Paul Stamets - Fantastic Fungi

FROM TOP LEFT TO BOTTOM RIGHT Mushroom species unknown; Clathrus sp. ( Taylor Lockwood); Hygrocybe conica ; Clathrus sp. ( Taylor Lockwood); Fistulina hepatica ; Omphalotus olearius ; Mushroom species unknown; Microstoma protractum; Chanterelle; Laetiporus sulphureus ; Mushroom species unknown; Aleuria aurantia .

PAUL STAMETS

PAUL STAMETS is the preeminent mycologist in the United States. He has discovered several new species of mushrooms, pioneered countless new techniques, published several best-selling books, and won numerous awards.

M ushrooms are mysterious.

They come out of nowhere suddenly, with their splendid forms and colors, and just as quickly, go away. Mushrooms startling appearances and enigmatic disappearances have made them forbidden fruits for thousands of years. Only a few of the cognoscentethe shamans, the witches, the priests, and the wise herbalistshave gained a glimmer of the knowledge mushrooms possess.

Why?

It is natural to fear what is powerful yet unknown. Some mushrooms can kill you. Some can heal you. Many can feed you. A few can send you on a spiritual journey. Their sudden rise and retreat back into the underground of nature make them difficult to study. We have longer periods of contact with animals and plants and we usually know which ones can help or hurt us. Mushrooms are not like that. They slip into our landscape and exit shortly thereafter. The memory fades quickly, and we wonder what we saw.

Mushrooms are the fruit bodies of a nearly invisible network of mycelium, the cellular fabric beneath each footstep we take on the ground. Reach down and move a stick or a log, and you will see a vast array of fuzzy, cobwebby cells emanating everywhere. Thats mycelium, the network of fungal cells that permeates all landscapes. It is the foundation of the food web. It holds all life together. Yet these vast underground networks, which can achieve the largest masses of any organism in the world and can cover thousands of acres, hide in plain sight; silent but sentient and always working tirelessly to create the soils that sustain life.

Over thousands of years we have accumulated a large body of knowledge when it comes to edibles. Starvation is a good motivator for finding novel foods. Our ancestors quickly learned that some mushrooms are not only nutritious but delicious. Mushrooms provide protein and vitamins, and they can strengthen our immune systems. They have been critical in our species struggle for survival.

Many elderly people share joyous memories of going with their parents and grandparents on family trips into the forest to pick mushrooms. They have experienced that eureka moment of discovery and understand the challenges of identifying edibles and the danger of misidentifying toxic species. They know the reward and joy of a delicious meal foraged by their family from the natural world around them. All this can create meaningful memories that bond families across generations. Many mushroom patches are kept as family secrets, only shared with future generations. This is what the mushroom experience doesit grows on you. It is like a mycelial thread through time, a bridge from our ancestors to us and to our descendants in the future.

It is the multiplicity of benefits, I think, that makes mushrooms so attractive to those who learn their uses. One theme that pervades indigenous cultures: It is the substances that are utilitarian, that help humans survive, that are threaded into the cultural fabric.

Though much of our ancestral knowledge about mushrooms has been lost to history, a lot of knowledge is being scientifically validated as we begin to study fungi in clinical contexts. Penicillin, made from Penicillium, began the era of antibiotics and has saved millions of lives. An endophytic fungus, Taxomyces andreanae was discovered to synthesize taxol, which can treat certain types of cancers. I personally discovered that extracts from Fomitopsis officinalis protect against the family of viruses that includes smallpox. Fungi often have antimicrobial properties, they can support the immune system, and they can prevent or heal viral diseases. They can do so much, and yet, we have only really begun to discover the endless possibilities that the fungal world holds when it comes to improving human health.

Many edible mushrooms are both delicious and good for you. However, most mushrooms, though theyre not poisonous, do not taste good. What is deemed inedible by one culture is sometimes a delicacy in another. The poisonous Amanita muscaria is called fly agaric. Long before the invention of window screens, pre-Europeans chopped up fly agaric mushrooms and placed the pieces in bowls of souring milk on windowsills to attract and kill flies.

Not a good mushroom to consume? You may think that, but in Asia and elsewhere, foragers discovered that if you boil fly agaric mushrooms in water and rinse them three or more times, the water-soluble toxins are removed, thus rendering the mushrooms edible without ill effects. The berserkers of Viking lore reportedly consumed this mushroom before battle, and in the ensuing frenzy, they became quasi-robotic killers, as the mushrooms can induce uncontrollable repetitive motions and allow the person to ignore pain.

In Siberia, shamans would ingest Amanita muscaria. They eventually discovered that reindeer would consume their pee by eating the yellow snow. The Siberians used that knowledge to lasso and corral the stoned reindeer with ease. Its incredible that just one variety of mushroom can poison flies, herd reindeer, weaponize humans, and feed people (if prepared properly).

An ingredient in the evolution of cultures from ancient Europe to North America was the discovery of magic mushrooms, particularly those containing psilocybin. Though theyve been used in various contexts throughout human history, recent clinical studies in the United States and Europe show how doses of psilocin (the active ingredient in psilocybin mushrooms) help victims of trauma and terminal patients in fear of death and are even associated with a reduction in criminal tendencies.

Magic mushrooms have been ingested for millennia in Europe and Mexico. Preserving psilocybin mushrooms in honey is a practice in Mexico to this day. Before the Bavarian Beer Purity Act Law (Reinheitsgebot) in 1516, mushrooms had been used to spike beer. These hallucinogenic brews were part of local nature-worship practices. Some archaeobotanists suspect magic mushroom meads, fermented honey-based brews infused with magic mushrooms, figured in early European and Mesoamerican rituals.