Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms: Forays with Fungi across Hemispheres
Autor Alison Poulioten Limba Engleză Hardback – 5 sep 2023
What can we learn from the lives of fungi? Splitting time between the northern and southern hemispheres, ecologist Alison Pouliot ensures that she experiences two autumns per year in the pursuit of fungi—from Australia’s deserts to Iceland’s glaciers to America’s Cascade Mountains. In Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms, we journey alongside Pouliot, magnifiers in hand, as she travels the world.
With Pouliot as our guide, we smell fire-loving truffles that transform their scent after burning to lure mammals who eat them and, ultimately, spread their spores. We spot the eerie glow of the ghost fungus, a deceptive entity that looks like an edible oyster mushroom but will soon heave back out—along with everything else in your stomach—if you take a bite. And we crawl alongside vegetable caterpillars, which are neither vegetable nor caterpillar but a fungus that devours insects from the inside out.
Featuring stunning color photographs of these mycological miracles, Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms shows that understanding fungi is fundamental for harmonizing with the natural world.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780226829630
ISBN-10: 0226829634
Pagini: 320
Ilustrații: 16 color plates
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.49 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
ISBN-10: 0226829634
Pagini: 320
Ilustrații: 16 color plates
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.49 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Notă biografică
Alison Pouliot is an ecologist and photographer with a passion for fungi.
Extras
It was raining in Whitby. That was hardly unusual, and I should have been pleased. Everyone knows rain brings mushrooms. Westerly winds swept over the North York Moors, delivering showers in squalls and spurts along England’s Yorkshire coast. I was there for an international congress on fungal conservation and the dampness boded well for fruitful field trips. But I was trying to hitch a ride to the congress dinner and was already late, and the rain ran cold down the back of my neck.
A vehicle appeared, slowed almost to a standstill then sped off, spraying me with water. The road returned to darkness. Gulls mewed in the distance as another vehicle approached, blinding me with its headlights, but it slowed and stopped. I ran toward it. It was only when the tailgate flipped down and the back window flipped up that I saw it was a hearse.
“Well get in then!” barked a voice in a North Yorkshire accent. I probably should have hesitated, but I didn’t. I leapt in and cracked my knee on something hard. It was a coffin. A coffin in a hearse shouldn’t seem odd. But the three goths sitting bolt upright inside it drinking champagne did. They eyed me suspiciously as one passed me a glass. He filled it to the brim and champagne overflowed down my sleeve. “So where’d you be goin’ this fine evenin’?” he asked. My knee throbbed and I could feel my hair stuck to the sides of my face as I shook out my sleeve. “To a congress dinner on the quay,” I replied, then added, “a congress on fungi!” He squinted and pursed his blackened lips. No one spoke. The windscreen wipers flapped louder.
You’d have thought that with our common interest in the subterrain, I’d landed with kin, but the other two goths glanced sideways, and one raised an eyebrow. It seemed the fungus congress and the Whitby Goth Weekend had been programmed simultaneously and we each thought the other the more strange. But after a prolonged silence, the questions about fungi came thick and fast until the driver cranked up the stereo and The Sisters of Mercy saved me from further interrogation.
As we turned onto the quay, I caught sight of the ruined Whitby Abbey perched high on the headland overlooking the North Sea. Pedestrians dashed across the wet road. “Here! Stop here, please!” I yelled to the driver and he pulled into the curb. I handed back my glass and wished the goths well. They nodded in unison as I climbed out of the hearse. Back in the rain, I paused for a moment to gather myself, then headed toward the lights of the restaurant, certain that my foray into fungal realms would be every bit as thrilling as the ride.
The International Society for Fungal Conservation Congress drew a motley band of conservationists, fungus enthusiasts, and mycologists—scientists who study fungi— from the forest and the laboratory to David Minter’s hometown of Whitby. David is a mycologist and the mastermind of the society. A natural-born showman, he’s good at holding court, convincing anyone who might not yet be convinced that fungi should be at the heart of biodiversity conservation, not the periphery.
