The stump that should be dead

A kauri stump in New Zealand has no leaves. It cannot feed itself, cannot photosynthesize, and by every rule should be a dead piece of wood. It is alive.

Its roots are fused to the roots of the trees around it, and researchers watched water move between them—the stump filling as its neighbors drank, and vice versa. Not a network of fungi. Actual grafted wood, tree to tree.

The scientists who found it suggested we stop thinking of a forest as a collection of trees.

Where does one tree stop and the next one start?

Sources

• Younger trees keep nearby grandpa kauri alive — Auckland University of Technology, on Bader & Leuzinger 2019 in iScience

Sources checked 2026-08-12.