bio

Ectomycorrhiza

The mycorrhiza of most large trees in temperate and boreal forests — pine, oak, fir, birch — and the type behind most "wood-wide web" stories. Unlike the arbuscular kind, the fungus here is more discreet: it does not pierce the root cells but wraps each root tip in a dense sheath (a mantle) and weaves a fine net of threads between the outer cells without entering them. Carbon and minerals change hands across that net.