The Forest That Is One Tree

In Utah's Fishlake National Forest, there is a grove that looks like 47,000 separate aspen trees. Hikers walk through it every summer, admiring the white trunks, the shimmering leaves, the way light filters through the canopy. What they rarely realize is that they aren't walking through a forest at all — they're walking through a single organism. Every trunk shares the same enormous root system, spreading across 106 acres underground.…