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We’re not just here to bring you the best web dramas — we’re also part of a powerful wellness network for men that cares about your performance both on screen… and in the bedroom.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Three trillion trees blanket our world.
00:12From spectacular cherries in spring,
00:17to the golden maples of North America,
00:22and the strange-looking baobab trees of Madagascar.
00:30They can bring us joy...
00:34..and even keep us alive.
00:38All these amazing trees around us give us the air that we breathe.
00:43But what do we really know about their hidden world?
00:47As you get closer to the tree, it just gets more and more remarkable.
00:52In this series, we'll follow their incredible lifespans.
00:56There are trees alive on Earth today that are as old as the Great Pyramids.
01:01Discover how trees communicate.
01:04This whole wood is interconnected,
01:08and that opens up so many possibilities.
01:11And learn how they survive in some of the toughest places on Earth.
01:15In this first episode, we're beginning with birth.
01:27And the journey to become an adult.
01:32As we reveal how trees mate.
01:35These flowers aren't for us.
01:39They abode for trees to have sex.
01:42And even how a growing tree drinks.
01:46I can hear it.
01:48Oh, what a lovely sound.
01:51You'll never look at a tree in the same way again.
01:54There are more than 70,000 species of tree on our planet.
02:15But they all begin life in the same way.
02:25Even the giants of the tree world.
02:30The redwoods.
02:31The largest trees on Earth live in Northern California.
02:46Towering up to 116 metres, they're taller than the Statue of Liberty.
02:51Redwoods grow in Europe too.
03:06And some of the biggest are found at Benmore Botanic Garden
03:10in Western Scotland.
03:14Tony Kirken was the head of trees at Kew Gardens.
03:17He's spent a lifetime around the world's greatest trees.
03:24I spent 50 years of my professional career working with trees.
03:30And I'm still learning about them every day.
03:37So these trees are the giant redwoods.
03:40And they're my favourite trees.
03:42And I think it's probably because of the sheer size that they make.
03:45And how long they live for.
03:48Up to 3,000 years old.
03:50And they can have trunks about 8 metres diameter.
03:53So they, you know, they are monsters.
03:58These were planted in 1863.
04:01So they're just about 160 years old.
04:06They're taller than Nelson's Column.
04:08To put things into perspective.
04:1050, 55 metres.
04:11So they're tall.
04:14But like almost all trees, even these giants begin life as something tiny.
04:27Little seeds.
04:28So one of the incredible things about these massive trees is that they come from a seed this small.
04:37So tiny.
04:38Most people would think it would be the size of a coconut, you know, to make a tree this big.
04:42But they are minute.
04:43So tiny.
04:45To think that something so small can generate something so massive.
04:50All the redwoods and all the trees on the planet.
04:54Three trillion of them all grow from something so small.
04:58So small.
04:59I think that's pretty amazing.
05:01Astonishing actually.
05:08But how are seeds actually made in the first place?
05:12For many trees, the creation of new life begins with one of the most beautiful displays in the natural world.
05:27Blossom.
05:35For a few brief weeks in spring trees are painted in a fresh coat of colour.
05:40As their flowers burst into life.
05:51From the vivid pinks of Japan's cherry trees.
05:57To the pastel shades of almonds, apples, peaches and plums.
06:04And from magnolias.
06:05To the vibrant pomegranate tree.
06:08To the vibrant pomegranate tree.
06:15But as beautiful as it looks, all this colour isn't for us.
06:20It has a very important job.
06:23Helping the tree to create new life in the form of seeds.
06:28This is one of my favourite times of the year when all the colour starts to appear back into the countryside after such a long, barren, bleak winter.
06:42Biologist Connor Butler is visiting elder trees.
06:48Each elder has thousands of flowers.
06:52Many more than most blossom trees.
06:54And in this orchard at Beaver Farm, the sweet-scented blooms are bursting into life.
07:05Connor is here to unlock the mystery of why many trees produce blossom.
07:11This field is filled with thousands and thousands of flowers and it smells really incredible right now.
07:17But these flowers aren't for us.
07:19They evolve for trees to have sex.
07:22Like us, to mate the next generation, trees need to reproduce.
07:32But when it comes to mating, they have a major problem.
07:37They are literally rooted to the spot.
07:41So unlike us, trees can't move.