David has been fighting for fungi and their recognition for a long time. Fungi seldom feature in conservation because they seldom feature in our ideas about what that thing out the window—nature, biodiversity, the environment, whatever you want to call it—actually is. But by only considering above- ground ecologies of plants and animals, what if we were failing to protect the diversity of fungi below ground? What if this oversight meant a slow, unseen unraveling of the very foundation that enables all aboveground life to flourish? Even the scientists who study organisms other than fungi and the conservationists who rally for them are usually largely unaware of the need to conserve fungi. However, given most of those organisms are intertwined with fungi in some way, including fungi in conservation makes good sense.
A vehicle appeared, slowed almost to a standstill then sped off, spraying me with water. The road returned to darkness. Gulls mewed in the distance as another vehicle approached, blinding me with its headlights, but it slowed and stopped. I ran toward it. It was only when the tailgate flipped down and the back window flipped up that I saw it was a hearse.
“Well get in then!” barked a voice in a North Yorkshire accent. I probably should have hesitated, but I didn’t. I leapt in and cracked my knee on something hard. It was a coffin. A coffin in a hearse shouldn’t seem odd. But the three goths sitting bolt upright inside it drinking champagne did. They eyed me suspiciously as one passed me a glass. He filled it to the brim and champagne overflowed down my sleeve. “So where’d you be goin’ this fine evenin’?” he asked. My knee throbbed and I could feel my hair stuck to the sides of my face as I shook out my sleeve. “To a congress dinner on the quay,” I replied, then added, “a congress on fungi!” He squinted and pursed his blackened lips. No one spoke. The windscreen wipers flapped louder.
You’d have thought that with our common interest in the subterrain, I’d landed with kin, but the other two goths glanced sideways, and one raised an eyebrow. It seemed the fungus congress and the Whitby Goth Weekend had been programmed simultaneously and we each thought the other the more strange. But after a prolonged silence, the questions about fungi came thick and fast until the driver cranked up the stereo and The Sisters of Mercy saved me from further interrogation.
As we turned onto the quay, I caught sight of the ruined Whitby Abbey perched high on the headland overlooking the North Sea. Pedestrians dashed across the wet road. “Here! Stop here, please!” I yelled to the driver and he pulled into the curb. I handed back my glass and wished the goths well. They nodded in unison as I climbed out of the hearse. Back in the rain, I paused for a moment to gather myself, then headed toward the lights of the restaurant, certain that my foray into fungal realms would be every bit as thrilling as the ride.
The International Society for Fungal Conservation Congress drew a motley band of conservationists, fungus enthusiasts, and mycologists—scientists who study fungi— from the forest and the laboratory to David Minter’s hometown of Whitby. David is a mycologist and the mastermind of the society. A natural-born showman, he’s good at holding court, convincing anyone who might not yet be convinced that fungi should be at the heart of biodiversity conservation, not the periphery.
David has been fighting for fungi and their recognition for a long time. Fungi seldom feature in conservation because they seldom feature in our ideas about what that thing out the window—nature, biodiversity, the environment, whatever you want to call it—actually is. But by only considering above- ground ecologies of plants and animals, what if we were failing to protect the diversity of fungi below ground? What if this oversight meant a slow, unseen unraveling of the very foundation that enables all aboveground life to flourish? Even the scientists who study organisms other than fungi and the conservationists who rally for them are usually largely unaware of the need to conserve fungi. However, given most of those organisms are intertwined with fungi in some way, including fungi in conservation makes good sense.
