THE ATLANTIC: The Stump That Didn’t Die

Description

How best to think about the living stump? Is it a vampiric parasite that sustains its undead existence by leeching the supplies of its fellow trees? Is it a beneficial partner that extends the root network of those other kauri in exchange for water? Is it even an individual entity anymore, or just a part of its neighbors? Without chlorophyll to harness the sun’s energy and make its own food, is it really much of a plant, or something more like a fungus or an animal—an organism that gets its nutrients from other living things? “I think this is really exciting,” says Franciska de Vries of the University of Manchester. “It poses so many questions.”