Simard’s work also shows that these relationships go both ways a plant that sacrifices during one season may reap the benefits in the future. Via this network, trees can even act altruistically, giving up nutrients so others can survive. This shroomy growth attaches to the roots of many trees, forming the nervous system of a sort of meta-organism - one that transmits messages and nutrients among trees of varying species. What Simard discovered - and explains in accessible detail throughout her fascinating memoir - is that trees are not solo combatants instead, trees are networked by the fungi that grow underground. The value of the woods is reduced to the price commanded on the market. Diverse forests are clear-cut, herbicides employed to kill the undergrowth - ferns, berries, herbs - anything that could draw nutrients away from the cash crop. If companies want the fastest-growing Douglas fir, competition must be eliminated.
In this worldview, trees fight tooth and nail (or root and branch) to draw sustenance from the soil, collect rain and access sunlight. Traditional forest policy relies on the notion that trees are forever in competition. This week, the book was acquired for a film adaptation, with Amy Adams set to play Simard. Her new memoir, “ Finding the Mother Tree,” weaves her family’s history among the trees with her own groundbreaking discoveries - the most revolutionary being that trees communicate with and nourish each other, such that every lost tree diminishes the super-organism that is a forest. Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, has been asking such questions since she was a teenager. What gets lost when the original species vanish? Many of the forests, replanted by timber companies, have had much of their ecological diversity replaced with monocultures of Douglas fir. But they are a vestige of what existed before Christopher Columbus set sail - before white settlers arrived and saw the giants as a source of wealth. It’s perfect weather for growing trees that rise to the height of 20- and 30-story buildings. The Pacific Coast of North America is a land of deep greens and blues, soft gray skies that bring drenching rain in the winters and dry ochre summers. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
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