Neither plants nor animals, fungi include mushrooms, molds, yeasts, and vast networks hidden from view. Their varied lives illuminate decomposition, nutrient exchange, symbiosis, reproduction, and essential ecological relationships.
Death-cap poisoning is deceptive because the first hours can feel uneventful. A person may eat Amanita phalloides, experience no immediate warning, and assume the danger has passed. By the time vomiting and severe diarrhea begin, amatoxins have already traveled from the intestine to the liver and...
Few fungi are as recognizable as fly agaric. Its red cap scattered with white flecks appears in storybooks, ornaments, video games, and fairy-tale illustrations, often as the model for what a mushroom is supposed to look like. The real Amanita muscaria is more variable—and chemically more...
A cluster of ghost fungi can turn a dark Australian woodland into a field of pale green light. The glow is not reflected moonlight, fluorescence, or a sign of combustion. It is bioluminescence: visible light generated by a chemical reaction inside living fungal tissue. The species responsible,...