The fungi and the trees had ‘forged their duality into a oneness, thereby making a forest’, wrote Simard in a bold summary of her findings. Instead of seeing trees as individual agents competing for resources, she proposed the forest as a ‘co-operative system’, in which trees ‘talk’ to one another, producing a collaborative intelligence she described as ‘forest wisdom’. Some older trees even ‘nurture’ smaller trees that they recognize as their ‘kin’, acting as ‘mothers’. Seen in the light of Simard’s research, the whole vision of a forest ecology shimmered and shifted – from a fierce free
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