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A Forest of Elders
I have tried to show in detail how adult and child have come to be set against each other. childhood tends to mean wonder, imagination, creative spontaneity, while adulthood the loss of these perspectives (Abandoning the Child), So the first task as I see it is re-storying the adult — the teacher and the parent and the grandparent — in order to restore the imagination to a primary place in consciousness in each of us, regardless of age.
— James Hillman
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American forest ecologist Suzanne Simard has shown that trees send each other signals through a network of fungi buried among their roots. This underground communication includes warning signals about environmental change and the transfer of nutrients to neighbouring trees before they die.
We suggest this supply can continue beyond the apparent death of an individual tree. By measuring water flow in the stem of a living kauri (Agathis australis) stump and its neighbouring trees, we show underground connections are indeed likely responsible for the survival of the stump.
A living tree stump is clearly a biological oddity, and our key question is why such root grafts form…
But what mechanisms control who gives and who takes? There is evidence that shaded trees are supported by non-shaded trees and the fact that stumps (pensioners) are…