07:43So in order for them to find a mate, they've actually got to find a pretty ingenious way to do that.
07:47And the way they've done that is to have flowers.
08:00The clever trees are using flowers to attract something that can move.
08:06Bees and other insects.
08:09To help them mate.
08:11So I've just caught this bee off this elderflower tree here.
08:14And this bee is visiting all the flowers.
08:17And these flowers are really brightly coloured.
08:19They smell fantastic.
08:21And they contain a really sugary liquid called nectar.
08:24And the trees produce that nectar to try and attract these pollinating insects in.
08:29The flowers look beautiful to us, but for insects they look a whole other level of attractiveness.
08:35Trees use their bright flowers and sweet-smelling nectar to lure in the bees.
08:45And whilst the bee is getting a tasty treat, the tree gives it something else to take away.
08:53Pollen.
08:54So pollen is essentially tree sperm, and it wants to get that pollen as far away as possible to a tree which could be hundreds and hundreds of metres away.
09:03And it uses bees and other insects to do that travelling.
09:05On beautiful spring days, as the air is filled with the scent of flowers, it also hums with the soundtrack of insects.
09:18A single bee can visit more than a thousand flowers in one day.
09:32Bees and trees working together to create a seed.
09:37So let's have a closer look at some of these flowers.
09:41What we can see here are the male parts, which are a bit kind of yellowish in colour, they're kind of sticking up out of the flower.
09:48And on each one of these is loads and loads of pollen grains.
09:51And when a bee or an insect visits the flower, it gets covered in this really dusty pollen.
09:56And when it's had its fill, it flies off to another flower.
09:59When it lands on that flower, it then deposits that pollen onto the female part, which is right in the centre of this flower.
10:07The pollen will make its way to an egg hidden inside.
10:13And that is the moment of conception, and that is where the seed starts to form.
10:23And actually on some of these bunches here, we can see the petals have dropped off,
10:28and that will then swell and starts to grow into a seed.
10:31Most blossom only lasts a few short weeks in spring.
10:39Once the tree has shed its petals, it focuses its energy over the summer months, growing thousands of brand new seeds.
10:48But fewer than one in a thousand newly created seeds will make it into adulthood.
11:02So for many, there's a long and precarious journey ahead.
11:09It's summertime.
11:10And for trees, it's an important season for their precious offspring.
11:19The seeds are growing fast.
11:20And soon they'll be ready to leave home.
11:29To get the best start in life, they must take root far from the parent tree.
11:39And many have adopted ingenious ways to travel.
11:52Some use the wind, like the cleverly shaped helicopter seeds of sycamores and maples, catching a gust to be scattered far and wide.
12:16Other seeds are tucked away inside colorful fruits to entice hungry animals.
12:29They eat the fruit, but leave the seeds behind to take root away from the parent tree.
12:37And then, from the bare soil, a brand new tree begins to grow.
12:58But for many infant trees, the next stage of life can be challenging.
13:03In Italy, the steep slopes along its southern coastline are the perfect place to grow lemon trees.
13:20Salvatore di Accetto tends to 2,600 amalfi lemon trees on a 12-acre farm his family has worked for two centuries.
13:32I represent my sixth generation in the lemon farm, the business.
13:37The lemons are everything for us.
13:41We have a connection with the plants.
13:43We consider our plants like our relatives, part of our family.
13:47In our veins, we don't have blood, we have lemon juice.
13:51In Salvatore's orchard, he has a special nursery for the youngest infant trees.
14:07Lemon trees grow up fast.
14:10And by the age of just five, they're producing their own juicy fruit.
14:19Hmm?
14:20It's huge.
14:26You can eat it like an apple.
14:28It is very sweet.
14:30You can't imagine.
14:31But there's a problem.
14:38Just like any infant, Salvatore's young trees can be reckless.
14:44These inexperienced youngsters are making more fruit than their slender branches can bear.
14:52We are having a lot of troubles on the young trees.
14:57Because when the plant has too much lemon, it can be a little bit dangerous.
15:02The young trees get so carried away producing lemons, they're at risk of snapping their branches.
15:09So, they're given a frame to hold onto as they grow.
15:14To support the lemons, we're tired.
15:17And we use it like a scarf folding.
15:20Because it's the same as human nature.
