"Healthy fungal networks help trees and plants grow, making them key to successful reforestation. The only problem? Almost nothing is known about this subterranean ecology"
"Even in midsummer, the ancient hazelwoods on the Hebridean island of Seil are cool and quiet. Countless slanted stems of hazel support a thick canopy, which blots out the sun and blankets everything below in a sort of “fairytale darkness”, says Bethan Manley, a biologist at the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (Spun).
Moss and lichen coat branches threaded with honeysuckle, forming a great dome above you, adds David Satori, a researcher at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
This rich forest, on Scotland’s Hebridean islands, is a remnant of one of Britain’s oldest woodland environments. When the last ice age ended, the mile-thick glacier that had buried northern Europe melted away and hazelnuts sprouted across the rock left behind."
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