Tales from the Underground: A natural history of subterranean life by David
Wolfe, Cornell University Press/Perseus (via Plymbridge Distributors in
Britain), £18.99, ISBN 0738201286
MANY nature writers celebrate the mighty oak, its leafy branches alive with
squirrels and birds, but David Wolfe is not one to take such a superficial view.
He’s more concerned with tree roots, where symbiotic bacteria supply the trees
with nitrogen, and soil fungi provide other nutrients—occasionally with
truffles as an aromatic by-product.
Wolfe, you see, is interested in life underground. In Tales from the
Underground he explains in a straightforward, readable style that there…
