Coppicing is an ancient forestry technique used to extend the life and use of a tree. Once a tree has been felled its trunk will continue to regrow shoots, which are harvested as firewood or building material. Coppiced trees can live to be thousands of years old as their root systems stay alive and repeatedly regrow shoots from the trunk.

Trees produce growth rings inside their trunks when they expand in width each year. Wohlleben explains that by counting a tree’s growth rings you can determine its age.

Wohlleben defines lichen as a “symbiotic combination of fungi and algae” (168). He refers to lichen as an example of an organism which can benignly live on trees.