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

by Suzanne Simard

we moved on to a plot where the firs were spaced farther apart, up to five meters, their girth a little more robust. Seed had dispersed into the openings between the plantings over the years, some probably their kin, others the descendants of those removed, still others from firs in the surrounding forest. Fertilized by pollen of neighbors, or by firs in other valleys, ensuring the population was resilient. Some of these new trees were toddlers, others kindergartners, still others juniors, this patch of forest starting to look like a schoolhouse, with diversity and kinship. The mycorrhizal network, I imagined, was becoming more complex as the forest aged, the biggest trees becoming the hubs—the Mother Trees. Eventually it would look like the web we’d mapped a few years back in the old-growth Douglas-fir forest.