Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

by Suzanne Simard

Copyright © 2021

But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself. —Rachel Carson

KRH bought in October 2021 for $13 while looking for books on environmental wisdom. Reading for the ELPC Environmental Book Club on December 2, 2021. The author is cited five times by Peter Wohlleben in The Hidden Life of Trees (also on this Kindle). Academic journey: https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/suzanne-simard-overcame-adversity-to-unlock-the-secret-world-of-trees/ NYT book review: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/books/review/finding-the-mother-tree-suzanne-simard.html A mix of science, adventure, memoir, and Bildungsroman Paranormal p. 161 Difficult to keep track of time. Research papers date from 1997 to 2018, over 20 years. See notes in Zoom 9 notebook for 12/2/21 discussion She likes pointing out that all the others - all men - including other students, hadn’t a clue about the importance of soil with fungi in it. EVOLUTION: 5, Mushrooms Fungi - mycorrhizal symbiosis, 61 Root grafts Bar fight: Kelly demonstrates his true colors of chauvinism verging on misogyny. Metaphor for the trees, and for her research v. “established” science. Metaphor of nurturing the young ones when the stress shatters the forest, p. Hard Work to stay connected, 141 Competition v. Cooperation, We emphasize factions instead of coalitions. The sheer physical effort needed to run the experiments is exhausting. 143 Ingenious and meticulous experiments, 147, 151, An idea whose time had come: Sir David Read in the 80’s, Kristina Arnebrant, Dan Durall, Mistakes 152, 157, Films on YouTube: Mother Trees Connect the Forest Mother Trees and the Social Forest Hollywood, 11/7/21: Simard said she expects to sign a deal within a few weeks to become an executive producer in a movie about her life and research after production companies backed by actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams won the film rights to her book,“Finding The Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.” https://globalnews.ca/news/8356602/suzanne-simard-mother-tree-movie-2/

There is a necessary wisdom in the give-and-take of nature—its quiet agreements and search for balance. There is an extraordinary generosity.

a scientist.

women in the logging industry,

an industrial order that felt hugely, terribly misguided.

all else suffered too.

my work unfolded in lockstep with my personal life,

Bildngsroman

the lessons of tree-to-tree communication,

the relationships that create a forest society.

the science is now known to be rigorous, peer-reviewed, an...

These discoveries are challenging many of the management practices that threaten the survival of our forests, especially as nature struggles to adapt to a warming world.

the forest was more than just a collection of trees.

western Canada,

understanding of the intelligence of the forest

a cryptic underground fungal network.

the most shocking aspect of this pattern—that it has similarities with our own human brains.

Chemicals identical to our own neurotransmitters. Signals created by ions cascading across fungal membranes.

The older trees are able to discern which seedlings are their own kin.

contemplate the social nature of the forest and how this is critical for evolution.

The Mother Trees.

communication, protection, and sentience—die,

wisdom, sentience, and healing.

This is not a book about how we can save the trees. This is a book about how the trees might save us.

grizzly country,

Lillooet Mountain Range

Canadian forests always felt haunted to me,

It seems the forest always remembers. Even when we’d like it to forget our transgressions.

subalpine firs,

Grampa Henry

jumped into his hand-built riverboat and grabbed my shirt collar right before I would have disappeared into the rapids.

earlywood,

latewood

Ted,

He knew how a tree should and should not be planted, and his low-key approach kept workers going through their exhaustion.

subalpine firs

a massive pile of fresh grizzly scat.

old man’s beard

Old lichen that particularly thrived on old trees.

great-grampa Charles Ferguson,

Edgewood,

Inonoaklin Valley along the Arrow Lakes of the Columbia basin

E...

my grandmother Winnie.

Mycena mushrooms

I’d been puzzling over what roots and fungi had to do with the health of forests—the

Mycena

Suillus mushroom—tucked

the mushroom had sprung out of the dense network of branching fungal threads running deep through the forest floor.