The Wood Wide Web

Trees talk to each other through a secret underground internet. Mother trees feed their babies. The forest is one big group chat. How much of that is real? In episode 2, Maya and Theo dig into the mycorrhizal networks wiring forests together: the 450-million-year trade deal between fungi and roots, the DNA-mapped fungus plugged into nineteen trees, the 1997 experiment that started it all — and the 2023 audit that took the mother-tree story apart. The honest position: not a charity, a market. With price signals, cheaters, and sanctions. Plus: the best "talking tree" evidence there is (beans in a greenhouse), the 50-word mushroom language hype, and the 2026 global map that found the densest fungal network on Earth isn't under a rainforest. Field Notes: go stand under the biggest tree near you. Spore Lore is an eclectic mycology podcast — rigorous about the science, playful about everything else. New episodes weekly. Follow @sporelorepod everywhere, visit sporelorepod.com.