friendly fungi
Let me tell you about mushrooms, those curious little beings that pop up in your backyard or your flower pot and stay for a day and are gone the next … How did they get there? Why are they there and are they going to kill me?
If you think you don’t have much to do with mushrooms, here are some things you’d have to do without if we didn’t have them: wine, beer, cheese, all breads, coffee and tea, pickles and salami, soy sauce, kombucha, inks and dyes, medicines, packaging that replaces Styrofoam—and today you can even be buried in a coffin made of mycelium!
Did you know fungi were the first creatures on land? They stood three metres tall and lorded over the world before the dinosaurs, and even before the plants. It is said they played an important role in oxygenating the planet. They allowed algae to survive the harsher conditions of life out of water and evolve into the plants we now know.
It has been found that mycelium helps trees communicate with each other. When one tree is sick, sugars and nutrients will be shared from healthier trees.
If we didn’t have fungi, our forests would be piles of dead wood, and rotting fruit would be everywhere. Fungi break down these materials and turn them into rich soils and nutrients. Scientists have found fungi that clean up chemically toxic land and are now working on a fungi to eat our waste plastics. Imagine that:
