He looks at fungi through a variety of themes and analogies, and in the process is able to disclose so much more about these enigmatic organisms. Sheldrake manages the immense subject of mycology by taking a literary approach. As the English biologist Merlin Sheldrake writes in “Entangled Life,” his rich and colorful portrait of fungi, “the more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.” They bind soil particles so they don’t blow apart when water passes by and they seed raindrops. Without decomposing fungi we’d be buried under miles of plant debris, and with them, all sorts of organic compounds may be decomposed, from petroleum to sarin gas. They function as a shadow immune system and procurer of nutrition for plants they are the source of some of the worst plagues of people and animals and crops, and the best medicine we have. They live most everywhere and in most everything, and some can-theoretically-live forever. Fungi are implicated in all aspects of life on Earth. I admit it was a rather mercenary starting point, but the more I learned about fungi and their fruiting bodies, mushrooms, the more fascinated I became. That required some study on why they lived where they lived. Like many people, I got interested in mycology because I wanted to find wild mushrooms, especially morels, which are in season right now.
‘The more we learn about fungi,’ writes Merlin Sheldrake, ‘the less makes sense without them.’ Photo: DESIGN PICS/national geographic
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