It was a stormy August night in Nowhere Wood. The wind was tearing through the leaves and branches and was strong enough to pull the whole tree down.
And so, a tree that had been growing in the Wood for fifty years or more was felled to the floor of the wood.
In the tangled wreckage of leaves, twigs and branches, we can see the tell-tale signs of Ash-dieback disease. This probably weakened the tree, so the wind could blow it over more easily.
Most of the ash trees in this region have the disease, which is caused by a fungus that produces sores that blow away in the air, spreading easily through the wood.
Although the tree has died, its adventure through time continues. It is becoming useful because it is a large store of nutrients that other organisms in the wood will use to survive and grow.
Over time, insects and fungi will break down the tree wood releasing nutrients that to the organisms in the wood.
Left undisturbed, nothing will go to waste.
There are lots of fallen trees in Nowhere Wood. The autumn is a good time to see fungi feeding on the wood, because this is the season when they produce their fruiting bodies that make spores. Mushrooms are examples of these fruiting bodies.
- There is an old saying that says: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” It helps us to think why observations are important for our understanding of the world. How do we know that the ideas in this story are true?
These animals look like cars parked in the autumn sunshine. They look harmless enough, but they have some 
We are in Nowhere Wood, about 300 million years ago, staring at a forest of tree ferns, watching them make oxygen. Over the years, these tree ferns have made so much oxygen that its concentration in the air has risen to about 35%, (compare that with the 21% found in the 21st century).
There is so much oxygen that the lightning strikes produce frequent explosions in the air, causing forest fires. Nowhere Wood is a dangerous place to be, sometimes.
The animals are using the oxygen to grown large: some millipedes are 1.5 metres in length and 0.5 metres wide. Some dragonflies have 70 cm wingspans.
With all of this food available, there are opportunities for new carnivorous lizards to appear, including Hylonomus. This is one of the first creatures to have a new eggs with membranes inside, a characteristic later shown by all birds.
Also the flesh-eating Anthracosaurs first appeared at this time. These are the direct ancestors of the dinosaurs, that appeared millions of years later.
In is late November and the cells that will divide to make the new leaf are protected safely inside the 
Soon, the cells take up water and get much larger. They escape the protection of the bud and the new leaf 
The leaf is a factory for making sugar. Like any factory, it has a source of energy and transport systems to get the raw materials into the factory. It also moves the manufactured sugar out to the places in the plant where it is needed. The heart of the factory is the production line where sugar is made. These are called 
Gradually, in the autumn, when the days get cooler and shorter, the sugar factories are shut down and abandoned. The chloroplasts lie in ruins as everything useful is recycled back into the branches of the tree. All that remain are the frameworks of cell walls, turning brown as they dry in the autumn air.
Finally, the oak tree makes a special layer of cells that separates the old leaf from the stem, and the leaf is ready to fall when the wind blows strongly. The fallen leaves are not wasted, becoming energy stores for the organisms that feed on them. Next year’s buds are forming and wait for spring and the production of new leaves.
When you next look into a mirror ask yourself if you are the same person as you were yesterday. Well, of course you are.
So, when your friend sees you after ten years and calls out your name, there is not a single part of your body that was the same as when you last met. You have been completely remade and 
Fungi feed on the wood of the dead oak trees, turning it into nutrients that provide energy and chemicals needed to grow new fungal cells. (These cells form long threads called 
Then one night, silently and without warning, the fungi do something else.
Mushrooms are fruiting bodies. They produce thousands of tiny spores.
Spores have often been found in the filters of jet aircraft flying at the edge of the atmosphere, so some spores can travel right round the world. When fungi produce spores they are ‘becoming’ something new: small, light and mobile versions of themselves.
The red squirrels have been replaced by grey squirrels that were introduced into the UK from the United States in the 1870s.
