concept

The mother tree hypothesis

The idea - associated with Suzanne Simard - that the largest, oldest trees in a forest act as central hubs: the most richly connected nodes in the mycorrhizal network, deliberately channeling surplus carbon through it to nourish understorey seedlings, preferentially their own kin, even passing on resources as they die. It is a beautiful, almost maternal picture of the forest - and the closest real-world analogue to Pandora's Tree of Souls. It is also the rung science has not earned: the 2023 review found zero field evidence for the kin-directed claim.