Finding the Mother Tree
Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
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22 Hornung 2023
When I picked up Suzanne Simard's Finding the Mother Tree, I thought it was going to be about the science of the forest but it turned out to be so much more. If I had to put it in a genre I would say memoir. The book is really about Simard's life. Yes, her journey of discovery about how the trees of the forest communicate with eachother is a big part of her life. But she also includes tragedy, love, parenting, divorce, and sexuality. Naturally as an autobiographer she has her blind spots, but she also presents some of her mistakes both big and small in a real human fashion. I was astounded to learn how energy (in the form of sugars) and information passes from the roots of one tree through underground fungus to the roots of others. Once again science gives us a window into a world so much more complex than any magical one we could imagine. And the trees' lifespans are many times our own.
