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NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery “Finding the Mother Tree reminds us that the world is a web of stories, connecting us to one another. [The book] carries the stories of trees, fungi, soil and bears—and of a human being listening in on the conversation. The interplay of personal narrative, scientific insights and the amazing revelations about the life of the forest make a compelling story.”—Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. In this, her first book, now available in paperback, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths—that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard writes—in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies—and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. And Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery “Finding the Mother Tree reminds us that the world is a web of stories, connecting us to one another. [The book] carries the stories of trees, fungi, soil and bears—and of a human being listening in on the conversation. The interplay of personal narrative, scientific insights and the amazing revelations about the life of the forest make a compelling story.”—Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. In this, her first book, now available in paperback, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths—that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard writes—in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies—and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. And Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the book
1
Ghosts in the Forest
I was alone in grizzly country, freezing in the June snow. Twenty years old and green, I was working a seasonal job for a logging company in the rugged Lillooet Mountain Range of western Canada.
The forest was shadowed and deathly quiet. And from where I stood, full of ghosts. One was floating straight toward me. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. My heart lodged in my throat as I tried to summon my rationality—and then I laughed.
The ghost was just heavy fog rolling through, its tendrils encircling the tree trunks. No apparitions, only the solid timbers of my industry. The trees were just trees. And yet Canadian forests always felt haunted to me, especially by my ancestors, the ones who’d defended the land or conquered it, who came to cut, burn, and farm the trees.
It seems the forest always remembers.
Even when we’d like it to forget our transgressions.
It was midafternoon already. Mist crept through the clusters of subalpine firs, coating them with a sheen. Light-refracting droplets held entire worlds. Branches burst with emerald new growth over a fleece of jade needles. Such a marvel, the tenacity of the buds to surge with life every spring, to greet the lengthening days and warming weather with exuberance, no matter what hardships were brought by winter. Buds encoded to unfold with primordial leaves in tune with the fairness of previous summers. I touched some feathery needles, comforted by their softness. Their stomata—the tiny holes that draw in carbon dioxide to join with water to make sugar and pure oxygen—pumped fresh air for me to gulp.
Nestled against the towering, hardworking elders were teenaged saplings, and leaning into them were even younger seedlings, all huddling as families do in the cold. The spires of the wrinkled old firs stretched skyward, sheltering the rest. The way my mother and father, grandmothers and grandfathers protected me. Goodness knows, I’d needed as much care as a seedling, given that I was always getting into trouble. When I was twelve, I’d crawled along a sweeper tree leaning over the Shuswap River to see how far out I could go. I tried to retreat but slipped and fell into the current. Grampa Henry jumped into his hand-built riverboat and grabbed my shirt collar right before I would have disappeared into the rapids.
Snow lay deeper than a grave nine months of the year here in the mountains. The trees far outmatched me, their DNA forged so they’d thrive despite the extremes of an inland climate that would chew me up and spit me out. I tapped a limb of an elder to show gratitude for its hovering over vulnerable offspring and nestled a fallen cone in the crook of a branch.
I pulled my hat over my ears while stepping off the logging road and waded deeper into the forest through the snow. Despite it being only a few hours before darkness, I paused at a log, a casualty of saws that had cleared the road right-of-way. The pale round face of its cut end showed age rings as fine as eyelashes. The blond-colored earlywood, the spring cells plump with water, were edged by dark-brown cells of latewood formed in August when the sun is high and drought settles in. I counted the rings, marking each decade with a pencil—the tree was a couple hundred years old. Over twice the number of years my own family had lived in these forests. How had the trees weathered the changing cycles of growth and dormancy, and how did this compare to the joys and hardships my family had endured in a fraction of the time? Some rings were wider, having grown plenty in rainy years, or perhaps in sunny years after a...
About the Author-
SUZANNE SIMARD was born in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and was educated at the University of British Columbia and Oregon State University. She is Professor of Forest Ecology in the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Forestry.