15:21When you are young, you need more attention to the father, to the mother.
15:25It's the same for the plants.
15:32It's the same as baby in the cradle.
15:34They stay nice, they have support, and they can grow them better.
15:39Once they're matured, the trees can safely bear huge quantities of giant lemons.
15:49We have to wait 15, 20 years.
15:52This tree, like for example, this tree can give me 150 kilograms.
16:00Salvatore's tiny slice of the Amalfi Coast produces 70 tons of luscious lemons a year.
16:10And I know many people don't believe, but when I sell my lemons, I am jealous.
16:14I don't want to give up because I consider my lemons like a baby.
16:18I don't want to give my baby.
16:19After a long day in the orchard, Salvatore's wife Giovanna uses their precious fruit to make a meal for two.
16:34The lemons are everything for us.
16:44I eat, I drink lemons, I see lemons sometimes, I drink lemons.
16:49With this spaghetti, she cooks very well, simple.
16:54At the end of the day, what else?
16:56Spaghetti, the tasty, the taste is very, very nice, simple food.
17:01And the lemon zest, the lemon sauce, it's fantastic.
17:04From lemon trees growing in the Italian sunshine...
17:18To 11,000 trees thriving in one of the most famous gardens in the world.
17:33The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London is home to 2,000 different species of tree.
17:44It's the perfect place to find out how young trees mature into adulthood.
17:49Just like us, all growing youngsters need to eat.
18:00And for a tree, its food is sunlight.
18:05Which it gathers with its leaves.
18:11Cecily Withall is a member of Kew's tree gang.
18:15Her job is to keep a watchful eye on the health of the gardeners' trees.
18:29As a child, I climbed trees a lot.
18:31And my family now find it hilarious that I climb trees for a job as a grown-up.
18:35To get to literally work with these trees every day,
18:38it really is something that is beyond wonderful.
18:45The leaves at Kew span every conceivable shape, colour and size.
18:56Today, Cecily is checking up on some of her favourite trees.
19:02Starting with one that has some of the biggest leaves.
19:06The Indian bean tree.
19:09Otherwise known as Catalpa.
19:11So, as you can see, this is a huge leaf on the Catalpa.
19:14And some can reach up to 30 centimetres in length,
19:16which is really big compared to other species of tree.
19:20Big leaves are ideal for taking on the most important job for any tree.
19:33Feeding itself.
19:35The most amazing things that trees do is their ability to make their own food.
19:41So, we as humans have to source our food to fuel our bodies.
19:46But the tree here is making its own.
19:48Trees are very, very clever and they do something called photosynthesis.
19:53And that's when they're taking in the sun's energy through the sunlight that penetrates the leaf.
20:00When you look at that, it's a huge leaf.
20:04It's giving the most surface area to collect the light.
20:07Leaves combine the energy from the sun with water sucked up from the ground, as well as carbon dioxide from the air.
20:19A remarkable recipe that creates trees' food.
20:23I think it's pretty amazing that leaves are able to make and produce their own food,
20:29whereas we're still popping off to the shops.
20:35To catch as much nourishing sunlight as they can,
20:39trees spread their leaves over as great an area as possible.
20:44One single tree can grow two billion leaves.
20:55And all these leaves don't just feed the tree.
20:59By soaking up carbon dioxide from the air, trees also help to combat climate change.
21:09This purple-leaved oak has a vast leaf canopy.
21:15The thousands, hundreds of thousands of leaves covering this tree are doing such a huge job.
21:20It's spread out here as much as possible to make the most of that sunlight.
21:25And it's competing against all the trees around it as well.
21:28That's why you see canopies stretching out past other trees to really push them into the sunlight.
21:34They'll push their leaves and their branches out to find that source of the sun,
21:39because they obviously need it to survive.
21:45Not far away is another of Q's gems,
21:50a tree with a distinctive leaf shape,
21:54the ginkgo.
21:55I think it's really hard not to create bonds with certain trees in the garden.
22:05And I think I've got a secret bond with the ginkgo, just because of its history and lineage.
22:11This tree was known to be growing 200 million years ago, and we still find fossils now that look identical to the leaf shape of the ginkgo.
22:23Ginkgos are one of the most ancient species of tree living on Earth.
