A story from a people in a distant future.

Once a horrible Tree grew upon the Earth. Its roots crushed and strangled the life that was there before it; they extracted all that was good and clean from the Earth; they excreted poison that killed everything else that grew. Its bows shaded out all other life; obscured the night sky, and the minds of man and beast until nothing could be seen except the tree. Its fruit was sweet but poisonous and all who ate of it became ill; all continued to eat of its sweet fruit was bound to die. Only the one trunk was permitted to reach for great heights, at the cost of all else. But eventually the tree made the Earth too poor and arid to support it. The Tree, which could only grow became sick itself. And the Great Mycelium began to tear into its roots; tear into its bows; tear into its trunk. The Tree fought The Great Mycelium, tried to drive it out, tried to poison its spores, but the Tree's might was failing for it had become sick, and The Great Mycelium grew deeper and deeper into the Tree. But the Tree would shed whole branches and limbs and bows and tap roots to purge itself of the Great Mycelium's growth; all in vain, for The Great Mycelium would always start again in another place from spores. And The Great Mycelium decayed The Tree; made The Tree's roots soft and crumbly; Released back into the Earth the nurtents that had been locked up in the Tree; made clean the poisons the Tree excreted ; defoliated the sky blocking branches, and opened the skys; shriveled its fruit; Fell its trunk. And when the trunk landed on the Earth The Great Mycelium did bloom with life and prosperity. When the Tree was at its might it gathered up all that was good on the Earth for itself; when The Great Mycelium was at its might, living on the destruction of the Tree, it returned to the Earth the boon from the Tree. Now we live in The Garden, its soil rich from the compost of the Tree and The Great Mycelium.