Complimentary Blueberry Juice

I’ve had this one on my reading list for awhile having read some of her scientific work in the course of learning about plant’s symbiotic connections with microbial life, and I cannot recommend this one enough: Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard published in 2021.

The journey to discovering trees and forests’ connections with fungal networks is buried within a memoir of her own life. It is a powerful way of conveying both the story of discovery, and the absurd fights from industry, government, and other scientists, that come as a reaction to truths.

By now in 2025 I feel like a lot of these concepts of plant symbiosis with microbial life and their literal entanglement with plants is a basic accepted fact, at least in the world of organic and regenerative agriculture. But Simard fought the good fight when this was not accepted fact. These battles are soul-crushing to read but the way Simard has presented these detractors in the appropriate light. My favourite example may be Simard pointing out early climate change research and how it would affect forests (what would become the infamous hockey stick graph) and was ridiculed for accepting this new science as fact. If only the forests could laugh, as the decades since, and the most recent year or two, have shown in graphic and overpowering force how true these things are.

For anyone who loves trees and interested to learn more about plant intelligence and how everything is connected, this one is highly recommended.

Graham

thanks for reading complimentary blueberry juice