#73 - Dec 2023 - Garden Stuff - © Sandy Lang - slang@xtra.co.nz FUNGIDec/Jan: Early/mid-summer: Try to keep your special garden plants alive over the hot, dry summer. Don’t fret over the lawn. It’ll brown off and revive. It helps if you cut it long (8 cm). Fungi: Almost all living things we see fall into one of three groups (kingdoms) – (1) Animals, (2) Plants and (3) Fungi. Though fungi are immobile, like plants, they are more closely related to animals in that they don’t photosynthesise but feed on the remains of other organisms. Fungi appeared on land a billion years ago - before most land plants and animals. Spores: The ~3 million species of fungi reproduce by distributing very large numbers (millions) of very small (10 µm) spores via wind and water. A million fungal spores weigh about the same as one tiny poppy seed...! Structure: When a fungal spore lands in the right spot it germinates, producing a hypha (microscopic tube) which grows and branches to form a mycelium - a tangle of hyphae that invades and digests an organic substrate. Ecology: Though some fungi cause disease, most recycle the organic residues of dead plants and animals. Fungi are most active when it’s warm and damp, so in autumn. Edible? The majority of fungi are edible, but some are poisonous, and a few are very poisonous. Some familiar fungi are yeasts (makes bread rise and beer fizz) and moulds (makes cheese) and mushrooms (edible) and toadstools (might not be edible). The words ‘mushroom’ and ‘toadstool’ are only loosely defined. If you don’t know what you’re doing, buy a book or buy cultivated mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) from a shop. Mushrooming: In autumn, field mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) seem to pop up overnight from nowhere. Yes, they grow fast, but not from nowhere. The fungus is a large mass of unseen mycelium that permeates a belowground organic substrate. The mushroom is just its fruiting body – a stipe (stalk) and a pileus (cap) that produces myriads of spores from its gills (frilly bits) beneath. Its super-fast growth (doubling in size daily) is resourced by redistribution of stuff from the huge belowground mycelium. Fairy rings: Mushrooms form fairy rings. Starting from a single spore, a disc-shaped belowground mycelium expands outwards year by year, each autumn producing spore-bearing mushrooms around its outer edge. A large fairy ring might be a 100 years’ old. Fungal art? Google spore print ___________________________________