A walk in the woods is always nice this time of year, but as I ambled through the forest recently, I was particularly pleased to be surrounded by my nieces and nephew, who had come for a visit.
There had been talk of going to the local mall and seeing a movie, but that had been an emergency plan made when rain loomed in the forecast. When the rain failed to materialize, it was virtually unanimous that our family time should be spent outside. I was very happy at just the thought of a walk with these delightful children.
As is often the case with little children, the excitement of a new adventure was off the charts. At 6 years old, the youngest was convinced that the leaves on the ground were so beautiful, she could sell them in a store. Each leaf would be personally selected, named, and sold for $100 dollars.
My job was to admire each one and keep it safe until it could be mounted in a frame of some sort — the details were rather vague. It wasn’t long before my pockets were full of precious cargo, but I continued to accepted one leaf after another and made sure to extol the virtues of each new addition to the collection.
At one point, we passed by a large fallen tree and my other niece — she’s 10 — noticed a turkey tail growing on it. Prior to our departure from my house, we had walked over to my woodpile and seen other turkey tail specimens growing on pieces of firewood.
All three children were curious about the strange, rubbery thing, and my 13-year-old nephew set about the process of cutting it in half so he could examine its insides. To find a turkey tail growing in the “wild” was particularly interesting for him, and I was impressed that he could tell me that the job of all mushrooms was that of decomposer. When I heard this, I pounced.
I had an audience and couldn’t help but start to explain how mushrooms lived their lives. At one point, we were all huddled around a group of turkey tail mushrooms, and I explained that the mushrooms we were seeing were really just the “tip of the iceberg.”
Inside the wood was what resembled a spider web of delicate fungal filaments that were slowly insinuating themselves deeper and deeper into the soft, rotting wood. This had them hooked.
As the filaments continued invading the wood, I explained, the mushrooms released enzymes that dissolved, or digested, the wood into smaller chemical compounds that the mushroom could use as food. Once enough dissolving had taken place, the mushroom could simply slurp up the compounds it wanted in the same way that a sponge absorbs water. At this point, I was rewarded with an extremely satisfying “eeeewww!” from the girls, and a slightly demented giggle from the boy.
All of this is basically invisible to us, I continued, until two different mushrooms meet in the dark and join forces.
The children liked this idea, but for the benefit of my older readers, I will elevate the vocabulary in this part of the story.
Unlike animals, which have males and females, fungi have what are called positive and negative mating types. Each individual can live its life quite happily, slowly expanding its individual filaments, called hyphae, into an extensive web, called a mycelium, and break down dead organic matter.
When individuals of the different mating types of the same species bump into one another, their mycelia merge. This product of “mating” is what we see on the surface of dead logs or the forest floor. The sole function of these visible mushrooms is to get out into the open where they can release their spores, which will be carried to new places by wind and water. Upon arrival at a suitable new site, the microscopic spores begin to divide and dive down into the ground, or wood, that they find desirable.
There, they begin their anonymous toil of cleaning up dead organic matter, only to emerge as mushrooms if they bump into their counterpoints.
At the end of my impromptu lesson, I noticed that the boy had armed himself with a stick and was preparing to assassinate the specimen in front of us. I discouraged this action and suggested that we leave this particular mushroom alone so it had a chance to reproduce. I was careful to note how beautiful it was and how important its job was, and I was pleased when the weapon was dropped.
Better yet, when we finally continued our walk, the 6-year-old stopped me every time she spotted a new mushroom.
“Isn’t it beautiful Uncle Bill?” she’d ask. I was extremely happy that the naturalist that dwells inside every child had been awakened in this wonderful little person, but then I realized I might have created a monster when she suggested that the mushrooms might also fetch a fair price in her store. My pockets were already bursting with leaves and the last thing I needed was to add mushrooms to the mix.
Bill Danielson has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and the Massachusetts State Parks. He has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 19 years and he also teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.