Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

by Suzanne Simard

The mycorrhizal symbiosis was credited with the migration of ancient plants from the ocean to land about 450 to 700 million years ago. Colonization of plants with fungi enabled them to acquire sufficient nutrients from the barren, inhospitable rock to gain a toehold and survive on land. These authors were suggesting that cooperation was essential to evolution.

Somehow, the seedlings needed to become colonized by the mycorrhizal fungi to get resources from the soil.