![]() ![]() He harvests apples from scientist Isaac Newton's tree and ferments their juice into a cider he calls Gravity, which he drinks. He buries himself naked in a mound of decomposing wood chips. Throughout the book, he seems to be constantly physically immersing himself in fungi or ingesting them. "If you could place your olfactory epithelium into the soil, it would feel like the performance of a jazz group, with the players listening, interacting, responding to one another in real time," he enthuses. Sheldrake, who has a PhD in tropical ecology from Cambridge University, has a marvellous knack for making science sound lovely. Gasp in horrified fascination at "zombie fungi", which infect ants, forcing them to climb up high, whereupon the fungus sprouts a stalk out of its host's head and showers spores down on unwitting ants below. Read about slime moulds that can model motorway networks and map their way out of furniture store Ikea, white rot fungi that can grow on a diet of used diapers, and even the sex lives of truffles. It is natural to seek escape through fantasy, but there is also enchantment to be found in the real world.īritish mycologist Sheldrake's introduction to the weird and wonderful world of fungi is nothing short of magical. ![]() Non-fiction/Vintage/2020/Paperback/368 pages/$31.95/ Available here ![]()
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