The Secret Lives of Mushrooms

Probably even before I was in kindergarten, my parents warned me that the mushrooms that occasionally popped up in neighborhood yards should not be eaten because they could be poisonous.  To emphasize the point, they explained that you could not tell by appearance whether the mushrooms were poisonous or not. And so, when cooked mushrooms were first served up to me on my dinner plate, I simply looked at them, thinking, "You cannot tell by their appearance whether they are poisonous or not."

Although I now know a bit more about mushrooms, I wish I had learned more about them back then.  I might have appreciated them more.  There is a lot most people do not know about these strange beings. In fact, mushroom "plants," for the most part, lead secret lives.

I referred to mushrooms as "plants" in the preceding sentence, putting the word in quotation marks because they are not classified by biologists as being in the plant kingdom. They do not have green chlorophyll to convert sunlight into sugar through photosynthesis, as do trees, shrubs, and grasses.  Instead, mushrooms are a sophisticated form of fungi, serving a role in the creation of rich soil.  What we see above ground are the reproductive bodies occasionally "flowering" up from the base below ground, producing spores rather than seeds.  (Perhaps it was the sudden appearance of mushrooms at night that led to mushrooms having been associated with fairies.)

I did omit one detail in my confession about being afraid to eat cooked mushrooms:  As kids, we did not usually call them "mushrooms." We said "toadstools" instead.  That name engaged my childhood curiosity.  I think I secretly hoped that I might catch sight of a small toad comfortably seated on top of one of the "stools," even though toads were farther and few between than mushrooms where we lived.  (Is there any end to the things a child wishes for?)

Having now gotten well beyond my childhood caution about possibly dying by poisoned mushroom, I have a couple of times picked one, but not to cook it.  Instead, I wanted to get a closer look at the underside of the cap.  Hidden there are what seem like a hundred thin leaves radiating out from the center, all looking like the fanned pages of a book.

In illustrations in children's books, mushrooms have been part of the imagined world of exotic animals, elves, and fairies.  When mushrooms rise from the rim of the unseen body below ground they sometimes form a rough circle, imagined to be a "fairy ring."

As a child, I never really believed in fairies. Nevertheless, I do like to occasionally think about silent mushroom bodies living their own lives below the surface of the ground.  Millions of them, all around the Earth.  Silently living and waiting.  Unhurried.  Waiting not for us, but for the right conditions to reproduce.  Just as they did for over half-a-billion years before there were any humans around to hurry, and to believe.

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Have you ever been surprised by suddenly appearing mushrooms?  Where?

(The photo of the pair of mushrooms is by Ezhuttukari.

The photo of the clusters of small mushrooms is by Stu Phillips.

Both are used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licenses.)

Tested by Toads and Frogs

I feel sympathetic toward children, with the multitude of tests they have to endure.  Not just those academic standard tests that have been so much in the news in recent years, but also the tests that come in the form of taunts and insults from other children.  Name-calling is the quickest way to insult.  And among the animal epithets one child can lay on another is, "You toad!"  How the toad got into the childhood lexicon is not hard to discern.  After all, what child would want their face to look like a lumpy, bug-eyed, warty animal?

There were other ways that toads were part of the tests of my childhood.  When one child did catch a toad, it could be a challenge to pass it from one pair of cupped hands to another without the toad escaping -- especially when the animal's strange, leathery skin could feel distasteful ("yucky," to use a child's word).

illustration for
"The Frog Prince"

Whether or not toads or their near look-alikes frogs were more prevalent in your childhood would have probably depended upon the dryness or wetness of the habitat that surrounded you.  (The categories "toad" and "frog" almost blend one into the other in the great variety worldwide, especially when tree-toads and tree-frogs are included.)  The similarity of shape and appearance between toads and frogs has meant that both entered folklore and fairy tales as a distasteful test to be overcome.  Would you want to kiss a frog?  Even if it might turn into a prince, thus fulfilling your heart's desires?

The fact that some frogs and most toads do have a toxic, protective liquid in the bulging sacks behind their eyes could make putting one's face too close to the animal a real fear.  People could be wary of approaching toads even if they believed the legend that a toad's body might hold the wondrous toadstone that could grant magical powers.  Shakespeare captured the tension about toads in these lines from As You Like It:

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

The ways toads and frogs test us extend beyond childhood and even beyond the pages of fiction. Today, the populations of frogs are truly in perilous decline.  Their permeable skins mean that they are early indicators of the spread of our human-made chemicals, especially when compounded by viruses and habitat loss.

When frogs are plentiful, it can also be a challenge for us humans to put up with the loud choruses of frogs finding mates in springtime.  One story from the Christian tradition, however, might inspire us to tolerance.  The story tells how St. Benno, searching outdoors for a place for prayer, was at first tempted to bid the frogs to be silent.  But then, Benno recalled a Bible passage expressing how animals too praise God.  And so, the saint commanded the frogs to "praise God in their accustomed fashion; and soon the air and fields were vehement with their conversation."

~~~

Do you have any childhood memories of toads or frogs?  Adult memories?

(The Shakespeare quote is from As You Like It, II, i.)

(The quote about the St. Benno story is from Beasts and Saints by Helen Waddell, © 1995, p. 66.)