Funky fungi
I want to change your mind about something ugly.
Fungi are one of the world’s wonder materials. It’s hard to believe they have any useful properties beyond stir fries but they are being used in a variety of unusual ways.
Before I delved into the world of the dark undergrowth, I had to clarify the difference between mushrooms and fungi. I had always assumed they were different species but it turns out I was wrong. Crudely, mushrooms are the body that we see above the ground — some say the fruit or flower bearing part as they can produce spores that propagate the species. The fungus is everything else that we often don’t see usually within the soil or wood for example. The thread like mycelium part of the fungus are the roots and create the fungal network which we’ll come onto. Apparently all mushrooms are fungi but not all fungi have or are mushrooms. Common fungi include yeast and moulds and there are even fungi growing in our bodies. Lovely.
Fungi are neither plants nor animals. They were separated from the plant group to have their own categorisation in the 1960’s because until then classification was based on mobility or on how a species fed itself. As fungi didn’t move they were categorised with plants. However, unlike plants, they do not have chlorophyll to photosynthesise to create food for themselves. What many fungi do is to release enzymes through their roots to digest the organic matter they are within from which they absorb the nutrients they need. This in fact aids the decomposition we see around us and is a necessary part of nature.
Estimates suggest that there are more than 3 million species of fungi (more than 3 times that of plants) but that we have only described c6% of all fungi species. As to why this is the case is probably similar to why reptiles and insects aren’t studied as much as mammals or birds. They just aren’t as sexy. Research seems to suggest that fungi have existed for more than 1 billion years, possibly even 2 billion years. The oldest living organism on the planet is a fungus that is thought to be more than 2,400 years old though some consider that incredibly it could be more than 8,000 years old.
The fungal network is the underground root network of a species of fungi. I’d never speculated on the logic behind how plants grow. But mull on this. As plant roots or the fungal network or microbes disperse, they need to understand of the entities they encounter, which are hostile and which can they fuse with — self recognition as Merlin Sheldrake (an English biologist) terms it. According to him, the fungal network evolves conditioned by its environment and will alter how it grows and transports water and chemicals dependant on what it comes across. Some tree species that interact with these networks grow faster and have a greater chance of survival as somehow both networks communicate a message of mutual support and agree to swap nutrients. Astoundingly more than 90% of plants (through their roots) depend on a fungi called Mycorrhiza to pass them nitrogen and phosphorus in return for sugars. More than that the fungal network can work with many types of plant and tree roots (in a single network) to help the roots co-operate with each other to survive by for example acting as a warning messenger when one tree or plant in the network is being attacked by disease or by insects.
Fungi have always been useful to humans — as food, yeast for bread, beer making, turned into antibiotics (Penicillin) and other drugs. Today inventors are coming up with other clever uses particularly for mycelium as it can be tweaked to be super hard or soft and porous but additionally has antimicrobial properties. For example fungi has been turned into a leather type material to produce clothes, handbags, lamp shades, bricks for building structures or into curtains for hospitals.
My gourmet friends might like to know that Truffles are a fruiting body like a mushroom that grow below the ground. But they also have spores. So how do they propagate? They emit a very distinctive smell which attracts animals who eat the truffles and then disperse the spores back into the soil through their faeces. Hopefully you’ll forget that when you next come to grate Truffle over your delicious pasta.
On a final note, worryingly my cost centre 2 shows a great interest in magic mushrooms, how I wish it was in their use as lamp shades…..