22:35It's remarkable to think that leaves just like this were eaten by dinosaurs.
22:48But growing trees can't reach adulthood on sunlight alone.
22:53They need to drink vast amounts of water.
22:58But that begs the question.
23:02How do they survive in some of the hottest places on our planet?
23:06As a new day dawns,
23:25young trees stretch out their leaves towards the rising sun,
23:33gathering its energy as food.
23:38But growing trees can't live on sunlight alone.
23:42They must drink water.
23:46And finding enough to quench its thirst is a life or death challenge for a fragile young tree.
24:03But how does a tree survive if its home is a desert?
24:07Acacia trees grow in a part of Israel where it rains less than an inch in a whole year.
24:22To thrive, these trees have extra long roots
24:27and grow in places where they can tap into underground sources of water.
24:33Some as deep as 30 metres.
24:37In Madagascar, there's one of the planet's most unusual-looking trees.
24:48The otherworldly baobab.
24:54Known as the camels of the tree world,
24:58the wood inside their giant trunks acts like a sponge.
25:02Incredibly, each tree can suck up and hold 120,000 litres of water.
25:12That's as much as one of us would drink in a hundred years.
25:17In Australia, eucalyptus trees also manage to thrive in scorching heat.
25:35These young trees are some of the fastest growing on Earth.
25:38They need to drink a lot of water.
25:42So, what does a tree do to quench its thirst?
25:48Wildlife sound recordist, Ellie Williams, is hoping to reveal exactly how they do it.
25:54When you look at a tree, it doesn't seem that similar to us.
26:05They seem still and passive, and yet they share so many needs that we do.
26:10They need nutrients, they need to grow, and they need to drink.
26:18Ellie believes that she can find out how a tree drinks simply by listening.
26:24This plantation is full of lots of different age eucalyptus trees.
26:32This one's really young, and it's got really beautiful leaves
26:35with kind of pink veins and a pink rim.
26:38And the leaves are a really different shape as well in young eucalyptus trees,
26:42and nobody really knows why.
26:44But there are some older trees in the other side,
26:48so I'm going to wander over there now.
26:49This thirsty teenage tree is already ten metres tall,
27:09and should be ideal to listen to while it drinks.
27:13This is my contact mic.
27:14It does this magic thing of picking up the tiniest vibrations,
27:19or sound waves, through this metal pin.
27:38It's quite windy today.
27:39The first thing I notice is the kind of really warm rumblings,
27:43and that's the big vibrations as the tree sways in the breeze.
27:52As she tunes in, Ellie taps into fainter sounds from within the tree.
27:57The breeze has slowed down a little bit,
28:05which might give me a chance to hear this really delicate sound,
28:08which is the sound I really want to hear.
28:11And if I'm lucky...
28:15OK, that might have been one.
28:17Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a little gurgle.
28:28I can hear it.
28:35Oh, what a lovely sound.
28:37It's like the most gentle little kind of series of bubbles.
28:41These faint popping noises are the sounds the young tree is making as it drinks,
28:54defying gravity as it sucks water all the way up its long trunk.
29:01So trees are full of these tiny little tubes.
29:07Imagine hundreds and hundreds of metres of tiny little drinking straws.
29:11And what the tree does is it pulls water and nutrients from the soil,
29:17through the roots, up through the trunk, into the branches, into the leaves.
29:20It's just these tiny little bubbling popping sounds.
29:27So that's basically the sound of air mixing with the water in the tubes.
29:33And eucalyptus trees are so, so thirsty.
29:37Each tree can drink about a bathtub's worth of water a day.
29:42You put these on and there's a whole other world going on.
29:47And it's loud and it's dramatic and it's beautiful.
29:53So we kind of feel that trees aren't doing that much,
29:56but they're doing so much.
29:58It makes you realise that there is all this life and movement happening all the time,
30:03but we just don't notice it.
30:04The secret life of trees is happening all around us.
30:22Young trees that started life as tiny seeds are getting taller and stronger.
30:27and stronger.
30:32But like most teenagers on their journey towards adulthood,
30:37the speed at which they grow is incredibly varied.
30:44Some trees gain height quickly.
30:46These weeping willows can grow by nearly three metres in a single year.
30:57They have far-reaching roots that draw on the abundance of water around them.
