Fungal Features
On Sunday the 11th of July a sound artist will be presenting a soundscape called ‘Shrooms with a view’ on Radio National. According to the blurb it is inspired by the life , and living matter of our grand family friends called fungus.
My interest with fungus started as a teen walking around the mountains of Canberra , after a hiatus for ten years I have once again become interested in this rich cow pat field of living things.
Before the monster inferno that engulfed the forests of Victoria in 2009 ,I had been in the Yarra Ranges for around two months working with a scientist looking at the growth rates of mountain ash forests. We have discussed , often , that there is a lack of knowledge regarding the uses of plants for medicinal and culinary purposes utilizing the incredibly rich biota of Australia. Possibly through the loss of knowledge due to the destruction of indigenous culture or possibly through the self-important googles of european culture and tastes. Most probably a mixture of both.
One family of our rich linage of biodiversity is the Fungus family. Our relationship with fungus is relatively small and lacks deeper understandings. From the effects of Alice gobbling size changing fungus to the power-ups of Super Mario , our understandings of the powers of this genus is in the realms shrouded with mystery and often connected to the fantastic.
Australia has around 8% of all plant species in the world . There are now an estimated 20 000 vascular and 7700 non-vascular plants, and 250 000 species of fungi in Australia. Thats quite alot of fungus. The fungal flora of Australia is not well characterised; Australia is estimated to have about 250,000 fungal species of which roughly 5% have been described.
This leaves a lot of room for exploration of both botanical entusiast and the lay person interested in stamping their name onto another species. There is a vast pool of new materials and uses that can be found, and one that I am particularly interested in the future understading beyond just the magic type. This has been particularly well travelled path by Mycologist Paul Staments who has found that fungus can be used for a variety of purposes beyond the ingestion factor.
The exciting culture trend that is occuring ,a la immenent environmental collapse, is that people are genuienly interested in all things natural to solve our post-industrial problems. The powerful ability of the web , similar to the mycellium of a fungus , has helped spring up rich and diverse information to help the botany enthusiast. Here is a few that I have found recently.
A quite comprehensive forum on wide world of bush foods. CLick on a question and follow the thread.
An excellent web resource with pod casts from the experts theselves. One particular species that had me interested was Dogs Vomit Slime Mould (I’m not joking).
Dogs Vomit Slime Mould
A particular fascination of mine is that fungus is essential to the break of living matter. It literally is the life within the soil which collects debris and recyles it into new possibilities and it is exactly this relationship which can constantly amaze and excite me to get know our microbe cousins in the soil. In fact humans own digestive system is more related to the processes that fungus undergo than of trees and plants which extract carbohydrates via photosynthesis. Our ability to eat other things , especially when they are decaying is atestment to our similarities to our bro’s on the other side of the tree of life.
Next time you go for a walk think of all that life bubbling in the soil underneath.
