mycelial boom as well, and all kinds of small companies are making mycelial-based products, such as lamp shades and clothing—oh, and shrouds and coffins. You can be wrapped in a grave cloth of living mycelium embedded with spores, that will actively compost you. Or, you can be placed in a mycelial coffin, that will degrade ecologically around you, instead of one designed to resist degradation—presumably forever. Are these good ideas? Doubtful. If you’ve been pumped full of toxic preservative chemicals by the undertaker, the last thing you want is a coffin that will let it all drip out into the water table. And, at least where I am, you can have a legal Green Burial for free, with a grave dug on your own land and no coffin at all. A friend of mine was buried on his farm, wrapped in a cotton cloth. Would a mycelial wrap full of spores have been better? No, because most burials are below the level of oxygenated soil, so the spores would just sit there and it would all undergo the same anaerobic degradation as any other organic material. (And thanks to Eugenia Bone for being the first to point this out in her wonderful book Microbia.) 5. Maybe a bitter little piece of my negativity towards the
currently mushrooming (ahem) popularity of mushrooms is because I’ve learned that any upsurge in a subject’s popularity always heralds its downturn if not its demise. Te rise of farm animals as kitchen decor, with pigs pictured on tea towels, cow creamers, china patterns featuring roosters and so on, rose in lockstep with the decrease in family farms and the increase in
factory farms. And it was clear to anyone observing fisheries that the burgeoning numbers of sea creatures depicted on shower curtains, wallpaper, serving dishes, etc. paralleled lower catch rates, coral bleaching, and increasing ocean acidification. Maybe I’m over-sensitized but for me, the rise of mushrooms in the press, in commerce and as decor is the knell of doom for the fungi maintaining the planet’s ecosystems, and the actual mushrooms we all love to hunt and eat. Which brings me to… 6. My most selfish irritant, and the most embarrassing
to disclose: this widespread popularity of mushrooms and mushroom hunting is leading to scorched earth for us long-time hunters. Anyone who’s ever hunted morels on a western burn site, following in the footsteps of professional pickers, knows that although morels are camouflaged to near invisibility, the circular white stem remnants of those that have been picked are weirdly and cruelly, tauntingly visible. Tere’s a trail in the White Mountains that I regard as mine. (And yes, I’m well aware that I don’t and couldn’t possibly own it, and that it’s open to all.) No matter how scarce chanterelles are, if they appear at all, they’ll appear on that trail. I blush to confess that I once met a stranger on the trail in the process of picking the very last chanterelle, and I yelled at him. I was horrified to find myself doing that but I couldn’t help myself! Tose chanterelles were mine. And there you have it. Why I’m down on the current ‘shroom boom. Tink about it — why aren’t you?.
SUBSCRIBE ONLINE AT:
fungimag.com PRINT AND DIGITAL EDITIONS AVAILABLE!
Fall 2021 FUNGI Volume 14:4 27
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
