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

by Suzanne Simard

Now that I knew how to establish a “weeding” experiment, I got a larger contract to test herbicide doses and manual-cutting treatments to kill leafy-green Sitka alder, lance-leaved Scouler’s willow, white-barked paper birch, suckering aspens, and fast-growing cottonwoods. To obliterate purple-flowered fireweed, bunches of pinegrass, and white-topped Sitka valerian. Native plants, including trees, that might impede the growth of coveted planted seedlings—prickly spruce, skinny lodgepole pine, and soft-needled Douglas fir. These three conifer species, especially lodgepole pine, were now planted in nearly every clear-cut across the province because they were lucrative, durable, and fast growing. And the quicker the pesky native trees and plants were killed and free to grow achieved, the sooner the company’s obligation to tend the plantations would be met.