These passages are some of the most important in presenting
The Overstory’s idea of trees and forests as symbiotic, interconnected organisms that communicate and share resources. The usual human view of nature is of a constant competition for survival—but the world that starts to take shape through Patricia and her colleagues’ studies suggests an entirely different way of life, one playing out slowly and silently but based in cooperation, redistribution, and interdependence. This, the book implies, would be a much healthier system for people to live by.