Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

by Suzanne Simard

Simile - well-worn

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skookum,

our parents’ marriage had ripped apart,

they each landed in the hospital, unable to cope.

I wanted to scream at them to get their shit together, but mostly I wanted to cry.

as young adults without a home to return to, we scattered.

One-Fifty Mile House?”

Haha

Lac La Hache,

“Omak, Wenatchee, and Pullman,”

We had run out of words, even though there was still so much to say.

Haha

I could find the good strawberry patches in the pine flats near our house; he could deliver calves and cauterize wounds on the range.

Serendipity

every single sheet was coated in the fungal network.

a fungal strand

Simile

many individual fungal strands

Smile

black fans caking the clay sheets

The cord was packed into the clay, so I chiseled off more soil to see where it went.

whitish-purplish cluster of fat Douglas-...

The cord was linking the fungal-coated root tips of the Douglas fir to the truffle.

The tips were also the source of the fungal threads fanning over the soil pores.

tru...

c...

hyphal...

root...

The fungus was growing on the roots of thi...

The relationship between the tree and the fungus was so robust that the f...

Out of the fungus flowed a whole underground apparatus—truffles,

truffles, cords, and strands that in turn grew fans of ultrafine hyphae that infiltrated the soil pores.

These...

The fans

why would the fungus give up its water to the tree roots?

open stomata,

Simile

Simile

Simile haha

the Fraser River to Lillooet,

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“mycorrhizal fungus.”

A mycorrhizal fungus formed a relationship—a life-or-death liaison—with a plant.

A two-way exchange. A mutualism.

Simile

Mycorrhiza. How would I remember that word? Myco like fungus, and rhiza like root. Mycorrhiza was fungus root. My. Core. Rise. Ah.

inconsistent results made it far easier to pour on fertilizer than cultivate healthy mycorrhizas.