Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard: The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and Mycologists
Nicholas P. Money | 2004-01-01 00:00:00 | Oxford University Press | 224 | Biology
Wow! I never thought Id enjoy a book on fungi this much. Parts of it are not a particularly easy read, but the information it contains is mind blowing. Forget terrorists; if fungi and mold decided to take out the human race it would be no contest.
We tend not to think of fungi as being a very important part of our world. We might occasionally have mushrooms on pizza or steak, we might notice fungi growing on an old tree or on something that has been kept too long in the refrigerator, but thats about it. In fact fungi has a vast influence in our world, from breaking down fallen trees in the forest to making our bread and beer. Have you ever wondered how dandruff was formed? Guess what plays a major role.
The writer, who presents often bizarre information with wit and style, reminds us that one fungi, covering 2000 acres in Oregon, is thought to be the worlds largest living organism. Even the more prosaic information comes to life in this book - I enjoyed his description of the speed a spore is catapulted from a gill.
Some of the most interesting sections are the mini-biographies of scientists who have researched fungi and added to our knowledge of them. There was Buller, for instance, a professor whose students called him Uncle Reggie, and Ingold who found a totally unknown kind of fungus in water. There are now over 300 species of Ingoldian fungi known and in fall you can find about 20,000 of them in every litre of brook water.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in the natural world. Youll need to expend a little effort reading the more scholarly parts of it, but youll learn some amazing stuff about fungi, mold and the scientists who discovered them.
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