Fungi

 

Back in late March and early April we had buckets of rain and the mushrooms appeared as if from nowhere.  For a couple of weeks they dotted our parks, footpaths and yards.  They appeared in long grass, on bare dirt, out in the open, under trees.  

They came in different shapes.  Little circular tables appearing in clusters like an open air dinner party.  Dense forests of tiny, fragile flowers sheltering under shrubs.  Little balls like maracas which may have been buds waiting to open.  White stalks with upturned plates on top that look like tiny water towers.  

They lasted for a week or two, and then they disappeared again.

I've lived most of my life not really thinking about fungi.  Most of the time you don't see them, then they seem to appear out of nowhere.  Where do these marvellous growths come from?  I got interested and decided to find out what thousands, millions of people already know.

Turns out that mushrooms are not organisms themselves, they are the fruiting bodies of soil fungi.  The fungi are always there, tiny strands of material that draw nutrients and water from the soil.  They are crucial for plant growth, trading minerals for water and keeping the soil aerated.  They also form a key part of the communication networks between trees, passing on information from one set of roots to another.  In forest environments fungi are one of the keys to forest health, and even here in suburbia they help to keep the trees and grass growing.  Without fungi we would be living in a desert.  Or dying in it.

I couldn't really identify the fungi I was seeing.  It looked like there were about six different types but it could be that I was just looking at mushrooms at different stages.  They tend to pop up as buds then slowly spread, and will start out white and go brown as they rot.  I believe that some of them were Chlorophyllum hortense, others Chlorophyllum molybdites, and some might possibly be Agaricus xanthodermus but maybe not.  I'm not sure what the mini-forest of tiny mushrooms was under some bushes in my yard, it doesn't look like any of the photos in the South-East Queensland field guides I found.

At least I was comforted in my ignorance by learning that mycologists (people who study fungi) often don't know what fungi they are looking at either.  They can identify the common ones - I doubt that they would have much trouble with the ones in my garden - but they estimate that only about 10% of  the world's fungi have been identified and named.  The study of fungi is not sexy and certainly not well funded, despite their importance to forest ecosystems and soil fertility.  They are all clear about one thing - even though mushrooms are tasty you shouldn't eat the ones that grow in your back yard because they're probably poisonous.  

Mushroom fungi grow fruiting bodies in sustained wet weather because those are the best conditions for them to propagate.  Much like plants, fungi spread via seeding (their seeds are called spores).  The mushrooms pictured here have gills on their undersides and these open to release the spores, which either just fall to the ground or get blown away on the breeze to settle on a surface nearby and start a new fungus.  After the spores have been released the mushrooms have done their job and they rot away rapidly.  This is not the death of the fungus, any more than a falling flower is the death of a tree.  The main part of the fungi continues its life hidden in the soil until the next fruiting opportunity comes along.  

It's like so many living creatures.  Out of sight is out of mind.  But only out of our minds.  Not out of the minds of the other creatures which depend on them, and interact with them.  And not out of the mind of God.  May we learn to notice, to wonder and to respect.

Deep beneath the soil,

    Deep beneath the sea,

    Deep in you and me,

The hidden creatures toil.

Each for its own reasons,

    Each in its own place,

    Each at its own pace

And cycles of the seasons.

A time to be born, a time to die,

    A time to dig, a time to fly,

A time to tear, a time to mend,

    For every beginning a timely end.