31:02Some of the slowest growing trees live high up in America's Rocky Mountains.
31:12This is the home of the whitebark pine.
31:16The trees spend eight months of the year shrouded in snow,
31:24leaving them just four months to grow.
31:30And to reach their adult size,
31:33it takes these pines an incredible 250 years,
31:38a quarter of a millennium.
31:40Every tree on Earth is fed and nourished by gathering sunshine with their leaves,
31:51and water from their roots.
31:54But how exactly do trees physically grow?
31:58Physically grown.
32:09In the new forest,
32:11Forestry England archaeologist Lawrence Shaw
32:15has an unusual way of finding out.
32:18When I'm walking through forests,
32:19I think it's probably a very different experience to most other people.
32:23As others might be littering out for birds or looking at the wildlife,
32:29I'm interpreting how people have interacted with this landscape over millennia.
32:36Lawrence is looking for tree graffiti.
32:41The carvings that people have made on trees in the past.
32:46Isn't this tree just beautiful?
32:48And it's absolutely littered with historic tree graffiti.
32:51People leaving their mark.
32:54They can date back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years,
32:58and they can connect us to individuals, specific events,
33:02a whole host of different things.
33:04So we have two initials here and a beautifully signed signature of T.B. James,
33:10and the year of 1944,
33:13all carved into the tree bark of this beech tree.
33:15And we know that American service personnel were stationed here in advance of the D-Day landing,
33:22and there's every probability that T.B. James was an American serviceman
33:26who was part of that assault on Normandy on that fateful night
33:31that was going to shape the war and the world for years to come.
33:35These days we shouldn't carve our names into trees as it can harm them.
33:44But these inscriptions from history can help Lawrence uncover the secret of how this beech tree has grown.
33:51Whilst the tree is several metres taller than it was during the Second World War,
34:00the carving itself hasn't moved any higher.
34:04It's been, yeah, 80 years since, but what's lovely to see is that it's still at exactly the same height
34:10that that individual carved those.
34:13So whilst the tree has grown upwards, this has stayed where it is.
34:16This tells us that the tree has gained all its new height at the top of its trunk,
34:31rather than growing upwards from its base.
34:35Now Lawrence is in search of older tree graffiti
34:40to see if the same is true even after hundreds of years have passed.
34:44So the new forest was created by William the Conqueror in 1079 as a royal hunting forest.
34:59Over the next seven centuries, thousands of trees were planted for England's kings and queens.
35:06Oaks provided wood for the warships of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
35:19And Lawrence knows of a special tree still standing that was growing in the 1800s,
35:26when George III's navy was fighting sea battles against Napoleon Bonaparte.
35:31So this is a lovely example of a king's mark on this beech tree.
35:41So you've got the shaft with the arrow coming down the trunk of the tree with the two returns,
35:47making the point of the arrow there.
35:48And this is used to mark and infantry trees that are going to be used for shipbuilding.
35:53The arrow told foresters not to cut it down.
35:59The wood was to be saved for a warship.
36:02The mark on this beech tree was made around 200 years ago.
36:07At the time, the tree was still young and only a few metres tall.
36:15Over the past two centuries, the tree has added at least 20 metres in height,
36:22and yet the mark hasn't moved at all.
36:24I'm basically stood at the same head level as the individual that drew this carving.
36:31200 years ago this tree would have been thinner,
36:34but the mark itself is at the same position that it was drawn at that time.
36:40What's lovely about historic tree graffiti is that they demonstrate the growing processes of trees.
36:45It may warp as a tree grows wider.
36:51But certainly these things don't disappear up with the tree.
36:56The 200-year-old carving proves that trees don't grow from the base of their trunk.
37:04Instead, as they get taller, all the tree's growth happens higher up
37:09as it stretches its branches towards the sunlight.
37:20If trees do most of their growing throughout the warm summer months,
37:25how do they prepare themselves for the freezing weather of winter?
37:40It's autumn, a spectacular time in a tree's calendar.
37:53After gathering in the sunlight of summer,
37:56many trees must do one last remarkable thing
38:00before they can rest over winter.
38:03This is Forestry England's Western Burt Arboretum in Gloucestershire.
38:18Arborist Joe Porter looks after its 15,000 trees.
38:23He's fascinated by why, in autumn, many erupt into a riot of colour.
