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Join us at Mountain Lakes House to discuss "Finding the Mother Tree" by Suzanne Simard. The discussion will include an activity focused on fungal networks and their role in tree communications.
Presented in partnership with the Friends of Princeton Open Space and the Princeton Environmental Film Festival, this series is dedicated to readings about conservation, stewardship and our relationship with nature. Led by Diana Newby, FOPOS board member and associate director of writing at Princeton University, each meeting includes a discussion of the book and an accompanying activity. This meeting's activity will be led by FOPOS intern Sari Pehnke. Registration is requested.
About the book
Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.
Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths--that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.
Access the discussion questions.
Sari Pehnke, an environmental science major at Raritan Valley Community College, was the recipient of the 2025 Pray Family Center Nonprofit Civic Engagement Award, which honors a student who has demonstrated active and exemplary involvement serving a nonprofit, going above and beyond with their work, and playing a major role in a project for their community partner organization. In addition to her work for FOPOS, she is an active volunteer for numerous nonprofit entities, including Sourland Conservancy, New Jersey Conservation Foundation, Ridgeview Conservancy, Raritan Headwaters, Stony Brook Watershed, and others.
Venue details
Mountain Lakes House
57 Mountain Ave.
Princeton, NJ 08540
Drive down the long paved driveway entrance to the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve, marked by a series of black mailboxes along Mountain Avenue. The gravel parking lot is located on the left, approximately 1/2 mile down the driveway.
