Poetry....In fact, these plants are not really isolated individuals. They are connected, beneath the woodland surface, by long lateral growths that throw up superterranean extrusions at rather lengthy intervals. That is the main way that Trientalis europaea spreads (or should I specify, the DNA of T. europaea): it puts most of its energy into securing its presence in a good habitat, and not much of its energy into the chancy business of colonizing new sites; few flowers, and even fewer seeds. Hence it never turns up in new woodland, but is a reliable indicator of old woodland.

"A good competitor, but a poor colonist,"