Pando, Avatar's Pandora

I saw Phenomenon (John Travolta's movie) yesterday. Travolta's character, in one important scene, tries to explain to the crowd that - the largest living organism, is a grove of aspen trees, that actually has a single root system; and that's not unlike us... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxIuMZcblYw

Pando (from Wikipedia) - "Pando (or The Trembling Giant)[1] is a clonal colony of a single male Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) located in the U.S. state of Utah, all determined to be part of a single living organism by identical genetic markers[2] and one massive underground root system, although whether it is a single tree is disputed, as it depends on one's definition of an individual tree. The plant is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000 tonnes (6,615 tons),[3] making it the heaviest known organism."

Also From wikipedia - The name "Pando" was chosen because it is Latin for "I spread"

I suspect Avatar's Pandora gets its name from Pando. Also, the concept of everything on the planet being connected to everything else, could be based on Pando.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)