Some nibbles from the fungus among us:
“A typical mushroom in the prime of its life might produce upward of 30,000 spores per second. Certain spores can remain viable for 100+ years. The pillow on which you lay your head at night may have as many as 500,000 spores” (p.153)
“Between 90 and 95% of plants have fungi as their significant others, for they have nutrients-for-carbs relationships via their roots with those fungi.” (xii)
“An orchid gets one-third of its carbon from its fungal partner” (115)
“Fewer than 5% of all fungi species have been described.” (xv)
Image on cover and the ‘shroom emoji: “Doubtless the world’s most iconic mushroom, the Fly Agaric appears on Christmas cards, and stoner websites, in the 1940 Walt Disney film Fantasia, and in Soviet propaganda. It also causes a small Mario to become a Super Mario in the popular Nintendo video game. The mushroom’s alkaloids produce elevated levels of serotonin, which can result in a euphoric state as well as give the illusion of flying.” (p.69, of course)
Zombie Fly Killers: “The mycelium causes the fly, which is usually a male, to stagger around like a drunkard, and then attach itself to a substrate with its proboscis, open its wings and — just before dying — distend its abdomen. In other words, the fly assumes the posture of a sexually receptive female, which inspires other male flies to come and mate with it. Those flies soon become hosts themselves. Very cunning.” (70)
“A handful of healthy soil can contain several hundred miles of mycelia. Since a mycelium is only a single cell wide, it is invisible to the naked eye” (109)
“To ensure their survival, most fungi have many genders, but the Split Gill takes the proverbial cake by having 28,000 genders.” (143)
“Typically, there’s more fungal diversity in an urban park than an old-growth forest. This is because the park has a much larger variety of substrates — some natural, some damaged, and some brought from elsewhere — and fungi are nothing is not opportunistic in their search for an appropriate home.” (158)
But… I don’t recommend this book. I thought it would be fun romp, like the Geopedia in the -pedia series, but each book has different authors, and this one uses a lot of mycologist lingo without explanation, and it is a bit dry on tantalizing details (for that, I recommend Entangled Life, reviewed earlier).
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