38:41As you can see, the trees are putting on some lovely colour for us.
38:44It's great to see so many people enjoying all of these beautiful trees
38:49and enjoying having that connection with nature.
38:51With the busyness of our job, every now and then it is quite nice just to stop,
38:56take a look and see this colour and it lifts your spirits a little bit.
39:00But it's also not just for us that they're doing this.
39:04There's also a lot of important stuff going on inside the trees
39:08as they prepare for winter.
39:14Many of the 2,500 species of trees here are deciduous.
39:19which means they lose their leaves every year
39:24after a flourish of autumn colour.
39:28And none are more dramatic than the acers.
39:34So, acer is the botanical name for a maple tree.
39:40You tend to see a lot of these planted in people's gardens.
39:44The leaf shape looks like your hand.
39:47It helps them with wind deflection.
39:48The wind can move through the leaves and it causes less damage when it does get up to high winds.
39:57They're a little bit of a marker for when autumn has come.
40:00They go in this beautiful colour and they brighten up people's gardens
40:04when gloomy weather comes and they're just this brilliant sort of show at the beginning of autumn.
40:07But why do leaves change their colour from green to vibrant shades of red and gold?
40:16So this time of year, as autumn moves through and we move into winter,
40:21the trees have got to prepare themselves for shorter days and colder temperatures.
40:27Leaves could get damaged in winter with frostbite, high winds.
40:32So they've got to prepare themselves and get themselves ready for this hibernation time of year for them.
40:37Over the summer, the leaves have been gathering energy from sunshine.
40:50In autumn, the colour changes we see from greens to oranges, yellows and reds
40:58are caused by the trees stopping this food-making process.
41:02When we see green leaves like this, it's because they're full of what we call chlorophyll.
41:11It's a chemical inside the leaf that helps the tree to photosynthesise and create food for itself.
41:22What we see throughout the process of autumn is the breakdown of that chlorophyll
41:26as it draws all of its good nutrients back into itself.
41:32Trees sense the shorter days and cooler air of autumn.
41:37It triggers them to claw back their harder nutrients,
41:41removing the green and revealing the naked leaf beneath.
41:49And what we are seeing is this natural hue in behind,
41:52which is the colour that is present all year round,
41:54but you just don't see it because the chlorophyll is so dominating in its colour.
41:57As the trees slowly break down the chlorophyll,
42:02different combinations of chemicals are left behind.
42:06They've had this gradual transition throughout autumn,
42:09trying to get that every last bit of sunlight that they can before winter comes along.
42:14So here we have one of our younger acers.
42:15You can tell it's a really good and healthy and vigorous tree.
42:23Quite often when you see trees dropping their leaves, it can be seen as quite a sad thing.
42:28But it's a really positive move for the tree as it hunkers down for the winter,
42:33protects itself and then there's some tiny little buds starting to poke through,
42:37which means it's ready come springtime to sort of burst forth and continue producing its food from its leaves.
42:49And then there's some tiny little buds starting to poke through,
42:54which means it's ready come springtime to sort of burst forth and continue producing its food from its leaves.
43:01And in a few days or weeks, this spectacle will be over as trees let the wind carry away the leaves they no longer need.
43:22For every deciduous tree, it's a vital stage in their long lives.
43:37As they fall into a winter slumber, they've ensured that they have saved enough energy to get taller and stronger for next spring and the year ahead.
43:51Next time, we follow trees in the prime of their lives as they do the most extraordinary things.
44:03These trees here, they are essentially talking to each other.
44:07Adapting to withstand attacks from nature and from us.
44:13And from us.
44:14You had chimneys belching out, smoke, soot. And this tree managed to deal with that.
44:21As they grow into the largest living things on the planet's surface.
44:26It blows my mind. Even though I've been working with trees for 50 years, it still fascinates me how they stand up.
44:32For more information about the secret life of British trees, go to the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk slash trees.
44:48The Secret Life of Trees continues brand new next Friday at nine.
44:53From North Korea to Nigeria, follow Michael Palin's adventures around the world streaming now on five.
45:00And what makes Princess Anne a quite remarkable royal?
45:03We explore her extraordinary career brand new tomorrow at nine.
45:07Next lip reading the royals, The Secret Conversations.
45:10The Secret Conversations.
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