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Sunday, 26 November 2006
A fly in my agaric

fly agaric

I don’t know what’s been nibbling at this toadstool. It was described today in a Sindy article as highly poisonous. Fine. It stinks too. God must have made it like this for the same reason that she made metholated spirits purple: to discourage tramps from eating it. Perhaps birds and fieldmice don’t see the same colours as we do.

Here are some interesting extracts from the aforementioned Sindy article (that appeared in The Sunday Review magazine - not yet online).  The author Emma Townshend takes a walk in the woods with Justin Ruddle, the national Trust warden of Slindon Woods (West Sussex), as part of a National Trust off-season activity.

What starts as a whimsical weekend becomes a real experience on conversion. As we walk and talk, Ruddle’s enthusiasm spreads to me and all my fellow fungi-hunters. Far from being a prelude to culinary activity, on this walk, he encourages us to “look and leave”, while telling us about the forest ecosystem, as well as stuffing our heads with remarkable facts about pavement mushrooms splitting Tarmac as they come up, and the fungi that can only grow on London Underground seat cushions.

Unfortunately that’s the only bit about fungi on the London Underground. May they devote a future feature article to this subject, and answer questions such as What do these fungi live off?. My guess would be body sweat, and spilled fast-food and drink.

The article does explain how the forest fungi fit into the local ecosystem:

Ruddle’s primary goal is to get us to see this woodland as a system. Just as orchids can’t grow without their own particular friendly fungi, trees seem to do better with the local mushrooms living among their roots, exchanging nutrients for tree sugars. He explains: “In the storm of 1987 we lost so many beeches that the village was cut off for three or four days. But when we replanted with outside trees, we found that they don’t do as well as ones native to this spot, that have grown here from the start, right from seed”.

These mutually beneficial associations of tree and fungi are called “mycorrhizae”, and the invisible underground trading floor is increasingly seen as crucial to the survival of many tree species, particularly as climate change puts greater pressure on them. “Our understanding of what fungi do is changing all the time,” says Ruddle, who is trying to use his expertise to look after the woodland as a whole. Some more hostile fungi, for example Ustulina, rot a tree at the base, creating a risk that it may suddenly break at the bottom. Some eat out the heartwood. And some appear to be able to change the biochemistry of a part of a tree they “capture”, making the tree’s cells work slightly differently, for their own benefit. In general though, most fungi are doing mucn more good for their trees than I had ever realised.

I found the article fascinating. As I read these words I wonder how the village was cut off by losing so many beeches: Are they used as a local (Tarzanesque) means of transportation perhaps?

Anyway, that’s an aside: thinking about the crux of the article I wonder if they are researching the effect of the 2012 Olympic Games on the fungi of the London Underground.  All those foreign bodies coming into London and sitting on the train seats could disrupt the delicate and yet crucial ecology of our capital city’s subterranean transport system.

Posted by bigblue on 26/11/2006 at 10:13 PM
Filed under: Europe • England • (0) Comments • Permalink
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