Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

by Suzanne Simard

trees and plants could somehow perceive how close their neighbors were—and even who their neighbors were. Pine seedlings between sprawling, nitrogen-fixing alders could spread their branches farther than if they were hunkered under a thick cover of fireweed. Spruce germinants grew beautifully nestled right up to the wintergreens and plantains but kept a wide berth around the cow parsnips. Firs and cedars loved a moderate cover of birch but shrank when a dense cover of thimbleberry also grew overhead. Larch, on the other hand, needed a sparse neighborhood of paper birches for the best growth and the least mortality from root disease. I didn’t know exactly how the plants perceived these conditions, but my experiences told me to plant the test mixtures with precision. Distances between trees had to be exact, and the clear-cuts had to be on flat ground for maximum accuracy.