A handful of people were walking or jogging the paved and unpaved portions of the loop and side branching trails of the park on this Sunday afternoon. The cool, wet weather and shorter daylight hours of this season signal the time when so many forms of fungi appear on the ground, under the ground, or higher up, like this one anchored to the side of a tree near the trail. A few years ago the term "forest bathing" was coined to describe the cool and quiet equivalent to "sun bathing" but under the canopy of trees young and old, low and high. While the term is not as trendy now, there do seem to be a small but steady stream of people alone or in groups walking the paths in city or county, state, or national parks.
Reading Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, the alien world of fungi comes into focus. Much as the mushroom is only a brief phase of a rich and complex life mostly lived underground, so too is our knowledge of the Kingdom of Fungi (unlike the kingdom of animals, and the kingdom of botanical creatures) only a small part of a much, much larger story. Keeping an eye out for fungi while walking in fields, shorelines, riverbanks, and forests is one way to develop interest in this universe that most people do not see.
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