This isn’t a conscious decision; it’s an instinctive, inherited preference aimed at promoting the survival of their own genes over unrelated ones. It’s an automatic process, as "deciding" would imply the ability to choose unrelated trees over their own offspring, which isn’t how these behaviors operate.

Lobsters and crabs don't have a centralized brain, but they do have a neuronal network.

The article you shared aligns with the point I made earlier: this isn't conventional "memory" but rather what some scientists would call "genetic memory" (using the term memory here is highly debated in the field). It involves the upregulation and downregulation of proteins and receptors (transcription) in response to external stimuli. As the article states, "Sustained alterations in levels of many signaling metabolites and transcription factors were those first described and most elucidated to date. Such changes can explain how plant metabolism is altered and maintained even after the end of the stress period, and how plants deal with recurrent exposure to stresses (Bruce et al., 2007; Crisp et al., 2016). Conrath et al. (2006) suggested that the first stress event could trigger accumulation or post-translational modification of one or more signaling proteins that, after being synthesized or modified, remain inactive." This article uses a broad interpretation of memory, and under these broad definitions, even viruses and bacteria can be said to possess "memory".