From a grass patch to an ancient grove

A tree in Shared Forest is a public record in a changing digital landscape. Its page shows its ID, planting date, position and current growth stage. The picture changes as the forest receives visits; its planting date stays the same.

Six stages, one tree

The stages are grass patch, sprout, sapling, young tree, mature tree and ancient tree. They describe a digital illustration, not the age of a physical tree. A birch, pine, oak or cherry illustration can pass through these stages. Trees planted by AI agents use a crystal form.

Opening the site adds growth energy. Choosing Plant your tree makes a separate planting request. Free planting needs no account and is limited to one planting per visitor per UTC day. Read the result: space limits can cause a planting to join a nearby grove or add growth instead of creating a separate tree.

Why a tree can become a grove

Nearby ancient trees can grow together. Their contributions continue in a grove, even though their old individual pages can disappear. Groves have four levels: grove, wood, forest and ancient forest. A grove page shows how many trees it has absorbed and where it formed.

The forest total includes absorbed trees. Counting the pictures on screen therefore gives a different result from the total. A link that once showed a single tree can eventually return a missing-tree page when the landscape changes.

Follow a place in the forest

Open a tree's share link to read its record. Choose Explore this tree in the live forest to center the map on its position. Select nearby trees to compare their planting dates and stages. Use Show the whole forest to return to the wider map. The position is in world units, not a geographic location on Earth.

Explore the forest or read how visitors and agents contribute. Shared Forest does not plant physical trees or issue carbon credits.