Reviews-
March 1, 2021 One of the world's leading forest ecologists recounts her lifelong experimentation with tree-to-tree communication. In this memoir/scientific exploration, Simard tells the fascinating story that led Richard Powers to base a character on her in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Overstory. Simard focuses on her work probing the nature of forest society and how the constellation of various species tree hubs (in particular, "mother trees") interacts with mycorrhizal (fungal) links to send chemical signals to each other. When she started in the early 1980s, this type of thinking was dismissed as New Age-y and nonscientific. However, growing up in the woods of western Canada, the author had practical experience studying the rejuvenation of clear-cuts, and she thought there was likely more going on with the trees, a complex and interconnected force that clear-cutting and subsequent monocultural reseeding was missing. Simard charts her yearslong inquiry into the underground wiring of trees, among a variety of species, as it advanced alongside the growth of her own family. These parallel, intimate stories are equally absorbing, and the author's descriptions of the science involved in her pioneering research are consistently engaging. "Plants use their neural-like physiology to perceive their environment," she writes. "Their leaves, stems, and roots sense and comprehend their surroundings, then alter their physiology--their growth, ability to forage for nutrients, photosyn-thetic rates, and closure rates of stomata for saving water." The author is candid about the sexism she has confronted throughout her career as well as the academic beard-pulling over the originality of her scientific results--e.g., her early recognition of the effects of climate change or the "kin recognition from Mother Trees." Though some readers may not appreciate Simard's frequent anthropomorphism, the science is solid, and the author's overarching theme of stewardship is clear, understandable, and necessary. Trees don't just stand there, Simard convincingly argues, but perceive, respond, connect, and converse.
COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from May 1, 2021
Simard (forest ecology, Univ. of British Columbia) tells the story of her pioneering research on trees' use of fungal networks to nourish and communicate with one other: the so-called "wood-wide web." There should be strong interest in Simard's memoir, as she is something of a star among tree lovers and was the inspiration for the character Patricia Westerford in Richard Powers's Pulitzer Prize-winner The Overstory. Here, readers follow along as Simard's research develops, and as she discovers that plant communities are driven by not only competition but cooperation as well: different tree species share resources with trees in need, "mother" trees send carbon to seedlings, and dying trees donate nutrients to neighbors. Simard celebrates pivotal moments, navigates personal crises, and admits to professional doubts; all told in a smoothly written narrative. The risks and rigors of her field work--conducting experiments with radioactive materials, navigating salmon runs while being aware of wild animals within and around the forest--are keenly felt, as are the challenges facing a reticent woman working for change in the way we manage forests. There are photographs of trees throughout. VERDICT Simard's science fascinates, and so too does her life. This is an engaging memoir of scientific discovery.--Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from April 15, 2021 Forest ecologist Simard has been studying intricate, mutually sustaining forms of communication and interconnectivity among trees and fungi for decades, initially as a determined and controversial researcher for the Canadian Forest Service, then as a professor who attained TED Talk fame. In her galvanizing first book, she interleaves her family's history as British Columbia homesteaders and loggers with detailed accounts of her innovative and exacting fieldwork and paradigm-altering discoveries. As Simard elucidates her revolutionary experiments, replete with gorgeous descriptions and moments of fear and wonder, a vision of the forest as an "intelligent system, perceptive and responsive," comes into focus, leading to her revelation of how "mother trees" not only nourish and protect seedlings but also "continuously gauge, adjust, and regulate" their support of the entire forest through a finely calibrated web that mirrors our own neural network and cardiovascular system. Simard's findings make the case for saving old-growth forests as climate change and mountain-pine-beetle infestations kill millions of trees. Herself a mother, Simard's dedication to unveiling nature's complexity is rendered poignant in light of her candidly shared struggles against misogyny and cancer. Having proven scientifically what Indigenous cultures have always known about nature's glorious mutualism, Simard calls for the protection of all ecosystems so that all of life will endure. A masterwork of planetary significance.
COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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