{
  "handle": "Forest",
  "mechanism": "A topology consisting of two or more independently-rooted {{tree}}s with no shared apex. Each constituent tree can be traversed standalone; the Forest is the named collection. Distinct from a single tree with many branches: a Forest has *no shared root*, so removing any one tree does not affect the others. Found in random-forest ensembles (ML), disjoint-set forests (union-find CS), process forests (OS sessions), multi-repo organizations (git), federated solver trees across organizations, and biological forests (where cross-tree links exist but do not create a shared apex). Variation across descendants concerns whether the trees are strictly disjoint or share substrate (mycorrhizal biology, content-addressed commons) and whether merge/split operations are supported (union-find).",
  "gloss": "Topology of N independently-rooted trees with no shared apex",
  "invariants": [
    "Multiplicity: a Forest contains at least two {{tree}}s; a single tree is not a forest.",
    "Apex-disjoint: no node is an ancestor of any node in a different constituent tree.",
    "Tree-wellformedness: each constituent is itself a valid Tree (rooted, acyclic)."
  ],
  "data_schema": {
    "type": "object",
    "required": [
      "trees"
    ],
    "properties": {
      "trees": {
        "type": "array",
        "items": {
          "type": "string"
        },
        "description": "Refs to the constituent Tree instances"
      },
      "cross_links": {
        "type": "array",
        "description": "Optional non-apex edges between trees (e.g., mycorrhizal / federated references)"
      }
    }
  },
  "_meta": {
    "tier": 1,
    "ring": 1,
    "path": [
      "Infrastructure",
      "Data Structures"
    ],
    "supersedes": [
      "sema:Forest#mh:SHA-256:f19016a949d3a4a756dbe9a2a1001bb4eee77c6eabb3678fca9d594c27967bbe"
    ]
  },
  "sema_id": "sema:Forest#mh:SHA-256:8432cd0407a2c1a964493f3864d6fd2a8fcb075c70bb46823edfd112489fcdc7",
  "sema_ref": "Forest#8432",
  "sema_stub": "8432",
  "dependencies": {
    "references": {
      "tree": "sema:Tree#mh:SHA-256:dd927c24f8165bd3ddc75b29cc96c1e43eb45bdaf084ba1e2bce2b0a71ab05ec"
    }
  },
  "sema_layer": "Infrastructure",
  "sema_category": "Data Structures",
  "used_by": {}
}