Cuprins
A Note on Fungal Terminology
1 Stirrings in the Subterrain
2 Life in the Mycosphere
3 Into the Australian Bush
4 No Such Thing as a Bad Fungus
5 Fungi, Fire, and Ice
6 Fungal Renegades
7 The Mycophagists
8 Conserving the Bizarre and the Beautiful
9 Women as Keepers of Fungal Lore
10 Restoring Fungi
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Images
Species Register
Glossary
Selected Sources
Index
1 Stirrings in the Subterrain
2 Life in the Mycosphere
3 Into the Australian Bush
4 No Such Thing as a Bad Fungus
5 Fungi, Fire, and Ice
6 Fungal Renegades
7 The Mycophagists
8 Conserving the Bizarre and the Beautiful
9 Women as Keepers of Fungal Lore
10 Restoring Fungi
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Images
Species Register
Glossary
Selected Sources
Index
Recenzii
"In this captivating study, ecologist Pouliot expounds on mushrooms she’s encountered during her fieldwork....The result is an enjoyable tour of the fungal kingdom."
"As Pouliot wryly describes her companions and their forays into forests, the fungi that inhabit them emerge as her protagonists….Attending also to the prominent women (including Beatrix Potter) who helped found mycology as a science and fungi’s place in habitat conservation, Pouliot delivers a charming, informative presentation of a world beneath our feet."
"[Pouliot makes a] convincing case . . . Fungi are essential to the world as we know it."
"In this book, [Pouliot] takes us with her all over the world as she brings fungi to life with lush descriptions, infectious enthusiasm, and gorgeous pictures. But she also shows the reader just how important fungi are to the natural world, as well as what they do for humans."
"Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms is an information-packed, entertaining read that also has gorgeous color photos of fungi. Pouliot takes the reader on an adventure in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres...learning about these mysterious mycological wonders and the roles they play in our ecological systems."
"Conveying an impassioned message for conservation and awareness, Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms is a compelling, enlightening look at lowly but remarkable fungi that are often hidden in the shadows."
"Pouliot’s book is invaluable for reasons that far exceed the entertaining mycological-grand-tour theme. The real essence of the book lies in its impassioned argument for fungal conservation. . . .Pouliot’s arguments for conservation unfold by way of several quite original, non-technological, extra-scientific approaches."
"So—do we really need another book about mushrooms? The answer is yes, but only if it’s this one. Alison Pouliot has written a lovely book that digs deep but wears its learning lightly, and manages to cover—in a series of relatively short, readable, enjoyable and accurate chapters—most of the important issues in popular mycology."
“Pouliot is a mycologist whose knowledge of fungi is extraordinarily vast and intricate.”
“I was entertained and enthralled reading this book and I promise I have never read a book from cover to cover on fungi before. I didn't think it was my jam, but [it turns out] it should be everyone's jam. Fungi is literally the glue that keeps us together.”
“Pouliot conveys the otherworldly charisma of mushrooms with love and skill.”
“Powerful stuff, which should be read by all those who continue to support the insane logging of our native forests.”
"This subterranean journey introduces the quirks of behavior that allow fungi to spread through soils, support living plants, and recycle the debris of nature. Alison is an accomplished storyteller."
"[Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] is a joy to read."
"Sensual and scientific. Dazzling and boundary breaking. [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] will make you see the world anew."
"The world of fungi is our world even if we don’t know it and can’t see most of it—strange, dazzling, spooky, unpredictable, friendly, deadly, sly. And Alison is the perfect guide. She surprises and informs, delights and warns; makes you wish you could walk with her and her passionate companions. That’s OK. In this book you do."
"An evocative, accessible and important book about one of the most vital, yet hugely ignored, kingdoms on our planet—fungi. After reading this you cannot help but see the world in a different light—and should approach mushrooms and truffles with new relish."
"Anyone who has joined Alison in a forest, anywhere in the world, will know her incredible ability to magnify those microscopic organisms that hold our natural world together, to connect every element of human life—physical, emotional or social—to the function of our natural landscapes. [Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] is like a walk in the forest, pungent and complex, filled with curiosity and wonder, and leaving you with a sense that there is so much more to uncover."
"The underground teaches us a different language—and Alison Pouliot is the perfect translator."
"[Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms] takes storytelling about fungi to a captivating new level. A well-researched page turner."