Harare Review of Books

366 pages.

First published in 2020.

Genre: Non-fiction.

This first appeared in The Sunday Long Read, Sunday, May 8, 2022, Issue 343.

There was life before I read Sheldrake’s book, and then life after, where I think about fungi several times a week. I learnt all kinds of things from it: for instance, that there are fungi that use nets, nooses or toxins to trap worms, which they consume when they don’t have enough to eat. I know, now, that a stinkhorn mushroom can generate enough force to lift 130 kilograms (286 pounds). Mycelial networks, the fungal webs that are found everywhere, even in the ocean, may be considered to have a kind of intelligence, as they coordinate even without a brain. Through these networks, fungi may help trees in a forest talk to each other, and scientists believe understanding mycelial communication could lead to fungal computing.

I learnt that lichens, which are symbiotic, dynamic systems consisting of a fungus and an alga, are highly weird, and very cool. The oldest lichen is over nine thousand years old. Zombie fungi take over ants and take away their fear of heights, so that they climb up a plant, secure themselves to it, and die, after which the fungus bursts out of the ant’s head to release its spores. Fungi seem to somehow cause these ants to synchronise their death grip, so they all bite at noon, like bizarre, zombie vampires. There are fungi that are apparently thrilled to be in the presence of radiation—for example, at Chernobyl. And, through a process called mycoremediation, fungi may yet save us all.

It is astonishing how much we neglect fungi, which live in, under and all around us. Sheldrake has packed this absolutely excellent, very accessible book full of facts, explanations, and ideas—everything you didn’t realise you needed to know about fungi.

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Rated: 10/10.

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Bonus:

1. Paul Stamets on Star Trek: Discovery was named for the real-life Paul Stamets, a mycologist and mycophile.
2. Check out this great Netflix documentary: Fantastic Fungi