Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest

by Suzanne Simard

I’d had a hunch those little yellow spruce seedlings back in 1980—the ones who’d sent me on this long journey of a lifetime—were suffering because their bare roots couldn’t connect with the soil. Now I knew they lacked mycorrhizal fungi, whose hyphae would not only have extracted nutrients from the forest floor but also connected the seedlings to the Mother Trees, providing them with carbon and nitrogen until they could stand on their own. But their roots had been confined to their plugs, isolated from the old trees. The subalpine fir that had naturally regenerated on the outskirts of the Mother Trees, though, had been lush with sustenance. But that lingering question since my illness still haunted me: If we are equal to everything in nature, do we share the same goals in death? To pass the wand as best we can. Passing onward to children the most crucial material.