Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

by Suzanne Simard

What were the fungal threads of this odd-shaped mushroom doing, and how were they helping the coral fungus make a living? I rubbed the threads between my thumb and index finger. They were gritty. Moist soil particles clung to the mycelia. The threads might have a role in gathering water from the labyrinth of pores in the soil. In this climate, any water still in the ground would adhere to soil particles with the strength of cement. In the sparse woodlands, where trees only grew in depressions and gullies, water was obviously limiting where they could get a toehold. I wondered if these tiny mushrooms might be helping not only themselves but the trees in need of water or perhaps nutrients where the trees were surviving the cold. If I rode my bike to those high-elevation forests across the valley, would I find the Suillus pancake mushrooms there too, as I had in the Lillooet Mountains? In places with plenty of water, maybe the pink and yellow and white threads were delivering nutrients instead of moisture to the trees. I put the coral fungus into my pocket with the puffball. More puzzling was the question of whether the multitude of silky fungal threads fanning through the clay could explain how water moved from the big trees to the more shallow-rooted plants. Were those threads, which looked like an underground spider’s web, joining trees and plants together to capture much-needed moisture for the whole community? Were the puffball and coral fungus involved?