If you have been following Footpaths for sometime you are aware that the photographer and I have a significant appreciation for fungi. She for the variety and beauty of mushrooms that we see on our hikes, and the opportunities they present for her artist’s eye. Me for the quiet and underappreciated roles that fungi play in our ecosystems and lives.
A blue mushroom, Pine Creek Barrens Nature Preserve, Kentucky
Being a physician, biologist, gardener, and amateur naturalist, I had a cocky opinion that I was well schooled in mycology, the study of fungi. Turns out that my opinion was simply wrong. While I probably have a better understanding of mycology than most, I learned by reading Entangled Life, that my mycologic knowledge base was really quite superficial. 
A shoe sized puff ball, Indian Mound Preserve, Ohio
By scientific terms, the understanding of the complex way that fungi function in our world is a relatively new and exciting field of study. It was not until the 1970s that fungi were removed from the plant kingdom and placed in their own biologic kingdom. It is a broad grouping that includes the single celled microscopic yeasts, as well as fungi that stretch out underground for miles and weigh tons. In his book Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake touches on the history and biology of fungi, both from an evolutionary and anthropological perspective.  And he artistically communicates his scientific knowledge that animates the lowly fungi.
Amanita mushroom, Crooked Run Nature Preserve, Kentucky
I was engrossed as the first chapter discussed the allure of the underground gourmet mushroom, truffles. Sheldrake wove a tapestry on the topic – presenting on everything from their relationship to trees, to the scent they emit for attracting the animals who eat them and spread their pollen, to their ridiculously high value that leads to poaching and other frauds. It was a master’s work of making science intriguing. 
Elf Cap mushroom, Curtis Gates Lloyd Wildlife Management Area, Kentucky
He interlaces these stories with newly understood findings about fungal mycelial networks. The mycelia are the almost microscopic rootlike structures of fungi that spread out beneath the soil surface, sometimes for great distances, and form a woven mat of tiny tubules.  Recent discoveries reveal that these mycelia hook up to the roots of plants.  They then assist in nutritional and water uptake, and also allow for communication between plants. Yes, plants, especially trees, communicate with each other chemically via fungal mycelial networks. I picture the mycelia functioning like the vacuum tubes at bank drive-throughs, delivering messages and even nutrients between the plants. The fungus gets nutritional energy in return. Fascinating that two such distinct species work together for a mutual good. And some of these networks, for what is a single fungal organism as determined by DNA testing, can cover acres of land. In the late 1990’s a single “mushroom” was found to have extended itself in the soil of over two thousand acres in Oregon. It displaced the Blue Whale as the largest living organism. So when I walk through a forest and see two mushrooms of the same type one hundred feet apart, they may in actuality be from the same being, connected by an expansive network of mycelia. The mushroom is the small fruiting body of a much larger life form. Sheldrake compares the mycelial networks to the internet, calling it the “Wood Wide Web”.
Indian Pipe, a parasitic plant without chlorophyll that uses fungal mycelia to extract nutrition from nearby oak trees, Rinsky Woods Nature Preserve, Ohio
Another chapter unveiled the neurochemistry of psychedelic mushrooms, something that always intrigued me as a physician. While I associate their use with the hippie culture of the 1960s, Sheldrake presents examples that suggests their use as far back as 9000 BCE (before the Christian Era). But what was most interesting was the relatively recent understanding of how they effect neurochemistry. Contemporary research has shown that psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient of the “magic” mushrooms, appears to be an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance abuse. While the initial results are promising additional studies are needed.
Saprophytic mushrooms are a group of fungi that occur on dead and decaying matter like logs. They help speed up the decay. Buzzardroost Rock, Edge of Appalachia Preserve System, Ohio.
In a chapter titled “The Intimacy of Strangers”, Shelldrake presents the best description of the community of organisms that are lichens, one of my favorite items to see on a hike. I had been taught that lichens were a collaboration, a “symbiosis” in biology verbiage, of one algae and one fungus, with the fungus providing the structural element and the algae the photosynthetic energy source. More recent research has shown that a lichen is in fact a marriage of multiple species of both fungi and algae, with bacteria also playing an intimate role. Perhaps this is why lichens display such variability in appearance – there is no single recipe.
A leaf-like lichen and a filamentous lichen, Cedar Line Nature Preserve, Kentucky
The final two chapters, Radical Mycology and Making Sense of Fungi, were fascinating and left me optimistic. They outline how the burgeoning field of mycology is currently, and I can say confidently even more so in the future, improving our lives. How scientists, through genetic engineering have utilized the immense, clean productivity of yeasts, to make everything from the materials to build furniture, to medicines; like the newer insulins and vaccines.  Perhaps even more amazingly, they have developed varieties of fungi that can consume our lifestyle wastes, such as plastics and toxic spills, that fill our landfills and mar the landscape. Elsewhere, I have read where agricultural waste has been converted to jet fuel through yeasts. The possibilities seem endless.
The extremely poisonous Destroying Angel mushroom, Crooked Creek Nature Preserve, Kentucky
Entangled Life was a wizardly written book, full of explanations that unfold the magic that fungi have been performing for millions of years. It was appropriate that it was written by a man named Merlin. It made me more aware of the roles fungi have in our lives, and allowed me to see them as a possible solution to many of the environmental problems that we face in the world. So now, I am even a bigger mycophile (a mushroom or fungi enthusiast) than I was in the past, and fungi have even more of my respect. Like a good movie, I think that I will reread this book in another year or two, hoping to appreciate items that I may have missed on my first reading. I would highly recommend it for all the other amateur naturalists amongst us. 
And to fungi I raise a toast – because without yeast we would not have beer.
A Bell’s Brewery Double Cream Stout, Herb and Thelma’s Tavern, Covington, Kentucky
Photo credits to Peggy Juengling Burns, Caroline Burns (the Indian Pipe) and Patrick Burns (the beer).