The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)

by T.J. Klune

“Populus tremuloides,” Phee said again. “I read about them in a book. Quaking aspens. If you ever see them, you’ll find them in large groves. Their trunks are mostly white, but their leaves are a brilliant shade of yellow, almost gold. Like the sun.” She looked off into the forest again. “Almost like sunflowers.” “They sound lovely,” Linus said, unsure of what else to say. “They are,” Phee said. “But it’s what’s underneath that’s most important. The groves can be made up of thousands of trees, sometimes even in the tens of thousands. Each of them is different, but the secret is that they’re all the same.” Linus blinked. “How so?” Phee crouched down to the ground, her fingers leaving trails in the loose soil. “They’re clones of each other, a single organism managed by an extensive root system underneath the earth. All the trees are genetically the same, though they each have their own personality, as trees often do. But before they grow, their roots can lay dormant for decades, waiting until the conditions are right. It simply takes time. There’s one clone that’s said to be almost eighty thousand years old, and is possibly the oldest living organism in existence.”

pando! <3