something that at first sight is disastrous for the tree—defoliation—can, through the agency of primary decomposers, be of longer-term benefit to the forest. In discussing the response to defoliator attacks, the author briefly touches on recent findings in the field of electrophysiology, which provides food for thought.

Another mention, almost in passing, is of the role of plant hairs and other trichomes in providing shelter for mites that clean leaves of contaminants: another fascinating insight into complex webs of relationships. There is more, including the story of the local extirpation of the gray wolf, Canis lupus, the effect it had on the health of the forest and particularly on natural regeneration, and the return of a single individual, 150 years later. 

There are, unfortunately, some problems of translation which make comprehension difficult at times. The translator has confused the amount of woodland cover over time with the afforestation rate; “moth” is translated at one point as “butterfly”; xylem vessels are treated as “channels”, which makes a description of wound compartmentalization almost incomprehensible. 

Finally, and I’m not sure whether this is a translation issue, there is a very strange and confused description of the life cycle of the Cynipid wasp Neuroterus quercusbaccarum, which makes no mention of the feature most characteristic of it: the formation of the familiar spangle galls. 

I think that for many the most memorable aspect of this otherwise impressive book will be its relentless anthropomorphism. Describing how “his” oak seems to have a kind of personality, the author admits that “I’ve fallen well and truly into anthropocentrism, which was something I wanted to avoid.” He goes on to say that “attributing human emotions to it would be doing it a disservice. It is so much more than that.” Five pages later, he falls into that trap, telling us that “Quercus wants me to urgently convey that we need to take care of trees.” And he stays there for the rest of the book, with soil microfauna “thrown into a panic”; the oak “praying that there would be no frost” during catkin formation; “Quercus feels the imperceptible [sic] increase of carbon in the air he breathes” and so on. 

I found it difficult to imagine the intended audience for this book. I think it would suit a young person contemplating a career in forest ecology or anyone who is new to the subject but knows little about it. Whether it would be enjoyed by IOS members is largely governed by their tolerance of its writing style, I imagine. For some, the anthropomorphism may be an acceptable narrative device, while for others, this reviewer included, it is anathema. 

My thanks to Béatrice Chassé for helpful comments on the original French edition.