I haven’t read the book either; it’s on my list. I do hope it gives fungal networks their due—other research points to the fungi being the ones who decide how to share the resources, in essence farming the trees. It’s a mutualistic relationship that upwards of 90% of plant species participate in. The book Entangled Life, which I haven’t read yet either, looks at things more from this perspective.

The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. Rather than viewing trees as a hive intelligence, I think it’s plausible that we’ve been missing the forest as a whole organism. Perhaps “ecosystem” just means “an organism that is bigger than any one of us.”