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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey Shortwaavers, Emily Kwong here.

And Regina Barber, and a few weeks ago,

Jean and I got together to play a very nerdy science-backed board game.

Are you ready to play some undergrowth?

But first I had to say hi to Gina's cats.

Oh my God, I don't even know which cat that is because it's so quiet, but you did try to recruit them.

Listen, we had room at the table.

We did. It's a big table.

Yeah, we were playing Undergrowth, a one to four player game from Elizabeth Hargrave.

Yeah, she's the person who created Wingspan that other board game we have about birds and bird habitat.

Undergrove is also inspired by the natural world.

Set in the Pacific Northwest, each player is a

Douglas fir tree trying to spread your seedlings across the forest by the power of fungi.

For over 300 million years, trees have traded with fungi in underground symbiotic relationships known as microrisas.

Trees offer some of the carbon they photosynthesize in exchange for nutrients that the fungi

extract from the soil.

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