Christina Hendricks finished reading Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard
I very much enjoyed reading this word, which is part memoir, part a report on a career (so far) of scientific findings related to how trees (and other plants) communicate through fungal networks underground. It was an engaging and enjoyable read.
The only thing is that I wish there was more acknowledgement of the generations of Indigenous knowledges that pointed to the same ideas. Simard notes that in her 20s a friend pointed out to her that "The Coast Salish say .... that under the forest floor, there are fungi that keep the trees connected and strong" (p. 66). And yet most of the book doesn't really connect to this existing knowledge even though she notes that it was there even while she was starting out. The focus is on a Western scientific approach, which is also important. But further recognition, acknowledgement, and talking about the Indigenous knowledge of the …
I very much enjoyed reading this word, which is part memoir, part a report on a career (so far) of scientific findings related to how trees (and other plants) communicate through fungal networks underground. It was an engaging and enjoyable read.
The only thing is that I wish there was more acknowledgement of the generations of Indigenous knowledges that pointed to the same ideas. Simard notes that in her 20s a friend pointed out to her that "The Coast Salish say .... that under the forest floor, there are fungi that keep the trees connected and strong" (p. 66). And yet most of the book doesn't really connect to this existing knowledge even though she notes that it was there even while she was starting out. The focus is on a Western scientific approach, which is also important. But further recognition, acknowledgement, and talking about the Indigenous knowledge of the same phenomena would have been helpful.
The subtitle of the book (which I think may not always be up to the author alone) even says that this is about a "Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest," as if this is the first time such a thing has been "discovered."
Other than this significant gap, I do think the book is interesting, well-written, and informative.
